Name: Inside a woman’s quest to save Houston’s dogs — one viral video at a time
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Inside a woman’s quest to save Houston’s dogs — one viral video at a time

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateCovered in mud and frozen by fear, the dog known only as No. 548985 keeps his nose inches from the beige concrete wall.“Absolutely terrified boy,” a shelter volunteer says as the 2-year-old golden Labrador Retriever stares straight ahead, still and silent, eyes fixed on the corner of the kennel.That moment, on the Harris County Animal Shelter Pets in Need Facebook page, went viral earlier this year. Emotional and financial support poured in for 548985, who was later named Isaac and taken in by a rescue organization.This approach to animal rescue in the digital age - using video and social media to network animals to rescue organizations and the public - originated in Harris County five years ago when shelter volunteer Pam Siedler created Pets in Need. Through her efforts, the approach appears to be on the verge of spreading to shelters around Texas and in other states.The volunteer-run Facebook page has grown to more than 100,000 followers — twice as many as the shelter’s official Facebook page. In the process, it has raised awareness about the county shelter’s mission, helped save thousands of animals’ lives and established Siedler as a nationally recognized innovator in rescue logistics and fundraising.In Harris County alone, the shelter’s animal save rate has increased from 37 percent in 2015, when Pets in Need started, to 94 percent in 2019. That translates to 62,811 saved animals.“When we first came here, no one really knew this place existed,” Siedler said. Now, she said, “not only are we revolutionizing the animal welfare space, but we are also revolutionizing the donation space.”While taking pains to credit that progress to all of the shelter’s 96 full-time employees and 492 enrolled volunteers, Eddie Miranda, senior public information officer for Harris County Public Health, said Siedler has had a major impact.“Pam has been very effective in her approach to promoting our pets … and has her heart set on saving the animals,” he said.‘Smoke and mirrors’Harris County Pets, like most municipal shelters, takes in every animal that comes through its doors. Before the pandemic, the number of drop-offs - hundreds of animals each day - often exceeded capacity. That increased the risk for disease and the likelihood that animals would be euthanized to create space for new arrivals.Prior to Siedler’s involvement, the shelter kept a low profile. Employees were prohibited from speaking with the media and the organization had no official social media presence, according to former HCP spokesperson Kerry McKeel.As a volunteer, Siedler was able to bypass the social media ban by creating a personal Facebook account to share videos of shelter pets. Doing so, she believed, would move more people to save pets before they were euthanized.Her plan worked. More animals started leaving the shelter with adopters, fosters and rescues. Moved by the videos, social media followers began promising charitable donations to raise money so a rescue organization could afford to take an animal into its care - a phenomenon known as Facebook pledging.“All of these people from across the country would pledge a dollar amount for an animal,” Siedler said. “I thought that was really exciting at the time. Like, ‘Wow, these people care. They want to help.’”The good intentions that her viral videos inspired were mostly “smoke and mirrors,” Siedler discovered. Often, only a fraction of the promised pledges would be paid, leaving rescue organizations to foot the bill.So, in 2016 Siedler started the nonprofit to collect donations that could “pre-fund” the cost of the rescue organizations caring for the animals. In its first two months, DOD raised more than $13,000; over the next five years, the number grew to $570,000, saving more than 14,000 animals.“The pledging option is sort of hollow,” said Julie Castle, “Pam’s platform really provides that prefunding. That is so critical.”Tracking rescues in real-timeDay of the Dogs helped Siedler solve the deadbeat Facebook pledger problem. But another unresolved issue unique to animal rescue remained: the need to track donations and the pets attached to them, so donors could see the impact of their dollars.She tried multiple donation platforms, including Facebook and PayPal, but none fit her particular operational needs. So she created that collects funds for shelter pets and tracks the animals through the rescue process in real time.Her original vision was to create a platform to track Harris County’s shelter animals. After winning a $175,000 grant from the Petco Foundation’s “Shark Tank”-style pitching contest, Innovation Showdown, she scaled her vision to encompass shelters across the country.“There are a lot of people that care about animals and don’t like the idea of healthy animals dying in their community, but they don’t know what to do,” Siedler said. “This is a very simple call to action that every single person can do.”Pet Giving is currently in beta testing at three shelters: HCP, Fort Bend County Animal Services and a shelter in Oklahoma. Siedler said she has tentative agreements with additional shelters in Texas, Oklahoma, California and Florida.“This whole thing is a labor of love,” said Siedler, who becomes teary-eyed when she considers her progress.If an animal is adopted or dies in shelter care, its funds will be redirected to other pets at the shelter. If an animal is fostered, the funds will go toward the shelter's life-saving programs. Offering the free platform to rural, municipal shelters still operating as high-kill facilities - meaning that, like HCP, they accept all animals and must euthanize for space - is Siedler’s top priority.A secondary goal of Pet Giving is to spur shelters to market more animals to the public and increase their community profile. That’s why participating shelters are required to create a social media presence and share Pet Giving links with videos of the animals they network.This ensures animal lovers will be able to follow a pet’s journey from a Facebook video to final outcome.“Even if an animal is euthanized, people will know,” Siedler said. “They won’t just disappear.”That includes Isaac. After his video went viral in January, the placed him with a foster family in Houston.More from Rebecca HennesThe organization later discovered that before his rescue, Isaac was part of a seven-dog family that lived in an industrial area of Houston. The harsh environment created a multitude of health problems for Isaac and his siblings, including severe heartworm, malnutrition, lung damage and skin issues.The money raised for Isaac in response to Siedler’s video helped pay for vet care for other members of his family. One, a sister named Tazzie, now lives with a foster family on a farm in Maine, Legend of the Paws founder Cheri Glankler said.But Isaac’s health problems proved too severe to overcome. Less than one month after his rescue, he died of a stroke in the care of his Houston foster family. He passed peacefully, sleeping on his favorite orthopedic bed between two of his siblings, sunbathing beneath his favorite backyard tree.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateCovered in mud and frozen by fear, the dog known only as No. 548985 keeps his nose inches from the beige concrete wall.“Absolutely terrified boy,” a shelter volunteer says as the 2-year-old golden Labrador Retriever stares straight ahead, still and silent, eyes fixed on the corner of the kennel.That moment, on the Harris County Animal Shelter Pets in Need Facebook page, went viral earlier this year. Emotional and financial support poured in for 548985, who was later named Isaac and taken in by a rescue organization.This approach...

Inside a woman’s quest to save Houston’s dogs — one viral video at a time

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