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Only a few years ago, the portion of dogs and cats that left BARC, the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care, alive was less than 40 percent.
This year, the rate averages to more than 70 percent every month.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker says keeping stray animals from being euthanized wasn't always the priority. The focus was just on getting them off the streets.
"Now it's about making sure that we educate the community about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, the importance of responsible pet ownership and that we work just as hard on finding forever home for the animals," Parker says.
Ashtyn Rivet, outreach manager at BARC, says partnering with the Rescued Pets Movement has made a big difference. The group transports dogs and cats from the shelter to Colorado every month.
Rivet says Mayor Parker's challenge to reach a 90 percent live release rate for November can be done.
"What we're going to do is find out what it takes – financially, operationally, structurally, all of these things – to get to the point of 90 percent," she says. "So at this point, we don't believe it's going to be sustainable, but we're working towards that."
A big part of it is an aggressive outreach campaign to get more people to adopt pets from BARC.