San Marcos weighing major changes to animal rules

San Marcos pet owners, pay attention: The city could overhaul its animal ordinance in January, bringing significant changes to sterilization and microchipping, the holding of strays at the shelter, pet shop rules regarding puppy mills, and what to do with feral cats.

The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter's push to keep more animals off the euthanasia list prompted the proposed revisions.

Some of the more significant changes include:

A pet won't be required to be registered, but all pets will be required to be microchipped and have the microchip appropriately registered.

All healthy adult cats brought into the shelter will be spayed or neutered, and if they're feral, they'll be returned to the area where they were found.

The third time a dog or cat gets lost and goes to the shelter, its owner must spay or neuter it in order to get it back.

Pet stores must post the name, address and contact information of the source from which a pet for sale was obtained. The goal is to reduce the number of dogs coming from puppy mills.

An animal impounded at the shelter will be on hold as a stray for three days instead of five.

The City Council began discussing the changes at its Nov. 1 and Nov. 15 meetings.

One of the more controversial items on the revised ordinance is returning feral cats to the community instead of keeping them in the shelter until they are either adopted or euthanized. The “trap, neuter, return” approach has long been considered best practice by animal welfare advocates, who say it keeps community cats healthy and in their preferred environment while also reducing the number of cats in shelters.

Under the proposed ordinance, any adult cat without clear identification — like a collar or microchip — that is brought into the shelter will be made a “community cat.” That means it'll be spayed or neutered, given veterinary care, have the tip of its ear clipped to indicate that it is a community cat and returned to the area where it was found.

“It's not super humane to keep cats, take them out of their environment; they stress a lot in the shelter environment,” Derryann Krupinsky, the city's assistant director of neighborhood enhancement, said at the Nov. 1 council meeting. “We wouldn't want them to pick up an illness in the shelter, and that's part of the reason for getting them in and out as quickly as possible.”

The city also is reinvigorating its discussion on pet shops after community backlash against a pet store that opened last year at the San Marcos outlet malls. The new ordinance takes aim at puppy mills, which often supply such stores, by requiring the stores to post information about where the puppy came from visibly in its facility.

But Councilman Mark Gleason was hesitant to overhaul the pet store part of the ordinance, saying it might do little to actually keep pet stores from inhumanely sourcing their animals.

“The notion that this is a way to get pet stores to help out with” adopting pets from the county shelter — “that's not the case,” he said Nov. 1. “That's not reality.”

But community members who spoke at the Nov. 15 council meeting made it clear they want more regulations for these pet stores.

Shannon Graham, an animal advocate who is against pet stores, said “passing this ordinance will not limit consumer choice, nor will it create a black market for puppies.” The ordinance changes do not ban local breeders who want to sell American Kennel Clubregistered dogs.

Pet store puppies come from parent dogs who are “treated as livestock, yet their offspring are marketed as companion pets,” Graham said at the Nov. 15 meeting.

Ultimately, the nearly 50-page revised ordinance will be taken up in January at the council's next meeting.