By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Two members of Del Rio’s Animal Advocacy & Rescue Coalition (AARC) say the city must tighten its animal control ordinances to begin addressing the core of its animal problem – overpopulation.
The two AARC members made their comments to the council before and during a discussion of a proposed needs assessment of the city’s animal control facility.
AARC Director Katelyn Hurta told the city council, “I’m just here to speak on this because I really, really appreciate all the hard work Mr. Sheedy (City Manager John Sheedy) and Anita (City Communications and Marketing Director Anita P. Mariner) have put in to support the need for an overhaul of animal control.
“The animal control team does a great job. They’re busy. They’re overwhelmed, just because Del Rio has gotten underwater with this and is years behind. So I want to just say thank you to everybody that works hard each and every day. I know that you all are overwhelmed,” Hurta said.
“With the AARC rescue (operations), we are overwhelmed also. I think that this is an awesome opportunity and a much-needed opportunity to have somebody come in that is a professional on this matter and who does it day in and day out, to come in and tell the city, ‘Here’s where we need to start.’ Because right now we don’t have a solid foundation to make things work,” she said.
“I know that Mr. Sheedy hopes that we can move into a no-kill shelter here in Del Rio. That’s a long, long way from where we are today. I do rescue day in and day out. We move hundreds and hundreds of dogs and cats out of the city of Del Rio each year, and we would love it, but we don’t expect the city to become a no-kill community, just because that’s extremely hard to attain, and right now, like I said, we still need to build the foundation in Del Rio. We don’t have the ordinances anyway to get to ‘no-kill,’ because we can’t get to the root of the problem, which is overall overpopulation,” Hurta said.
Hurta urged council members to support the needs assessment.
Fellow AARC member Ronda Hargrove also told the council that “the ordinances have to change or we’re going nowhere.”
She addressed the council again later in the meeting.
“I don’t know if you all are aware of this, but Howard Fletcher and Katelyn and myself and a handful of military wives have been working diligently to get the (former) Rathke veterinary building up and running. We have vets out of Austin that will come. They’re going to donate the equipment. They will come.
“We need an ordinance in place that if you own an animal and you’re not signed up, registered, selling AKC dogs and you’re not paying for a registration fee in the community, your animal needs to be spayed or neutered. Period. Cats, dogs, if they’re yours, that’s what we need the ordinance to say,” Hargrove said.
Hargrove told the council the clinic in the Rathke building is closer to completion each day.
“It’s taken forever, but it’s this close, now. And if we can get that rolling, we have Austin Humane, Austin Pets Life, they’re ready and willing to come in. (Dr.) Pat Martin is willing to be one of the vets, for free or extremely low-cost spays and neuters. That’s the problem: Nobody can afford to go or wait six or eight months to get their animals spayed and neutered,” she said.
Hargrove said if the ordinance is not in place, a larger facility won’t help.
“We have all we can do right this minute to give the 11 dogs that are on Death Row placed in other animal rescues so that they can get them adopted. If you build 50 places, we’ll have that every single day,” Hargrove said.
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