The City of San Angelo closed Animal Shelter operations to the public other than emergencies. The news came two days after a PaulAnn resident informed City Council of dog packs in his neighborhood. Yesterday, NBCNews3 ran a story on strays and could not show footage of dogs killing a family's cat due to the graphic nature of the images.
The City informed the public of reduced shelter services via Facebook.
There is no press release/news item on its website to date.
San Angelo Live reported:
In recent years San Angelo has seen an uptick in stray cats and dogs which has put a strain not only on the Animal Shelter but Concho Valley Paws as well.
The news piece does not mention the shelter's move to managed intake, which allows citizens to surrender their animal to the shelter for two reasons, aggression in the home and natural disaster.
From 2014 to 2017 the shelter averaged 2,300 owner surrenders/returns per year. The last three years with PAWS as adoption coordinator it averaged 350. For the twelve months just ended the shelter accepted only 77 owner surrenders/returns.
How did shutting down owner surrenders impact the number of stray pets in our community?
City Council members stated people are the problem when hearing of loose dogs. Concho Valley PAWS Executive Director frequently talks about irresponsible pet owners.
Pets Alive admits it shifts the place for pets needing a new home from a shelter environment to the home. However, San Angelo citizens did not hear they would need to accept thousands more pets per year as part of the Shelter's pursuit of "No Kill."
Did our legions of bad pet owners abandon their unwanted pets into city streets? That would be truly sad.
Update 11-5-21: Still no news of the shelter's closure other than emergencies on the city's website.
Update 11-24-21: The City announced is is hiring. Three of the positions are in Animal Services:
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