An online petition is being passed around on social media, calling for Lubbock’s city council to reform Lubbock Animal Services to achieve no-kill status. As of Monday, the petition received over 1,400 signatures and stated that the petition was started on Feb 11.
The petitioners think that Lubbock Animal Services has a high kill-rate of shelter animals and wants LAS to model their efforts after other municipalities.
“Lubbock should model itself upon another Texas city–Austin. Austin is one of the largest cities in the US that has achieved a no-kill status, saving over 94% of the animals that came into their facility last year. At one point Austin killed over 50% of their pets,” the petition reads.
The petitioner believes the City of Lubbock can afford to implement a no-kill policy. It also asks for a Trap-Neuter- Release program for feral cats as well as several other animal related programs.
People from all over Texas and the South Plains have commented on the petition, expressing support for a no-kill policy. But Kia Riemath, assistant director of Lubbock Animal services said that while she appreciated the petitioners’ support for providing LAS with more resources, she doesn’t think a no-kill policy is possible with the current demands on LAS.
Riemath explained that the animal services shelter takes between one thousand and two thousand new pets each month.
“For the month of February, we had 172 animals we did have to euthanize, but that’s 15.4 percent, that’s not half of them,” Riemath said. “108 were returned to their owners, that’s less than 10 percent, that means those owners are not coming in to see if their animals are in there.”
Reimath said that on average, only 30 percent of the time dog owners come in to retrieve their pets from the shelter. That leaves the shelter with hundreds, if not thousands of animals on their hands. Now that springtime is approaching, the shelter is also seeing increased numbers of animals with new puppy and kitten litters.
Reimath added that while there are other shelters and no-kill operations in Lubbock, animal services differs because it doesn’t turn away any animals.
Jolynn Payne is a dog trainer who is also on the board of the South Plains SPCA. She works with finding dogs for families to foster and she said that her organization cannot take dogs from animal services, because the high volume of dogs in the facility means that most will have some type of sickness.
“You have this never-ending cycle, of animals being sick [at LAS] because there are so many animals coming in all the time,”Payne said. “There is no stop period to get the room clean, even though they are very clean, there’s no stop period for the airborne viruses.”
She explained that most rescues in town would love to help relieve LAS of some of their high numbers, but because of the overpopulation and sickness there, it becomes difficult to remove dogs from LAS and risk having them infect other canines.
“We have irresponsible owners,” Payne said of many Lubbock pet owners. She added that she doesn’t think the petition is realistic because starting a no-kill policy with the current volume of animals would leave LAS with hundreds more animals than it can support each month.
Payne, who spends most of her waking hours working on animal-related causes, said that there are plenty of other animal policy changes that could be made in Lubbock.
“We need to have stiffer fines, we need to do a lot of different things before we even think about being a no-kill shelter,” she said.
Payne said she petitioned the City Council last year, asking for more resources for LAS. She said that while she reached out several times to council members, none ultimately were able to meet with her about the matter.
Others on the South Plains, however, agreed with a no-kill approach and opted to sign the petition. Lubbock resident Kim Walsh said she signed the petition after seeing someone else post it on her Facebook feed.
Walsh owns five dogs and a cat, all rescues, and she said she feels that every animal deserves a chance at life.
“It’s just heart breaking that the shelter can’t save them all,” she said. “It breaks my heart to hear that dogs there, after a certain amount of time, they are euthanized.”
Walsh believes every city-run shelter should be no-kill, especially in cities like Lubbock where residents are always sharing posts about dogs lost around the city.
She hopes the online petition moves the city to make a policy change. Walsh also believes that the city of Lubbock should be able to produce the funds to run a no-kill shelter.
“They just have to figure out how to manage it,” she said.
Riemath added that she wishes her LAS facility could be no-kill as well, but she doesn’t think there are enough resources and community assistance to maintain that policy.
She added that euthanizations are tough on her staff as well, she said putting animals down takes an emotional toll on staff members. But with so many unclaimed pets coming in, they are pressed for resources.
“I know some of the people commenting on the petition say ‘These are someone’s pets their family members.’ Then why aren’t they coming in to look for [their pets]?” she asked.
Riemath said that while she doesn’t see LAS going entirely no-kill, there are ways the shelter could reduce their kill rate, which sometimes is as high as 50%. She believes having more volunteers, better public education about caring for pets, and more widespread spaying and neutering programs would help.
For the public she also recommends micro-chipping your dogs; dogs which are micro chipped are kept in the shelter longer– an minimum of 10 days.
“I would love nothing better than to be put out of business because we have so many responsible owners,” Riemath said.
City Councilwoman Karen Gibson replied in an email Monday saying she had not seen the petition or spoken with anyone about Lubbock Animal Services in the recent past.
