Breckenridge Texan

By Tony Pilkington and Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

In recent months, the Breckenridge Texan has started seeing a growing concern about the animal control situation in the City of Breckenridge and Stephens County. We began receiving phone calls, text messages and emails from people in the community who are concerned about the problem and told us about different situations they had seen and heard about concerning animal problems in the city and county. As the problem grew, discussions about the issues began to make their way onto agendas at public meetings and discussions between city and county public officials.

In response to the concerns, the Breckenridge Texan began an in-depth investigation into the situation to try and determine how wide-spread the problem is and what is being done by local officials from both the city and the county to address the situation. We also interviewed representatives from the Stephens County Humane Society, law enforcement officials and reviewed complaints and the local officials’ response to those complaints.

Once we started looking into the problems, we quickly realized there are several parts of this issue that need to be addressed in separate stories. So, we’ve developed a series of stories. There are three main topics in the series: Animal Control Problems in the City of Breckenridge, Animal Control Problems in Stephens County, and A Look at Possible Solutions. We also will include some side-bar stories that provide details about related topics and issues, such as the Humane Society, local ordinances and an incident with an animal that was released at Lake Daniel. We plan to post these stories on the Breckenridge Texan website over the next two to three days with potential follow-up stories later. As each article is posted, we will add a link to it at the end of this article, as well as at the end of the other related stories.

Throughout this project, we’ve had to have some tough – and often tense – conversations with the people involved. Some of the details may be disturbing to some people; however, we feel like it is necessary to report on them so our readers understand the depth of the problem.

Animal control problems in the city and county are not new to this community. They are also not exclusive to our area. They are widespread in the surrounding counties and across the state and even the country. However, since the local animal shelter was closed by the City Commission in 2020, the situation has seemed to grow more dire and reports of animal abuse – both at the shelter and in the community – have seemed to increase or at least are garnering more attention. Additionally, although actual numbers and statistics are not available, the amount of stray and abandoned animals in the city and county seems to be an increasing problem and concern.

We hope that this series of articles will help highlight the problem and find some solutions.

Related articles:

Is Breckenridge’s Animal Control out of control? Some local residents think so.

Complaint alleges Breckenridge city employees abandoned cat at Lake Daniel; city officials say it wasn’t illegal

Cutline, top photo: This photo from March 2022 shows several dogs looking out the back gates of their kennels at the Breckenridge animal shelter. Last week, Police Chief Blake Johnson said the shelter is at 100 percent capacity. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)