City of San Antonio may fall below 'no-kill' standard for animal shelters for first time in five years – San Antonio Express-News

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Large dogs fill kennels at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center on Friday afternoon. Many of the pups were left at the center still wearing their collars bearing their owner’s addrresses and phone numbers. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Some staffers at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center are fostering dogs and keeping them with them in their offices at work as seen on Friday afternoon. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Some staffers at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center are fostering dogs and keeping them with them in their offices at work as seen on Friday afternoon. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Some staffers at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center are fostering dogs and keeping them with them in their offices at work as seen on Friday afternoon. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Large dogs fill kennels at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center on Friday afternoon. Many of the pups were left at the center still wearing their collars bearing their owner’s addrresses and phone numbers. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
San Antonio officials are looking to expand the city’s Animal Care Services as the shelter warns that it will fall short of its euthanasia goal for the first time in five years.
Based on projections, the city estimated that 88 percent of all animals brought to the shelter were released from October to July in fiscal year 2022.
Ninety percent or higher is the accepted “no-kill” standard that shelters across the United States use. The live release rate is the number of pets adopted, rescued and transferred to another shelter or lost pets returned to owners.
Lisa Norwood, ACS spokeswoman, said the department is doing more outreach going into the new fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. The shelter has reached out to residents through strategic planning engagements and surveys used at town hall meetings. Norwood said feedback from the sessions helped frame next year’s budget request.
“The intention is to put in place proactive measures to help us get back on the right course,” Norwood said. “And not just hit 90 percent but surpass it. There’s always room to do more, be better, and that’s what we intend to do.”
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The department is slated to get $21.4 million in the city’s upcoming budget, up 15.7 percent from $18.5 million last year. About $1.2 million of the funding would help ACS make improvements and hire 14 new employees. The additional positions are nine veterinary staff and five employees to expand the customer service team that responds to 311 and ACS calls.
Some staffers at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center are fostering dogs and keeping them with them in their offices at work as seen on Friday afternoon. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
The rest of the extra funding will go toward vaccine clinics, with a goal of vaccinating 2,400 pets per year; spay and neuter surgeries, with a target of 12,455 free procedures per year; and upgrades to three play yard structures.
Separate from the budget, ACS is set to get a new $17.3 million veterinary hospital through San Antonio’s 2022 bond program.
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez represents the East Side, where many residents are frustrated by stray animals. At a staff presentation Tuesday afternoon, he worried that the city isn’t increasing the budget for ACS at the same rate as other departments.
“When they want to walk in their neighborhood, or when they’re trying to walk their dog, they’re being attacked by packs of stray animals,” McKee-Rodriguez said of the residents he represents.
While he wants to see the live release rate increase, he also wants to be sure ACS looks at other measures of success that would determine how well the city cares for animals.
Some staffers at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center are fostering dogs and keeping them with them in their offices at work as seen on Friday afternoon. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Norwood said that because of veterinary shortages, ACS has conducted nationwide outreach and worked with nonprofits and private practices across San Antonio and Texas to bring more pet sterilization services to the community.
She said that this fiscal year, 17 percent of the 21,000 animals brought in were owner surrenders, the largest percentage of that type of intake in five years. Fifty-six percent of owner-surrendered pets to ACS were relinquished because of job loss or eviction.
Norwood said there currently is a four-to-five-month wait for people to make an appointment to surrender a pet. In the interim, she said, ACS provides access to trainers, free and low-cost veterinary resources and additional tools to find placement for pets outside of the shelter.
Large-scale impounds of six or more pets increased from 333 in 2021 to more than 400 in 2022. In 2021, ACS brought in 56 pets from evictions; in 2022, it brought in 239.
Norwood said that, historically, ACS has had greater difficulty finding placement for larger dogs and that this year is no different. One of the ways ACS has addressed that concern is by allowing staff to foster, including keeping pets in offices, with several large dogs housed on campus. At the end of the workday, some cats and dogs go home with their ACS fosters and some will stay overnight in crates at offices, depending on their needs.
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This fiscal year, from October to July, 2,377 animals were euthanized. That’s an increase of nearly 37 percent from 2021, when 1,741 were euthanized over the same time. The shelter’s highest overall live release rates were in fiscal year 2018, with 91.6 percent, and fiscal year 2020, with 92.1 percent.
Large dogs fill kennels at the San Antonio Animal Care Services center on Friday afternoon. Many of the pups were left at the center still wearing their collars bearing their owner’s addrresses and phone numbers. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Contributor)
Bethany Colonnese, ACS chief operations officer, said factors that led to the decrease in the live release rate include large numbers of animals taken in from evictions, a national veterinarian shortage and a downturn in the economy. She said the shelter received more dogs and cats not spayed or neutered, a higher rate of unhealthy pets and fewer adopters. In fiscal 2022, October through July, there were 3,783 adoptions; there were 4,380 adoptions during the same time in 2021. Since fiscal year 2018, ACS has reported a 61 percent increase of injured animals brought to the shelter.
“Unfortunately, when those things do not align, we’ll start to see a decrease in the live release rate,” Colonnese said. “We as a shelter have to make a decision about how we’re going to react to that.”
Shelters nationwide have reported similar issues. According to Best Friends Animal Society, 83 percent of 4.6 million dogs and cats taken in at shelters were released alive in 2021. Best Friends’ mission is to end euthanizing cats and dogs at the nation’s shelters.
In January, the society reported that issues at shelters have become more difficult during the pandemic. A survey of 150 animal agencies and shelters said the coronavirus contributed to shorter hours, reduced adoption events, less pet care support and a decrease of in-person volunteers.
Holly Sizemore, chief mission officer for Best Friends Animal Society, said COVID changed the way shelters operate. She said that during the pandemic, there were a lot of safety net programs that are not around now.
“It’s clear that staffing shortages have made it hard for shelters,” Sizemore said. “Animals are not getting adopted. Intake is rising compared to last year, and adoptions are slowing, and that puts a lot in a crisis moment.”
According to a Mars Veterinary Health study, an estimated 2,500 to 2,600 graduates join the workforce each year, with around 2,000 veterinarians retiring from the field.
Sizemore said the shortage across the U.S. is making it hard for individual pet owners and shelters that depend on veterinarians to keep operations running effectively.
“It is daunting,” Sizemore said, “but we’re finding with the right program in place, we can mitigate the problem.”
Staff writer Megan Stringer contributed to this report.
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Vincent T. Davis started at the San Antonio Express-News in 1999 as a part-time City Desk Editorial Assistant working nights and weekends while attending San Antonio College and working on the staff of the campus newspaper, The Ranger. He completed a 3-month fellowship from the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in 2003 and earned his bachelors degree in communication design from Texas State University in 2006.

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