On Friday, January 5, 2018, Dallas Pets Alive offered the City of Dallas a positive solution that met the needs of all parties and are very disappointed that Judge Robinson has ordered Rusty to be killed on Jan. 16, 2018. A sanctuary in New York with extensive expertise in managing and caring for dogs like Rusty has agreed to take Rusty at no expense to the City of Dallas or its residents. Once at the sanctuary, Rusty will NOT be adopted out, but will live out the remainder of his life in a safe and positive environment. This solution meets the needs of all parties involved and we appealled Judge Robinson’s decision to kill Rusty on Monday, January 8, 2018. Dallas Animal Services is a trusted partner of Dallas Pets Alive and we are grateful for the hard work they do to keep both our community safe and manage the constant influx of companion animals that they receive every day. We are continuing to work hand-in- hand with Dallas Animal Services to save animals, while we also fight for Rusty. We strongly believe that this was an isolated incident as Rusty had been in the care of our foster team for a year and had shown no signs of aggression/biting and interacted positively with children. We have already started implementing additional policies regarding children and our rescue animals in an effort to even further minimize the likelihood of this happening again. The outpouring of support for Rusty from the Dallas community and beyond has been overwhelming. There are two petitions set up in support of Rusty (one from Dallas Pets Alive and one from an outside group) and combined they have received nearly 70,000 signatures over the course of a week. We want to thank the community for their continued support in our mission to end the killing of companion animals in Dallas and helping us #RescueRusty.