Council to Proclaim Animal Services

The City of San Angelo Animal Shelter recently achieved a 90% live release rate, a goal set in 2015.  City Council will honor this achievement with a proclamation in their next meeting. 

The shelter took in roughly 8,000 animals in 2014.  That went down to 4,500 in 2020, a 43% decrease. The Animal Shelter budget soared in the opposite direction from roughly $750,000 to over $1 million in 2020, a 38% increase.  Staff also increased from 12 to 17.

The proclamation fails to mention in 2019 the shelter stopped most citizens from surrendering their pet via managed intake, nixing the major reason pets went into the shelter.  Owner illness and death were no longer valid reasons for an animal to be surrendered to the shelter.  The city will not help someone needing a new home for their pets due to moving into assisted living or a nursing facility.  

The shelter has refused stray animals captured at area employers.  That may be part of added managed intake for unowned pets, adopted in fall 2019.  In addition, the shelter restricted services to city limits in March 2021.

Area rescues continue to be impacted by the shelter's choking off intake.  Rescues experience dogs and cats that have been adopted from the shelter and remain unaltered.  Shelter adoption coordinator PAWS refuses to take back pets, many given away for no charge.  Those people call areas rescues, asking them to re-home their free shelter dog.

American Pets Alive asks participating shelters to work collaboratively with area rescues.  City staff contacted the only community cat sponsoring organization three times in the last two years, all via e-mail.  The majority of euthanized animals are cats.  

The shelter released fifty unaltered cats into San Angelo neighborhoods from October 2020 to February 2021.  

They did not send these animals through PAWS SNIP program nor did they inform the public of their actions.  I would want to know if the city or PAWS was dumping unaltered cats on my block.  One Council member wanted to know what was going on with cats. 

The current Shelter Director grossly misrepresented community cat history to the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee in their June meeting.  The Director did not pass on an offer from the sponsoring organization to share their efforts and successes.  That person went even further, running down the city's only rescue helping cat colony managers.  Numerous city leaders joined in the verbal undermining.

The city does not require its adoption coordinator to share compliance with the mandatory spay/neuter ordinance, microchipping or rabies vaccination.  It has that ability via standard contract language from 2018 but refuses to provide that information in public information requests.

Cutting services to meet a target caused damage and heartache to many residents.  Citizens will judge City Council and the Animal Shelter by their deeds.  PAWS claimed the shelter euthanized 80% of animals in 2016.  City data showed the number to be half that.      

Is this lying or image polishing?  There is much to proclaim if one wants to see the whole picture.  

Update 10-16-21:  San Angelo Live shared PAWS fiction in a piece on the proclamation.  The proclamation recognizing the significant strides made in the past six years shows PAWS lying.

The death rate has decreased from over 67% to under 10% of all release outcomes.

The City of San Angelo website also shows PAWS 80% kill rate is not factual.   

"We made improvements under this plan, increasing the live-release rate from 33% in fiscal year 2015 to 47% in fiscal year 2018." 

The City is yet to share its intake and euthanasia totals for the last twelve months. How much further did they choke off intake and not serve taxpaying citizens?

Update 10-18-21:  Intake decreased to 4,264 for the last twelve months with shelter deaths at 404.  Intake was just over 8,000 animals in 2014.  Adoptions are down to 918 for the last twelve months.

For the first time since PAWS began as the Shelter adoption coordinator it will provide information on compliance with the city's spay/neuter ordinance.  City Council voted to approve PAWS as the city's adoption coordinator in February 2018.

Update 10-24-21:  PAWS presented inaccurate data in fundraising through the San Angelo Community Foundation:

PAWS committed to a shelter pet adoption program in 2015, the City of San Angelo was home to one of the highest-kill shelters in the state of Texas. Animal control euthanized over 9,000 cats and dogs each year. The annual kill rate of the shelter was 82 percent which means 82 percent of the animals that entered the shelter were killed.

The reported euthanasia rate from the City of San Angelo was 72% for FY14 and 62% for FY 15.  Neither of those are 82%.  The number of animals taken into the shelter was 8,074 in FY14 and 6,561 in FY15.  Both of those are less than 9,000.