History

** The Animal Support Project started informally after the founders met by coincidence in Louisiana during the Hurricane Katrina disaster response. A happy coincidence indeed because as it turned out, these individuals who had traveled independently over a thousand miles to help animal victims of the hurricane discovered they actually all lived within a 2-hour radius of each other. A bond was established and once back in the Capital Region of NY, they communicated with each other about their common experiences in Louisiana.

They all agreed on some very basic concepts:

1. Most pet owners, regardless of social class, love their pets like family and their pets love them.
2. People need to know more about how to do right by their animals.
3. Most pet owners in crisis, given the tools, would prefer NOT to surrender their pet to a shelter or to euthanasia.
4. Many pet-related crises could be avoided with creative mitigation.

From these shared principles, the group of friends brainstormed a charity that would intervene and mitigate to prevent as many pet surrenders as possible in New York’s Capital Region.

Since that time, The Animal Support Project has been delivering creative, enduring solutions to pet owners who may want to do right by their pet but who just need some help to get back on track.

We treat each case individually, tailoring the response to fit the situation. Temporary foster care, veterinary liaison and financial help, fences & kennels, pet food & supplies, behavioral training, answers to animal law questions and general counseling on best practices in pet welfare for all species are just some of the things TASP offers our pet-loving community; and all either free or at our cost, depending on the income of the pet owner.

Our all-volunteer organization uses the experience gained through volunteering with national humane groups like the ASPCA, HSUS and RedRover as well as continued training to keep sharp on skills and the latest technologies.

Since what we do is not traditional pet rescue or sheltering, our adoption numbers are very low….that’s because over 90% of the hundreds of animals we help each year don’t have to leave their homes! That success has a downside though, because we are not usually eligible for animal welfare grants that are geared toward taking possession of and adopting out large numbers of animals.

TASP earns our revenue the hard way, running multiple pet photo fund raisers each month, hosting tag sales, running scrap metal drives and doing whatever we can to finance our operations.

The rest of our support comes from caring individuals, service organizations and businesses who recognize that without a pet retention safety net in our community, too many innocent animals would be sent to shelters or worse, when all they really need is a paw-up.