Nearly 700 dogs at El Paso Animal Services: ‘We have so many in our care right now’

Hundreds of animals are currently waiting at the Animal Services Center in northeast El Paso
for a forever home. Some are even waiting to be reunited with their owners.

“We have so many in our care right now. We have close to 700 dogs,” said Paula Powell, director of El Paso Animal Services.

As ABC-7 previously reported, 188 animals turned up between July 3 through July 5.

About 90 animals were returned to their original owners after the Fourth of July holiday.

In terms of capacity, Powell could not give a number of the actual capacity of the building because she said it depends on the size of the animals.

“What we try to do is look at each individual animal. We’re still bringing in animals, about 80 to 100 a day.”

In order to deal with the influx of animals during their peak season, Animal Services recently opened an emergency shelter on Socorro Road where they are housing some larger animals.

The employee break area at the shelter has become “Doggie Terrace.” What used to have patio tables and chairs, now has a large tent covering several kennels housing about 50 dogs and a large fan to keep the dogs cool from the triple-digit heat.

Two weeks after the Fourth of July holiday Powell said things are stable. Dozens of animals are leaving the shelter but almost the same amount will be brought in.

“We did have a lot of animals come in during the fourth of July but I have to tell you it was a little less than last year so that’s a positive,” Powell said.

Animal Services is doing all they can to keep the dogs healthy to make sure the animals can be adopted.

“We do a lot of extra enrichment, a lot of extra walking” all thanks to the dozens of volunteers that come to help, Powell said.

She added that Animals services is doing several things to help with the influx to meet their goal of having a no-kill shelter.

Animal Services allows people to foster animals. It’s called the Finder to Foster program. If a person were to find a stray animal that they’re drawn too, all they have to do is bring them and animals services gives the animal its vaccines.

Powell said that they actually have more pets being fostered than in the shelter.

Animal Protection officers are also doing things differently. Instead of bringing animals straight to the shelter, if the animal has a chip the officers take the animal directly to the home where it belongs.

Animal Services is also teaming up with the El Paso Fire Department. “If people find pets, and they want to get it scanned, they can go to any fire station in El Paso.” Fire stations now have scanners that will check to see if the animals have a microchip.

With these efforts in mind Powell said it’s extremely important for owners to microchip their animals.

Compared to previous years, Powell said the intake of animals for 2019 has gone down.

Animal Services is always expecting a large influx of animals during the summer, but things are moving in the right direction.

“We’ve seen so much change.”

In 2014, Animals Services was killing 75 percent of the animals they took in. Now, that rate is at 14 percent.

“We’re at 86 percent life release.”

That shift, Powell said, is all thanks to the community.

“Yeah, there’s a few outliers that aren’t really behind that but the majority of this community is coming forward and I believe that soon and if not before 2020, El Paso will be that leader in animal welfare that we all strive for,” Powell said.

For more information click here to visit the Animal Services website.