By FREDDY JIMENEZ
Port Isabel-South Padre Press
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com
Shown is the Isabel Y. Garcia Animal Shelter in Port Isabel located on 262 Woody Lane. The shelter has been experiencing a stagnancy in adoptions and plans on holding adoption fairs to increase activity.
The Isabel Y. Garcia Animal Shelter, after some period of stagnancy, is reaching out to the community in an effort to revamp its local presence.
The Press recently had the opportunity to speak to John Sandoval, Code Enforcement Dept. Head and Fire Marshall, who shared some updates and insight on the shelter’s current status.
“What we’re trying to do is reintroduce ourselves to the community,” began Sandoval. “As of late, we’ve been having a little bit of trouble unloading some of the animals as far as adoptions go, and so we just wanted to let people know that we’re obviously still there.”
Sandoval said that lately, particularly over the past year and a half, adoptions have been stagnant.
“We’re trying to revamp the shelter a little bit as a way of trying to get people back in there,” he said.
Part of the reason for the sluggish activity, thinks Sandoval, is the “misconception” the public has developed about the shelter.
“There are a lot of misconceptions of the shelter that we want to clear up. One of them being that we are not a kill shelter,” Sandoval stressed. “We don’t euthanize animals, not even to make space. There’s no time frame for the animal to be there.”
The Isabel Y. Garcia Animal Shelter is one of the few, if not the only, shelter in the Valley that does not euthanize for the purpose of occupancy.
Sandoval explained, “We’re the only municipal shelter in the Valley with such a policy. Everybody else usually has a 72-hour hold or so, and then after that, the animal gets euthanized, but that’s not the case here at our animal shelter.”
Another misconception Sandoval feels the public has is that the Garcia shelter is a part of other nearby shelters within the Laguna Madre area, when in reality it is its own municipal organization.
“A lot of people believe that the shelter is a part of all these other organizations, like the Laguna Madre Humane Society or Friends of Animal Rescue, which we’re not,” elaborated the Fire Marshall.
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