SAN ANTONIO – Animal Care Services (ACS) is cracking down on animal cruelty.

Officials say hiring more officers is making it easier to get the job done.

ACS Director Jonathan Gary is optimistic about the new hires; saying they’ve already done more work in a few months than in all fiscal year 2025.

ACS Director Jonathan Gary is optimistic about the new hires; saying they’ve already done more work in a few months than in all fiscal year 2025.

The agency is doubling its workload after hiring two new animal cruelty investigators.

“This year, we’re on pace to almost double the number of, actually, probably will over double the number of cruelty cases filed,” Gary said during Tuesday’s city public safety meeting.

Animal cruelty investigators have filed 35 cases between October and February. They filed 34 cases in 2025.

“I’ve been very patient. I will no longer be patient,” said animal advocate Vicki Steerman at February’s public safety meeting.

Steerman has raised concerns about ACS being understaffed since before now.

“Basically, they told me that the criteria that determines whether or not a person could be hired was too stringent, and that they were going to work on making it less stringent,” she said.

She said she dealt with issues firsthand when she rescued her dog, Chico. He was surrendered to ACS in bad shape.

“Extremely emaciated,” Steerman described. “His eyes were protruding and damaged, and he was clearly he was clearly neglected.”

She spent nearly a year asking for updates on the case.

“I believe that it did happen because they were understaffed, but I also believe that.. there’s very little sense of urgency in the city in general to address the issues that we have with cruelty and with dogs in general,” Steerman said.

“We’ve improved. We’ve got vacancies filled, and we also have dedicated a supervisor to that team now, which they didn’t have prior,” Gary said at Tuesday’s meeting.

ACS now only has four vacancies on its staff. On its cruelty investigation staff, there’s only one opening.

While Gary is looking forward to the work the department is doing, Vicki has her doubts.

“The advocates in this city need to monitor this issue and need to act,” she said. “Because, no, I don’t have hope.”

ACS has one opening for an animal cruelty investigator, and two to investigate bites. They’re also looking for one first response officer.