{"id":393176,"date":"2025-11-20T22:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/393176\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T22:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:09:14","slug":"6-days-or-3-jacksonville-debates-reducing-stray-pet-hold-times-as-shelter-faces-overcrowding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/393176\/","title":{"rendered":"6 days or 3? Jacksonville debates reducing stray pet hold times as shelter faces overcrowding"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 A proposed ordinance that would reduce the time Jacksonville animal shelters must hold stray pets before putting them up for adoption continues to draw mixed reactions from the community as officials hosted another public discussion on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The ordinance would cut the current six-day hold period to three days for unidentified strays, while maintaining the longer hold time for pets with identification tags or registered microchips.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens is that the shelter doesn\u2019t have the capacity, so they\u2019re overcrowding the shelters and, in some cases, having the animals double-booked in the kennel,\u201d Jacksonville City Councilman Raul Arias explained. <\/p>\n

Arias, who introduced the measure, also explained that the proposed change would align Jacksonville with other Florida municipalities that already maintain a three-day hold policy for strays. <\/p>\n

Councilman Raul Arias speaks at a Thursday meeting regarding holding times for stray pets. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOther counties and cities in Florida have it for three days. We\u2019re one of the few, if not the only one, that has it for six days,\u201d Councilman Arias noted.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Animal Care and Protective Services (ACPS) is currently housing about 320 dogs in 264 kennels, highlighting the urgent need for solutions to the overcrowding crisis. <\/p>\n

While the city has future plans to construct a new facility with expanded capacity, officials say the reduced hold time would provide immediate relief to the overcrowding situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis change is going to help us save more animals and clear kennels so we\u2019re not going to have dogs staying in our shelter for longer than they need to, and we\u2019re going to be able to save more lives,\u201d said Michael Bricker, Division Chief of ACPS.<\/p>\n

Community members expressed various opinions during Thursday\u2019s public meeting, with some pet owners supporting the shorter timeframe, while others expressed concerns about losing their pets permanently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, as a dog owner, if it\u2019s taken me six days to finally check the shelter, that\u2019s on me. Three days….good,\u201d said John Prentiss, a dog owner.<\/p>\n

However, Jennifer Blackmon expressed concerns about the shortened timeline. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would definitely want to have that extra time to be able to go claim him because he\u2019s our family,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Dog and owner sharing some love (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

When asked about the possibility of someone adopting her dog due to missing the deadline, Blackmon added, \u201cIt would kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed ordinance would include safeguards for pet owners. Animals with identification tags or registered microchips would still receive the full six-day hold period or longer if owners contact the shelter.<\/p>\n

Bricker noted that current data support the shorter hold time. <\/p>\n

\u201cHere at our shelter, we\u2019re noticing that most return to owners happen within the first three days, then it drops off after that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut only 15% of the strays that come into us actually ever get returned to their owner anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the reduced hold time serves as an immediate measure to address overcrowding, the city\u2019s planned construction of a new animal shelter facility represents a potential long-term solution to the capacity issues. <\/p>\n

In the meantime, officials say they are implementing various strategies to manage the current shelter population effectively.<\/p>\n

The ordinance is scheduled for a vote on Dec. 9, but Councilman Arias indicated he might delay the vote further to allow for more community input, which would mark the second time the vote has been postponed to accommodate public discussion.<\/p>\n

The next community meeting is scheduled at the Southeast Regional Library on Saturday at 1 p.m. <\/p>\n

To help pet owners prepare for the potential policy change, ACPS is partnering with the Jacksonville Humane Society and EveryPet for a free microchipping event. <\/p>\n

The event will be held Nov. 29th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at EveryPet\u2019s Norwood location, 6817 Norwood Ave. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A proposed ordinance that would reduce the time Jacksonville animal shelters must hold stray pets…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":393177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[24536,5229,3188,723,7310,7926,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-393176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-acps","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-pets","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}