San Antonio Animal Care Services headquarters on the city’s the far West Side. Credit: Michael Karlis

Members of City Council showed skepticism during a Tuesday meeting whether San Antonio’s embattled Animal Care Services department has the bandwidth to enforce new proposals to curb the city’s dangerous dog problem.

Under proposed rules outlined by interim ACS Director Michael Shannon during council’s Public Safety Committee meeting, the department would begin sterilizing dogs picked up on city streets and boost penalties for bad pet owners. The potential changes also would allow residents to anonymously file dangerous-dog affidavits.

However, with ACS only spaying or neutering 12% of the 1,825 dogs under sterilization orders this year, District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda questioned whether the goals are feasible.

“My concern is about enforcement when we make all of these changes,” Cabello Havrda said in response to Shannon’s presentation. “You mentioned that enforcement on what we already have has been inconsistent. So, what is the plan moving forward to make sure that we’re as consistent as possible?”

Council is scheduled for a December vote on the proposed ACS rules, which were first introduced by District 7 Councilwoman Maria Alderete Gavito earlier this year.

Shannon agreed that enforcement is an issue but argued the department has hired 14 new new officers. Even so, the department is covering a city of 1.5 million people, and it’s has faced continued complaints over lagging response rates to calls by residents. “The worry that persists is that that’s still a very high number of animals … . We’re not getting a very high sterilization rate with the follow-up following the citations, and so, to me, it remains a concern,” District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez said.

Shannon responded by saying the new hires, combined with $2 million allocated for sterilization clinics in the recently passed city budget, will improve ACS’s response rate within the next six months.

Still, McKee-Rodriguez expressed doubts.

“What I would expect us to have answers to is, if we were to sterilize all these animals, at what point would we see a reduction in the number of stray or roaming animals?” McKee-Rodriguez asked. “At what point would we see a reduction in the number of dangerous dogs? How would we get to the point where ACS is not drowning or treading water? How do we get to the point where ACS officers are able to focus on community building and being proactive and educating pet owners?”

It’s not the first time Public Safety Committee members have thrown shade at ACS over its ability to be responsive.

During an April meeting, Cabello Havrda lambasted Shannon Oster-Gabrielson, the assistant to then-ACS Director Shannon Sims, after the department failed to show significant improvement in reaching its goals for dangerous-dog compliance and critical-call responses.

“Right now, I see a lot of hope and planning, but it has to be in practice, and we have yet to see that happening,” Cabello Havrda said at the time.

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This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 15, 2024.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...