Puppies Fill Shelter Again

The City of San Angelo has a multi-pronged loose dog crisis, uncontained aggressive dogs and unaltered dogs having litters (which are later abandoned).  In a January 31 e-mail Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden wrote:

January is traditionally a slow month for intake with 139 dogs impounded so far, but almost half this intake were young dogs with (1) almost no chance of owner redemption and (2) long medical observation periods to ensure they’re healthy for adopters.

This happened eight years into a mandatory spay-neuter ordinance.  That should be red flag to City Council, especially as they discussed the loose dog crisis during their January 16th meeting.

Flashback to August 2022:

"We are so overrun with puppies," stated Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden. She noted puppies and unwanted litters are a major factor contributing to the Shelter's current and ongoing space crisis.

Council discussed dangerous dogs in their January meeting.

City Councilman Tom Thompson said his wife was bitten by a dog due to inadequate fencing.

Shortly thereafter, a San Angelo resident walking his dog in a park was attacked by a dog that jumped a fence.  The owner called Animal Control because they believed the attacking dog to be dangerous and the fence inadequate to restrain the aggressive animal.  Their pet (the victim) was up to date on vaccinations and injured in the attack.  

The irony is the victim pet came to their yard in 2022 as an abandoned, injured and sick puppy.  No one knows which dog gave birth to their pet (that cost $500 in veterinary bills), but the shelter has a track record of releasing hundreds of unaltered dogs per year going back to 2018.

2018 - Shelter released over 500 unaltered dogs over 6 month period

FY 2019 - City released 730 unaltered pets from shelter

FY 2021 - Shelter released 708 unaltered pets

FY 2022 - City released 760 unaltered pets from shelter

In April 2019  the shelter began choking off intake  through "managed intake" of owned pets.    Four months later they extended managed intake to found pets.   That eventually turned into "let them roam unaltered."

Pets Alive and Best Friends Animal Society policies have driven shelter changes.  Neither group includes spay/neuter compliance in their mandatory measures.  Staff warned City Council what could happen if pets remained unaltered over a multiyear period.

City Council provided the tools:

Staff promised a one year adjustment period before enforcing mandatory spay/neuter.  Citations for failure to spay/neuter were few and far between until August 2022.   At that point the City Attorney's office began a focused review of unaltered pets leaving the Animal Shelter.

Staff informed Council in June 2023:

Owners claimed 956 cats and dogs in FY22, 282 of which were already spayed/neutered. 44 pet owners have since provided proof of spay/neuter. 24 provided proof of an exemption, such as moved outside city limits, pet is medically fragile, pet has died, etc. This leaves 606 pets still reporting as unaltered. We’ve cited or filed a complaint with municipal court for almost 400 animals and are moving through the remaining backlog.

The problem can be seen in the recent shelter "at risk for euthanasia" list:

Staff admitted to City Council that "community sheltering" contributed to San Angelo's loose dog crisis.  Shelter changes "led to pet owners dumping their animals at the Animal Shelter or letting them loose."

It took years for the dog crisis to get this bad and it will take years to reverse the damage done by Pets Alive and Best Friends policies.  City Council awaits prioritized action items and corresponding budget commitments.  

There's much work to be done but it's hard to be encouraged that the people who led us into this quagmire are the ones to lead us out.

Update:  Four young dogs are abandoned on Knickerbocker.  Public safety organizations are not concerned and see no reason to mobilize resources.  Do they not remember the traffic accident on Loop 306 caused by loose dogs?