The city of San Angelo is considering changing animal services dog intake policies, triggering a debate over what the city’s role should be.
Morgan Chegwidden, assistant director of neighborhood and family services for the city, bought information on the shelter to the council on Tuesday. Chegwidden and the council had a discussion on taking possible action on dog intake polices by animal services.
Animal Services impounds cats, dogs, wildlife, livestock and fowl in San Angelo city limits. Animals generally arrive by three methods: animal service officers’ intake, found stray and owner surrender.
The city of San Angelo Animal Services Division impounded over 8,800 animals in 2013 and 6,000 in 2016 after the city adopted policies to reduce intake including closing the after-hours kennels, limiting intake to Tom Green County residents only and adopting the $10 owner surrender fee.
In 2020, the organization further limited intake jurisdiction to San Angelo city limits, only decreasing intake to 4,200.
In 2022, the city adopted a finite capacity policy including a component to close dog intake when approaching capacity.
“Owners wishing to surrender their pets for adoption or euthanasia are referred to re-homing services through Concho Valley PAWS,” the report to the City Council stated.
“If owners would like to surrender pets due to eviction, domestic violence, or natural disaster, they are accelerated through the program with immediate impound available and support services as needed,” the report stated.
Animal services developed offsite resources to support animal finders. The “Good Sam” program now includes food, collars, leashes, crates, vaccines, photographs and posts on lost and found websites, a landlord’s letter if needed and second priority on the wait list for shelter intake.
“This most recent policy was based on limited resources,” the report stated. “Some finders were frustrated with limited shelter capacity and the local ordinance definition of owner (caring for a pet for more than three days) opting out of the Good Sam program.”
The discussion at City Council revolved around whether to keep current polices at the shelter or to adjust them.
“It may be that we need to decide as a council what our expectations are,” Tommy Hiebert, District 1 councilor, said.
“Are we going down the animal control path or the animal services path? The animal services path is a larger undertaking that we have attempted to do since 2015-2017 to be more helpful to the community, but now it would appear to be backfiring on us because of the numbers,” Hiebert said.
Some council members said their expectations were to move services to public health and safety only. Others think the city has progressed enough down the line of animal services to continue the course.
“I don’t believe we can divorce from our care of animals,” Karen Smith, District 5 councilor, said. “This may be too big of a job for this particular council meeting. Maybe it’s a strategic planning issue. Maybe we need a task force that is populated by folks from the community that have expertise. We have a lot of information to sift through.”
Smith suggested the city enforce spay and neuter initiatives and accelerate adoption programs by having people work on the particular angle of adoption.
“Any task force we put together needs a deadline, we cant take months and months,” Mayor Brenda Gunter said.
“What is the non-emotional approach to solving this problem? A lot of people probably won’t like the solutions, but tough choices come with the situation we are having to deal with,” Gunter said. “It’s about getting back into control of the animal shelter and what it stands for.”
Residents who came up for public comment during the meeting were split on whether the shelter needs to keep their policies or adjust.
There was no motion on the floor or action taken on Tuesday.
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