SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio City Council on Thursday voted to terminate its lease with K9s For Warriors and to purchase the veteran service dog organization’s facility next to Animal Care Services.
The $2 million purchase of the 5,000-square-foot Petco Love K9 Center, located adjacent to ACS along Highway 151, will provide much-needed kennel space to ACS and help with overcrowding issues, ACS Director Jonathan Gary and a K9s For Warriors spokeswoman said Thursday.
As part of its lease with the city for the land next to ACS, K9s For Warriors was required to make good-faith efforts to pull a minimum of 200 dogs from ACS each year.
The organization, instead, fell well short of those expectations.
Gary confirmed on Thursday that K9s For Warriors pulled 98 dogs in total since 2019, which is approximately 16 dogs per year.
Animal rescue advocates pointed out that not all of those animals made it through training to become service dogs and instead had to be adopted out by K9s For Warriors.
Data obtained by KSAT Investigates shows that from early April 2024 through the end of February, only five dogs were transferred from ACS to the veteran service dog organization.
Gary referred questions about why the figures were so low to K9s For Warriors, which released a statement about the lease termination but did not address falling short of the target of transferring 200 dogs a year.
“Well, obviously we would have loved to have more, but they did what they could,” said Gary. “You know how many animals we take in every year, there. We’re dealing with capacity issues. So, yes, if it were possible, we would have had the animals available.”
Construction to double number of kennels at K9s For Warriors’ San Antonio location never began
Gary also confirmed Thursday that although improvements to the property were made, construction to expand K9s For Warriors’ San Antonio location never began, and that the $2.25 million earmarked for the project as part of the 2022 facilities bond has been redirected to another ACS project, which is allowable under the original bond language.
An ACS spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the money will be used for a forthcoming ACS hospital expansion, and that the funds were redirected after K9s For Warriors failed to match the $2.25 million that had been earmarked.
The project, if completed, would have more than doubled the number of kennels at the property, officials previously said.
Gary declined to say if he would have signed off on the lease with K9s For Warriors if he had been the director of ACS when the agreement was first reached.
The lease had been scheduled to run through February 2029, meaning it was terminated nearly four years early.
Officials for Petco, which awarded the original $2 million for the construction of the facility, did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.
“We need more people to be engaged”
Lea LaPort, an animal rescue advocate and founder of No Kill San Antonio, said the lease termination was long overdue.
“I’m glad it’s happening. I felt that the city wasn’t super transparent when it came to that contract and they didn’t hold K9s For Warriors, their goals, to that contract,” said LaPort. “We need more people engaged and willing to really understand what’s happening.”
The original 2022 bond measure drew considerable scrutiny, including from a member of the facilities bond committee, who told KSAT shortly before the election that she felt she and her other members of the committee were “being held hostage” by the proposed project.
Keri Neff, who that year described K9s For Warriors as having an “abysmal track record” in San Antonio, said she ultimately agreed to include the project in the facilities bond out of fear that larger public safety projects would be impacted if the committee continued to squabble over the smaller service dog program expansion.
Outgoing District 8 City Councilman Manny Pelaez, who spearheaded efforts to bring the Florida-based K9s For Warriors to San Antonio more than a half-decade ago, declined to comment to KSAT for this story.
During a February 2022 council meeting, Pelaez said, “We found an innovative way to pull hundreds of dogs from the possibility of euthanization and put them in the hands of veterans all over the country for the purpose of preventing their suicides.”
The lease between the city and K9s For Warriors ended with fewer than 100 dogs being pulled, in all, in the past six years.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for K9s For Warriors told KSAT, “For nearly 15 years, K9s For Warriors has remained steadfast in its commitment to saving lives at both ends of the leash. Giving Veterans and rescue dogs a second chance is at the core of everything we do. To address the City of San Antonio’s overcrowding issues and give more time to dogs at risk of euthanasia, K9s has agreed to sell its Petco Love K9 Center to the City, which is conveniently located adjacent to its Animal Care Services (ACS). This decision will allow ACS to immediately begin using the facility to give more dogs at risk a greater chance to find their forever home. We are deeply saddened to share that this closure will affect our team members who worked at Petco Love. It is because of their unwavering dedication to our mission that we will be reaching a major milestone in Texas this July – pairing our 100th Warrior and Service Dog team at the Warrior Ranch in Helotes. This closure will not impact our ability to save lives, instead K9s For Warriors plans to expand its impact at the Ranch in the years ahead.”
Gary said Thursday that ACS will still transfer dogs to K9s For Warriors when requested to do so.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.
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