{"id":46885,"date":"2025-11-12T20:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/46885\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T20:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:18:07","slug":"opinion-what-were-they-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/46885\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: What Were They Thinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/eph_5-1-980x551.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A picture of two street dogs sitting on grass looking at the camera.\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>  <\/p>\n<p>Guest Editorial<br \/>By Barbara Valencia<\/p>\n<p>After seeing the video of a little girl chased by a pack of dogs in the City of Socorro, many have asked why this was allowed to happen. It only took a little digging to find out the best kept secret Socorro residents are unaware of.<\/p>\n<p>Since the City of Socorro doesn\u2019t have its own animal shelter and can\u2019t take in or house stray or roaming dogs, they made an interlocal agreement with the City of El Paso for El Paso Animal Services (EPAS) to handle and house those dogs. Sounds like a solution, right? But a closer look at the agreement reveals its truth:<\/p>\n<p>According to the agreement:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe City MAY receive at the City\u2019s Animal Shelter located at 5001 Fred Wilson Road, El Paso, Texas 79906 (the \u2018Shelter\u2019) each animal that is delivered to the Shelter by the City of Socorro or by residents of City of Socorro. The city MAY handle each animal that is delivered to the Shelter either by the City of Socorro or by residents of City of Socorro, whether it be in order to reunite said animal with its owner, quarantine, maintain evidence for a legal proceeding, or euthanize and dispose of said animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The agreement allows EPAS to choose whether to take in dogs, and a week before the incident with the little girl, they chose not to. Several of the dogs involved were captured and brought to EPAS but were refused intake under the interlocal agreement, which doesn\u2019t require them to accept the dogs. With no place for the dogs to go, they were released back into the neighborhood, where they ended up terrorizing a little girl. It\u2019s worth noting that previous agreements within the county and the City of El Paso stated, \u201cThe city WILL receive at the City\u2019s Animal Shelter,\u201d which made intake a requirement for EPAS.<\/p>\n<p>The interlocal agreement is meant to promote the health and welfare of the citizens. So, for the mayor and city representatives of Socorro to enter into an agreement that hampers the city of its ability to protect residents from stray or roaming dogs is baffling and leaves many of us asking\u2026what were they thinking!<\/p>\n<p>Like Us and Follow Us On Our Social Media!<\/p>\n<p>About Barbara Valencia<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Valencia is a long-time animal advocate and the Director of Huckleberry Hound Dog Rescue of El Paso, a local no kill nonprofit dog rescue.<\/p>\n<p>The El Paso Herald Post is committed to publishing letters to the editor discussing current events and about our reporting. Send your letters to the editor to editor[at]elpasoheraldpost.com.<\/p>\n<p>Visited 3 times, 3 visit(s) today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guest EditorialBy Barbara Valencia After seeing the video of a little girl chased by a pack of dogs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10781,138,17160,140,139,27154],"class_list":["post-46885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-city-of-socorro","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-animal-services","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-paws-in-the-desert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}