Harris County combats animal overpopulation From the cover
What’s happening
Harris County Pets service requests Harris County Pets service requests received by ZIP code
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On Nov. 1 2024, Harris County o cials approved a policy that halved the amount of time—from 30 to 15 days—a pet can stay in the animal shelter before being considered for euthanasia. Corey Steele, director of veterinary public health at Harris County Public Health, said euthanizations increased by 1,355 from November 2024 to October 2025. Euthanasia is the last resort for animals within its custody, according to HCP. However, it is an essential component of its operation to ensure the health and safety of other pets in the shelter and residents in the community. “We focused on the 15 days speci cally because as a municipal animal shelter, we get animals of all kinds, whether it's court ordered aggressive, like cases, but we do obviously have a ton of good adoptable pets,” Steel said.
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SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY PETS COMMUNITY IMPACT
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How we got here
The impact
Sarah Mills, senior director of operations at PetSet, said when it comes to animals in shelters, options are limited. “There are very di cult decisions that have to be made, but the reality is not every dog is adoptable,” Mills said. Steele said in November, HCP saw a 175-adoption increase and a higher intake. Yet, an uptick of adoptions doesn’t translate to a higher live release rate, which refers to the percentage of animals that are adopted or rescued. Le said shorter rescue times reduce animals’ chances of survival. “What makes me sad about the situation is that some of these are healthy animals that are adoptable,” Le said.
saw multiple animals in a kennel, which is not the best environment for them,” Steele said. “And so we needed to gure out a way to help move animals to the shelter quicker and decrease that length of stay.” In addition, Steele said that with a high popula- tion of animals also comes an increase in disease transmission among animals. “Even with vaccinations and boosters that we do when they rst come in and throughout their stay, we still see a high disease transmission,” Steele said. Jennifer Le, owner of A Couple of Vets, said there are several diseases that can be contracted between pets at shelters such as Bordetella, a highly contagious respiratory disease.
Steele said before its updated euthanasia policy, HCP was consistently at least 175% over capacity— with over 30,000 animal control calls received a year. “Our intake dropped signi cantly, the amount of animals that we can pick up. … Those decrease just because of the space. So we saw a very high population here, but a lesser intake of animals,” Steele said. After seeing consistent upward trends in animal population, Steele said HCP sent out a survey to over 1,000 animal networks and animal welfare organizations to get their input on the issue. With animal welfare in mind and the surveys sent out, Steele said HCP made the decision to update its policy. “When we were holding them for 30 days, we
Harris County Pets shelter population
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Dogs
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Capacity
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“The one thing I want to say is stop bashing the shelters. The shelters are a direct result of our failures as a community. So we as a community need to take responsibility
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Capacity 2024-25: 225
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for this overpopulation crisis. The shelters are just the end result.” SARAH MILLS, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AT PETSET
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Capacity 2024: 240 | 2025: 243
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SOURCE: HARRIS COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH VETERINARY PUBLIC HEALTH DIVISION DATA HUB COMMUNITY IMPACT
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