Working in animal rescue is often difficult, but seeing the direct results of your efforts — once lost, lonely, and downtrodden animals coming to life in their foster homes or finally finding their missing piece in a searching family — makes it all worth it.
My official title at the Footbridge Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing cats and dogs in San Antonio, is administrative assistant. But really, I’m a jack of all trades around the office. I’m often the first person people see when they walk into our office and am the point of contact for fosters. Since our organization is foster-based, it’s important for me to form and maintain relationships with our fosters so we can schedule appointments, send photos and updates, and plan spay and neuter surgeries.
To keep fosters and staff organized, I keep up with all of our calendars, prep medications to be picked up and keep up with online medical records. I also take care of in-office animals, hang with our resident cats, Naomi and Pearsall, clean kennels, wash and dry laundry, and medicate and snuggle animals. When we have appointments, I hold squirmy kittens for blood draws and administer treats while dogs get vaccines.
Since our doors opened, we’ve taken in strays or pets that could no longer be cared for, pulled dogs and cats who were on the euthanasia list at Animal Care Services, and given them a bridge to a new life through medical care and adoption, saving both animal and human lives by reducing the number of strays in San Antonio.
Historically, San Antonio has been severely underfunded when it comes to the care of animals. Although the City of San Antonio recently passed a major budget overhaul giving Animal Care Services a $7.1 million budget increase to $28.5 million this year, it has yet to be seen just how much this increase in funds will affect animal welfare.
Change is slow-going in the city. This often manifests, at best, as displacement of animals, and, at worst, injury and death to humans. In February of this year, 81-year-old veteran Ramon Najera was tragically killed by a roaming dog.
According to a 2019 study done by the city, around 34,363 stray and unleashed dogs roam the streets on a given day. When animals are actually captured by ACS officers, many of them do not get a better chance at life. In July of this year, the live release rate statistic at ACS dropped from 90% in 2015 to 84.2% in August of 2023.
A big way to help curb this problem is by spaying and neutering fosters and strays alike. Since opening our own surgery clinic in February of this year, life has become a little simpler here at Footbridge. No longer do we schedule appointments at the Humane Society every first of the month at the crack of dawn, frantically texting each other to make sure we don’t double book. Now, we schedule on our own time and have help from vets and volunteers.
Our incredible volunteer veterinarians charge a small fee to do the surgeries for us. I often help recover animals after their surgery. Volunteers come and go. I’ll make strong pots of coffee, and lunch will be ordered for us all. Footbridge Foundation’s president will do loads of laundry. It’s chaotic but, like most nonprofits, it really takes a village to run our day-to-day, and this is no more evident than on surgery days.
In order to maintain our rescue and our village, we have a core staff of about six employees. Other contractors, like our vet, surgery tech, vet techs, social media managers, and other caretakers, rotate and bring our number up to about 20. Though we’re small, we’re expanding, and we couldn’t do it without our volunteers, grants and fundraisers.
Last year’s Off The Leash fundraising event at Casa Hernán Cantina raised over $39,000, allowing us to open Footbridge Foundation’s spay and neuter center. This year, we are doing it all over again to continue our spay and neuter efforts for the San Antonio community. On Nov. 11, at the second annual Off The Leash event at Casa Hernán Cantina, we are hoping to raise money again for more expansions and medical equipment.
At Footbridge, we do what we can to help animals off the streets find good homes and better opportunities. I’m a small part of a large cause but I’m thankful to be here and wouldn’t have it any other way.
