Who is Urgent?
Karen Pepp (aka Kay Smith), President and Founder of Urgent, with Holly
Urgent Pets on Death Row (Urgent) is an all-volunteer, 501c3 charity, created in 2010, to advocate for the thousands of adoptable dogs and cats that are needlessly killed each year by Animal Care & Control of New York City (ACC). Urgent was created to help advocate for NYC’s Death Row dogs and cats.
How did Urgent get Started?
Urgent started as a desperate attempt to save some dogs and it has turned into an enormous community of caring people, just as outraged as we are. ACC refuses to advertise animals about to be killed so we, at Urgent, took up the cause. We collect as much relevant information as possible on these forgotten animals and actively promote them through our extensive social media network. Since 2010, Urgent has gained well over 70,000 Facebook fans and has helped find loving forever homes for thousands of ACC cats and dogs, who would otherwise have been killed.
Why We Do What We Do
Urgent believes that all ACC animals deserve compassionate, professional care, along with a sustained effort to place them into new homes. We believe that ACC has a moral and ethical obligation to earnestly explore every possibility before killing an animal. Advertising, community outreach, creative marketing, and harnessing the power of social media should all be effectively employed. Urgent also serves as a watchdog for the city shelter, documenting and exposing instances of neglect and systemic abuse of homeless companion animals that most private citizens are never aware of. Urgent is proud of our virtual community and we hope to continue to expand our advocacy for New York’s most underserved animals.
Team Urgent at Skechers GoWalk 2015
Karen Pepp with Pebbles
Together, we are fighting to reform the NYC shelter system and save the thousands of adoptable animals being needlessly destroyed each year. The battle is long and the list of casualties continues to climb but we will not give up… not until there are none.