San Antonio is considering fines as high as $2,000 for people who abandon dogs, cats and other animals within city limits.
The move comes as the city took a similar approach last year to fining pet owners if their dog bites someone.
Texas law considers animal abandonment a Class A misdemeanor, a state jail felony, or a felony of the third degree — depending on the severity of the circumstances.
But Animal Care Services Director Jonathan Gary said the state law is typically only used to go after people whose animals are harmed by the abandonment, whereas San Antonio plans to make the act of abandonment itself illegal.
A draft ordinance in Thursday’s council agenda says the city’s fines would range from $500 to $2,000 the first time a person is caught. Second offenses would have a minimum penalty of $1,000, and subsequent offenses would start at $2,000.
If an entire litter is abandoned, each animal could count as a separate offense.
Plans to change the policy grew out of a much narrower ordinance, aimed at settling neighborhood disputes over roaming peafowl, which the council will also address Thursday.
Some San Antonio neighborhoods release peacocks into the wild for beautification purposes, and the city is planning a peafowl population management plan that to prevent people from capturing them or adding to their numbers.
While considering that issue, however, leaders at ACS pushed for a border ordinance they hope will deter people from dumping animals they don’t want on the street.
“We recommended that this should include any animal, not just peafowl,” Gary said. “You can’t take your dog and release it in the Walmart parking lot or the bus stop.”
A male peacock perches on a residential tree in front of homes near the South Texas Medical Center. Credit: Scott Ball / San Antonio Report
The policy makes exceptions for specific, authorized circumstances like the Trap-Neuter-Release program that allows residents to bring in feral cats in for spay/neuter surgeries and release them back into the wild.
It also excludes owned animals that are found free of restraint. To issue a violation someone must witness the animal being abandoned or catch it on camera.
“Abandonment is one of the toughest ordinances to enforce because it [requires] someone physically seeing the person do it,” Gary said. “But we still feel that it’s important.”
What to do with unwanted animals
People with animals they don’t want or can’t care for — such as an unexpected litter of puppies, or animals left in their care by a relative — have limited options for finding them new homes.
That dynamic leads to many unwanted animals abandoned on the streets, released in parks and fields, or unloaded in grocery store parking lots — particularly in the summer months when new litters are born.
Animal Care Services’ shelter on the West Side accepts animals from the public if it has space, but it’s frequently at capacity and turns residents away if it means animals will have to be euthanized to make space.
In some circumstances, an appointment can be made to drop an animal off when kennel space becomes available.
Animal rescue groups are largely in the same position. Many of them have contracts with the city, which pays them to take animals from ACS and shelter them until they find homes.
“[People should] definitely reach out to [ACS] and we’ll do our best to help them intake here, or potentially work with one of our partners to take the animals in,” Gary said.
The city has put big money toward programs to teach residents about responsible pet ownership, as well as providing food and other supplies to people seeking to surrender animals for cost reasons.
It also recently opened two community spay/neuter clinics, on the East and West sides, where residents can make appointments online to get cats and dogs fixed for free.