Pets Alive Continues Choking Animal Shelter Intake

The Animal Shelter Advisory Committee voted 6-0 to restrict services to San Angelo residents only in its January meeting.  The ASAC postponed its February 2021 meeting, but on the agenda is reducing the intake of Community Cats due to lack of funding.   

The memo states "this is the second intake diversion program" for 2021.  American Pets Alive has dramatically reduced services from the city Animal Shelter.  Major illness or death are not valid reasons for a pet owner to surrender a pet.

If American Pets Alive wanted our shelter to be more effective and efficient it would provide the city a veterinarian.  Concho Valley PAWS promised to recruit and employ a veterinarian in February 2018.  It fulfilled that contracted commitment for only a few short months.

PAWS veterinarian conducted spay/neuter surgeries for three months in 2018.  PAWS altered 87 pets, which is 29 spay/neuters per month on average.  They billed the city in May, June and July of 2018 for spay/neuter surgeries.

The Animal Shelter endorsed a Community Cat strategy in October 2019.  CritterShack Rescue is only local rescue officially participating in the Community Cat program established in 2015.  

The city petitioned the Attorney General to withhold information on other rescues participating in the Community Cat program, a request I made in November 2019.  The AG's office approved the city's request to not share information on the Community Cat program.  This stands in contrast to Pets Alive's position of complete shelter transparency.

The City donated its veterinary surgical equipment to Concho Valley PAWS in December 2019. PAWS still issues low cost spay-neuter vouchers for use at local veterinarians despite assuring City Council the equipment would be used.  CritterShack Rescue has long provided a low cost spay-neuter clinic for area citizens.  CritterShack offered to pay for the city's surplus surgical equipment.

City staff have avoided communicating and collaborating with organizations with a track record on Community Cats.  PAWS still has a community cat survey on its website with a promise to seek funding once the data is compiled.  

Shelter Community Cats can sit in the shelter for three months before being returned to their former home.  Pets Alive should know it is not a best practice to have shelter slots occupied by community cats waiting for a veterinary appointment.

Best practice is to trap the day/night before the surgery appointment and take them the next day to the veterinarian for surgery.  Males can be returned to the place they were trapped the day of surgery.  Females are recovered overnight and returned if they are recovering appropriately.  It should be three days, not three months.  

In October 2020 the city laid out how they plan to cut services based on the level of funding.

The City's inefficient model has community cats taking up shelter space due to a lack of veterinary appointments.   No wonder intake exceeds space and resources.

With no funding the city will not even vaccinate cats for rabies, a requirement of the State of Texas.  City ordinance states pets must be vaccinated for rabies before they can leave the shelter.  City and PAWS practice has been to book veterinary appointments for adopters where the pet will get vaccines along with spay/neuter surgery.  Those appointments are often months out and may or may not be kept.  

Data on shelter compliance with rabies vaccinations and spay/neuter surgeries has not been forthcoming from the city or adoption contractor PAWS.

PAWS Director Jenie Wilson told the ASAC in October 2019 she had compliance data on shelter pets meeting the spay/neuter ordinance but a December public information request had the city claiming no such document exists.  Standard contract language on the city's purchasing website addresses public information, ownership of documents and the city's right to ensure a contractor meets applicable regulations.  Apparently none of these terms apply to Concho Valley PAWS.

The shelter has choked off intake while hiding the most basic information on shelter services.  It's been a team effort for the city and PAWS.  Pets Alive has not challenged this dysfunctional arrangement in any material way. 

If the water department operated like the shelter it would cut off water to parts of town it could no longer afford to serve.  Street maintenance would turn streets back to gravel as it could no longer pay to keep them paved.  Citizens experienced something similar due to the PaulAnn toxic water contamination and streets badly deteriorated from the recent winter storm.  

Residents are now experiencing diminished services from the animal shelter.  Yes, it is part of a pattern.

Past intake diversion:

1.  Limited service area to Tom Green County only in FY15, decreased intake from 7,800 to 6,200

2.  Required counseling appointments for owner surrenders in FY19, decreased intake from 5,900 to 4,800.  

3.  Reduced reasons a pet owner could surrender their pet to the City Animal Shelter, removing owner illness and death as qualifying events.

FY20 intake was 4,560, 2.7 times best practices. Uncontrolled intake is unmanageable for staff and programming. We do not have sufficient resources to provide a live release for these animals.

Streets, water lines and pet services.  Citizens keep paying more for less. 

Update 3-12-21:  City Council's agenda for next Tuesday has restricting shelter intake to city residents only on the Consent Agenda. Council should discuss this item for two reasons.  One, animals without homes don't read signs showing city limits.

We ask that animals only be allowed into our programming if residing in San Angelo city limits only.

Two, people outside city limits shop in San Angelo.  They contribute to the city budget via sales tax funding.  PAWS Executive Director and an Assistant City Manager live outside city limits.  If either were to bring a lost pet from their home to the shelter I bet the city would take it.  

Today the city promoted a new facial recognition app reunites shelter pets with owners.

Animal Services has been busy launching a multitude of programs to better serve families and make our community No Kill. So, how can we manage one more task like Finding Rover? The beauty of this technology is that we don’t have to. 

Finding Rover works seamlessly in the background of our pet management software. No staff time is needed after an easy initial setup to review Finding Rover lost pet posts and cross reference newly arrived pets. Animal Services staff already uploads pictures of new arrivals on intake. Finding Rover simply accesses those photographs and notifies both Animal Services staff and the registered owner when there’s a match.

Should Council approve this item it will only try to reunite animals lost in San Angelo proper with owners who reside in city limits.   

Update 3-16-21:  City Councilman Harry Thomas pulled the item to the regular agenda.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden said communities in the county are already taking care of their stray animal issue.  If that were true there would be no animals from outside of San Angelo going to the shelter and no reason to further cut intake.  Morgan said 10% or 450 pets came to the shelter last year from Tom Green County, effectively countering her previous characterization.

 

Councilperson Billie DeWitt asked about health as a reason for a citizen to give up their pet.  Morgan said the sick person would make an appointment with PAWS, foster their pet for a period of time and if not successful PAWS would take the pet, not the city's Animal Shelter.  In a round about way Morgan confirmed the shelter does not take pets from San Angelo residents suffering from major illness.

 

Council did not seem the least bit concerned over the poor working relationship with area animal service organizations.  This should be a huge red flag.  Area rescues have written off the City Shelter and understandably so.

 

They approved further restricting Animal Services by a vote of 7-0.  Local rescues will once again bear the burden.

Update 4-13-21:  Cutting community cat intake is a topic at the April 15th meeting of the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee. 

Update 6-9-21:  Councilperson Lucy Gonzales requested staff share information on community cats at the upcoming City Council meeting.