County considers second animal shelter

By Brittany Anderson

HAYS COUNTY—The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter (SMRAS) could lastly discover some aid after years of fighting being the one animal consumption shelter within the county.

The Hays County Commissioners Court heard a presentation for a second animal shelter, following a feasibility examine, at its assembly on June 21.

Commissioners permitted funding for the examine and issued the request for proposals at conferences in 2021, which led to the choice of Team Shelter USA and Animal Arts in March to conduct a wants evaluation for a centralized Pet Resource Center. Commissioners DebbieIngalsbe and Lon Shell have been on the forefront of those efforts.

Dr. Sara Pizano of Team Shelter USA and Heather Lewis from Animal Arts introduced the examine on the assembly, outlining the potential applications, prices, and targets of a brand new shelter that may complement SMRAS. Pizano mentioned that her staff has been making an attempt to undo an antiquated 150-year-old animal welfare system that’s presently “set up for failure,” and that whereas San Marcos is trapped on this system presently, there’s a nice alternative to assist folks and pets in different methods.

Per the examine, a shelter facility needs to be the final choice for pets when all different options for placement have been exhausted. Research has indicated that the majority pets getting into shelters are sometimes from socioeconomically deprived pet homeowners in underserved communities and that oftentimes, they need to preserve their pets—they only want some momentary assist.

Because SMRAS is presently the one consumption animal shelter within the county, they expertise overcapacity, costly operational prices, volunteer staffing points, and extra. A brand new shelter would alleviate a lot of the stress that’s positioned on SMRAS, who usually share on social media their pressing want for adopters and fosters to assist preserve the overflow of animals stored in cages within the entrance workplace or from the shelter having to make troublesome choices about an animal’s destiny.

Additionally, proactive applications might dramatically cut back the variety of pets getting into the shelter system. The new shelter would additionally be capable of provide veterinarian companies for the county, together with microchips and lure/spay/neuter/launch applications, which had been really helpful to be run by a nonprofit group.

The complete estimated price of the brand new shelter is round $23.3 million and would come with an inside and exterior pet useful resource heart and open-door mannequin veterinary care clinic amenities totaling about 27,500 sq. ft with a really helpful holding capability for 58 canines and 47felines. The shelter can be being really helpful to be positioned in a extra centralized and urbanized space of Hays County, equivalent to round Kyle.

If the courtroom strikes ahead with the brand new shelter it would take some time for it to truly come to fruition, however the commissioners are planning on persevering with to work with the neighborhood, cities in Hays County, Team Shelter USA, Animal Arts, and different shelters.

“You have the opportunity to do this right and make no mistake, this is a social issue,” Pizano mentioned. “This is not just about pets; this is about people. … When you help pets, you’re helping people.”