JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville city councilmember Raul Arias, who represents the Southside, is responding to concerns over a push he’s making to shorten the time for the city’s animal shelter to hold stray animals before they’re put up for adoption.
Arias’ bill would change the requirements for the city’s Animal Care and Protective Services (ACPS) shelter to hold animals for three days, instead of six, before they can be adopted. Some local pet owners and animal advocates are worried that the change could cause missing pets, whose owners are searching for them, to be adopted into another home.
“We want our city shelter to run properly and animals to be protected,” said Vickie Nelson, who runs a Jacksonville-based Facebook group that helps reunite lost pets with their owners.
Nelson is a pet owner herself, and said she often sees owners spend up to a week searching for their missing dogs and cats. She doesn’t think that three days will be enough for those owners to find their pets before they’re up for adoption, or, in some cases, before they even know their pet is at ACPS.
“Currently, it’s taking people 5 or 6 days to connect those dots,” Nelson said, “you can’t call the shelter, they don’t have a phone number. If you email, chances are they’re not going to get back in a timely manner at all.”
It’s true that ACPS doesn’t have a direct phone number. The city of Jacksonville’s primary phone number, (904) 630-2489, is used as a way to reach the shelter instead. But shelter communications and marketing is something that Michael Bricker, chief of ACPS, told us he is looking to change as its stray animal hold time possibly changes.
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“We’re trying to decrease the amount of animals that are in our shelter, and increase the amount of animals that are with loving homes,” Bricker said.
Both Bricker and councilmember Arias told Action News Jax that overcrowding inside the shelter is the primary driver of the effort to shorten the animal stray hold time.
“There’s just not enough room,” Arias said, “no matter how much we always fund [ACPS], they have the same overlying issue, which is, capacity at the shelters.”
Bricker told us he’s in support of the shortening of the animal stray hold time, both to help ease crowding and as a way to speed up the adoption process.
“They’re just sitting there waiting. And that’s what leads to overcrowding,” said Bricker, “unfortunately, we only have a 12% return to owner rate. So out of the 100% of the dogs that come to us every year, only 12% actually get returned to their owner.”
Local animal advocates are sharing concerns about other parts of Arias’ bill, too, namely the parts that would cut back on rules for keeping animals, mainly dogs, outdoors. One of the changes would eliminate the minimum shelter requirements for dogs kept outside to have three walls, a steady floor, and a roof. Another change eliminates the maximum weight and thickness requirements for chains used to tether dogs outside.
Bricker claims taking away those requirements will make it easier for animal control to rescue dogs from dangerous situations, particularly in cases of animal cruelty.
“As long as [dogs] do have those three sides, a roof, and a floor [to the shelter], there’s nothing we can really do about it. Even if that dog isn’t as protected as we would like,” Bricker said.
Nelson, however, feels that losing those requirements will make living conditions worse for dogs.
“I think it needs to be very black and white and specific, because, if not, we’re going to have criminal defense attorneys getting everybody in Jacksonville off of charges for neglect, which doesn’t really help the dogs in the end,” Nelson said.
Arias is holding a public meeting to talk about his bill tomorrow afternoon, starting at 2:30 PM, inside City Hall.
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