Hays County and Austin Pets Alive! request feedback on pet resource center

(Editor's Note: This post was updated to include the correct link to the online survey)

HAYS COUNTY — Residents are encouraged to participate in an online survey that will guide the future of animal welfare in the area.

Hays County and Austin Pets Alive! have launched an online survey — which is open through Sept. 30 — for members of the community to have the opportunity to provide feedback that will help determine programs for the Hays County Pet Resource Center.

“It’s an opportunity for residents in Hays County to start telling us what's important to them. What do they think is missing? What resources do they see missing in Hays County to help people keep their pets safe and healthy at home? The survey is an opportunity for the community to have a voice and what the future of pets and pet families is in any county,” said Austin Pets Alive! Executive Advisor and Project Coordinator Lee Ann Shenefiel. "And the other important piece of this is that this is information that will help guide the development of some of those programs, help prioritize resources and help us target those programs and resources to make sure that we're reaching the families in need.”

Hays County Commissioner Lon Shell has been working alongside commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe for multiple years to address issues with animal control and shelter overcrowding.

“Both of us, for years now, have sort of understood the importance of animal services with the growth in the county. We've been relying on the city of San Marcos through our regional animal shelter to provide these services for a long time now. And [with the growth of the county], it would require some improvements. We thought it would be a good opportunity to make some more transformational changes to how we provide animal services,” Shell said. “The county decided two years ago that we wanted to strive for a no-kill shelter. So, we thought it was a good time to try to incorporate that planning effort into something that eventually would result in the facility to provide sheltering and other animal-related services.”

He added that the county wants to engage the community throughout the whole process.

“We want to hear what the needs of our community are. We do know that there's a great team out there and I think it's important that our residents understand currently how things are being done and how it's really been done that way for a long time. We are at a point to add some different programs and services that will allow us to more efficiently address this problem, and also, to humanely address this problem, which I think is important to a lot of our citizens,” he said. “Their input is valuable and how they think that should be done in their communities and how they may be able to be part of the solution as they get involved.”

Background and History

In 2022, Hays County worked with Team Shelter USA and Animal Arts to put together a feasibility study for building an animal welfare model to meet the growing and changing needs of the people in the county. A component of that is to alleviate the pressure that has been placed on the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter, as it is unable to serve the entire scope of the Hays County area.

“We understand that [the shelter] is under a lot of pressure because it's a regional pet shelter that we have made agreements with over the last couple of decades. But we see a need [and] they have a need and reaching out to them and understanding what their needs are,” said Hays County Chief of Staff Alex Villalobos. “I think we're being a good steward and creating relationships with our municipalities and understanding that, ‘Hey, we're going to have a pet resource center that's really going to have the scope and programming that's necessary to be successful.’ We need to take the pressure off of the city of San Marcos, who has taken on, for a good while now, all animals in the county. And that really was set up as a municipal shelter; that was not meant to be a regional, countywide shelter.”

In March 2023, the Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a Professional Services Agreement with Austin Pets Alive! to be the project coordinator for the pet resource center. The county partnered with the nonprofit to lead the development of a new animal shelter that will provide programs focused on public and animal safety, increased public access to important resources for pet owners and community education to provide safe and humane care for pets.

What will the center look like?

The estimated $24 million pet resource center project includes the construction of a new shelter designed to support approximately 2,000 dogs and cats annually, a high-volume public veterinary clinic and investment in robust community programs designed to reduce the number of animals coming into the shelter and help keep people and pets together.

The Hays County Pet Resource Center is not only different from traditional animal shelters because members of the community are able to provide feedback, but it’s also going to provide programs and resources. Shenefiel said these include ensuring that people have access to dog houses and supplies to shelter their animals humanely, pet food, affordable spay and neuter services and more.

“We see this not just in shelters in the region, but around the country, that there is no shelter that is big enough to help all of the pets that are in need in the community. There are shelters across the country that are overfilled, overburdened, overtaxed and just have more need than they have the resources to deliver,” she said. “So, the feasibility study made it abundantly clear that, yes, Hays County needs a new physical shelter, but there’s also this need for this robust offering of programs and resources for the community, before the pet is ever at risk of entering the shelter system.”

The goal is to have the pet resource center more “centrally located and accessible to members of our communities that aren't here on the corridor in cities of Kyle, Buda and San Marcos,” Shell said. While the location is unknown at this time because the project is still in the planning phase, he hopes that wherever the pet resource center is will engage more residents to volunteer and get involved.

The contract states that by the end of three years, there should be a complete full-scale plan in place to be prepared to start construction, Villalobos said, but that could change.

“Those timelines can change, but the county judge’s office is 100% trying to get this done as soon as possible. That’s the timeframe on the contract and bringing back information, it could happen sooner. We're just trying to make sure that we do our due diligence, and not only with property location, but also information to understand the type of programming needs that we have in Hays County and then also to get a really good understanding on the size of the shelter operation and the veterinary operation of the center,” he explained. “So, it's going to have several different phases and we want to make sure that we're addressing all of it. We do not want to come in short-handed and open up a facility that already needs to be expanded.”

How to help

Austin Pets Alive! is looking for volunteers to attend local events promoting the Hays County Pet Resource Center. Volunteers will visit with local community partners to share information about the project, gather survey input and input survey results. Training and community service hours are provided and application fees are waived for Hays County volunteers.

For more information or to sign up to volunteer, visit austinpetsalive.org/volunteer or email [email protected].

To take the online community needs survey before the Sept. 30 deadline, visit https://linktr.ee/hayspetresource