City of McAllen passes pet limit ordinance

MCALLEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The City of McAllen has passed an ordinance that limits the number of pets people are allowed to have in their homes.

This item was tabled during the last commissioner's meeting but was discussed fully on Monday.

This is one of the biggest responses after two major hoarding cases that the city faced in April of this year.

City of McAllen commissioners voted unanimously to limit residents to eight pets per household and increase the original cap from five to eight.

Those with more than eight pets are required to apply for a no-cost permit with the city.

McAllen resident, Melissa Arjona, has been vocal about the ordinance since she heard about it last month.

She says the ordinance would be a burden to responsible pet owners and will not do much to prevent hoarding.

“It's just a burden, you know, to have like the police show up to your house or animal control or whoever code enforcement come up, and then you have to, like, show, you know, vaccine records and all this stuff that you have to pull up that you might have, but it takes time to let go and acquire all this, you know, paperwork and stuff," Arjona said. "But, yeah, it's not really going to address hoarding.”

Arjona says the city should enforce the laws already in place to prevent animal cruelty but McAllen City Manager Roy Rodriguez says this is the first part of the solution.

“It does allow us to do an inspection if someone comes in and says hey my number has 15, then we are going to go to that door and knock," Rodriguez said. "We are obviously not going to enter the premises but we are going to get in contact with the owner and make sure we are all following the rules.”

Rodriguez says right now they are still ironing out the specifics of the ordinance and working on educating the public. He hopes people will take it upon themselves to apply for a permit if they have more than the allowed number of pets.

Commissioner for District 5, Victor Haddad, says that the ordinance can be changed at any time if needed.

“At any point or time, we can either amend it or we can dispose of it and we just need to see if it works and if it is a useful tool for animal care to continue their efforts," Haddad said. "If it's not, we will try something different. Either amend it, change or take it away.”