CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Now that our first freeze of the season is over, some local residents are now dealing with the consequences of having left their pets out in the cold.
Animal Care Services' Miguel Escobar said as temperatures dropped below freezing last week, more than 100 citations were issued after assessing each situation and verifying the conditions the pets were left in.
"So overall, since our proactive patrolling, we received 700 calls, in just that time frame alone," Escobar said. "Majority of the calls were for the cold-weather conditions of animals being outside unattended."
He described how Animal Care Services determined if weather conditions are safe for pets.
"Be aware of the standing ordinances and also know that Animal Control is going to be working off of the ambient temperatures," he said. "So, the thresholds are going to be 50 degrees, to make sure their animals that are outside do have comfortable bedding to stay warm. And then the ambient temperature of 32 degrees and below, the animal cannot be outside unsupervised. "
He said fostering an animal truly makes a difference in times like these -- not only for the animal, but also for Animal Care Services when they receive an influx of animals.
"We were able to get a total of 29 animals out to foster and we did have an influx of around 150 animals come into our care," Escobar said.
Kylie Osteen, a regular at Animal Care Services, came in prior to the freeze to give a second animal a temporary home from the harsh conditions.
"Fostering him this time -- was to get him out of the freeze," Osteen said. "There's been a lot of puppies here at the shelter that have been stuck outside. So just getting him inside to a warm, safe, loving home."
While many are facing penalties at this time, some positive outcomes were also shown last week.
The Gulf Coast Humane Society's Sarah Spence told 3NEWS that, compared to last year's cold snap, the shelter only had to step in to take care of a couple of animals.
"Animal Control, they pulled up, they did what they were supposed to do," Spence said. "They assisted so much. This is actually the least amount of dogs we've actually had to board during the freeze. We actually only had two which is amazing. I believe last year we had over ten. So they did awesome, they did their job and they made it so easy for us."
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