Pleading for Help

The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter is asking city and county officials for more resources as public calls for the shelter to become “no kill” continue.

At the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee’s Tuesday meeting, committee member Deborah Jackson presented a draft of a brief letter urging officials “to include additional funding in the new budget” for needs at the shelter, such as more personnel and space for those employees. Specifically, the letter points out that the shelter needs vet techs, a volunteer coordinator and a coordinator for the shelter’s foster program. The committee approved the letter, which will be sent to the city councils in San Marcos, Kyle and Buda and to the Hays County Commissioners Court.

Kittens Drako and Stripes look out at visitors from their kennel at the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter, where they wait for someone to adopt them. 

Buda Police Sgt. Bill Kuykendall suggested also sending a copy of the letter to the shelter’s rescue partners so they will see what the shelter is asking for.

At the beginning of the committee’s meeting, several members of the public spoke in favor of the shelter seeking help to become no-kill. 

“People want to help. … They don’t want pets to die,” one Austin resident said, adding that a no-kill shelter adds to a community’s positive image.

Shelter visitors Robert Cavazos and Ashley Storch play with and pet kittens and cats in the adoptable cat area at the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter. Summer is a busy time at the shelter.

Other members of the public spoke up, asking the shelter to accept help, to state publicly that it is setting a goal of 90 percent live outcomes and to commit to transparency, including posting photos of every animal upon intake.

The shelter’s rescue partners throughout the county also need more resources, according to Anne Zabolio, director from Thundering Paws in Dripping Springs. The shelter, one of the San Marcos shelter’s rescue partners, said that more volunteers and more publicity would help, as would having animals that are already spayed and neutered when they arrive at the rescue partners’ facilities.  

Kitten Chase bats at the lock on his kennel with his paws.

Kara Montiel, animal services manager at the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter, said that additional staff and more space would help to address many of the concerns that people brought up during public comments. She presented the shelter’s three-year plan for staffing and budget and pointed out current needs at the shelter, such as an additional vet tech. Montiel said there is one vet tech at the shelter, and that the shelter is approaching 1,000 surgeries already performed this year. 

Moreover, she said, the adoption center is short on space, as are other parts of the shelter.

“Our existing conference room is an office for three people,” she said.

On the positive side, Montiel noted, the shelter had twice as many visitors in June — 3,100 — as in the previous month. 

“We’ve had a lot of foot traffic,” she said.

Between now and Fiscal Year 2021, the shelter wants to be able to hire a full-time vet tech, a full-time rescue and foster coordinator, a full-time veterinary services worker, a volunteer/events coordinator, a clerk/records specialist, a full-time veterinarian, an animal protection officer and a shelter technician. The shelter also wants to see work on the dog park, a community spay/neuter fund, a new adoption suite and expansions and other improvements to the shelter facility itself.