El Paso, Texas (CBS4) — El Paso Animal Services said they were able to “clear distemper and strep zoo” from its shelter.
The City of El Paso Animals Services reported that it had an outbreak back in February.
The outbreak also caused Animal Services to move to an emergency-only admissions schedule until further notice, which it’s still under.
“So we have been able to clear distemper and strep zoo outside of our quarantine areas and our main location at animal services. Distemper is endemic to this region so we still do see animals that are coming in with diseases that are, again, prevalent in our community,” said Julieanne Newbold, public affairs coordinator at El Paso animal services.
She said that overcrowding inside the shelter was one of the main reasons for the outbreak.
“Now that we have been able to clear distemper from the main facility, this satellite adoption location has helped us limit overcrowding at our main facility, which was the primary cause for the distemper outbreak, and will help us with relocating dogs that will be displaced throughout the current construction project,” added Newbold.
Newbold said the new Tails at the Times adoption center that opened up in downtown El Paso not only helped animal services with its capacity issues but also with the distemper and step zoo outbreak.
“So our Tails at the Times location assisted us during our distemper outbreak. Providing a place where we were able to do intakes during that period of time where we were quarantining our main facility,” said Newbold.”The Tails at the Times location will assist us with being able to house displaced animals at our main location.”
While Animal Services was able to “clear distemper and strep zoo” from its shelter, it is stil not accepting in new animals. Newbold said that they are still dealing with capacity issues.
“We are still doing emergent intake only at the moment. We are still experiencing overcapacity at all of our locations,” she added. “So any animals that are sick injured a danger to themselves or the public aggressive are the animals that are the only animals we are able to intake due to our overcapacity issues.”
The Tails at the Times location will be used for roughly a year while construction is underway at Animal Services.
Animal Services is planning to open more satellite locations in addition to the 4 they already have.
“As of the moment, we are planning on having more locations opened up. We do already have 4 locations throughout the city, but are constantly looking at more ways that we can put these adoption area in our community through onsite events with our mobile addition van.”
They are still asking the community if they find a lost animal, people should try to find its family.
Animal services will be able to help people out with that process.