Four puppies are dead. A 76-year-old man is facing felony animal cruelty charges. And San Antonio's Animal Care Services is at the center of questions that demand answers.

On May 25, Raul Canales Jr. was arrested after police found several dogs dead at his Southwest Side home. A relative told local news that Canales had contacted ACS multiple times asking for help with a sick, unexpected litter of puppies, and that when ACS responded on May 22, workers refused to take the animals because the shelter was full, telling him to try again after the Memorial Day weekend. ACS's official statement disputes this account, saying it has no record indicating the puppies were sick at the time of their visit.

What is not in dispute is this: the shelter was full. The animals were not taken in. And days later, they were dead.

Whether or not ACS followed proper protocol, this case exposes a failure that goes beyond one visit to one home. A municipal shelter that is full over a holiday weekend with no emergency intake option, no overflow partnership, and no safety net for animals in crisis is a shelter that is not equipped to do its job.

We are calling on the San Antonio City Council to demand a full, transparent accounting of what happened in this case, fund meaningful expansion of ACS intake capacity, and require the agency to establish emergency intake protocols so that no animal is ever turned away with nowhere to go. We are also calling on the Texas Legislature to set minimum capacity and emergency intake standards for municipal animal shelters statewide.

This should never happen again. Fix the system now.