Over 70 dogs euthanized in council member's $50,000 stray sweep

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - “Were talking about human beings that are being bitten and almost killed by stray animals,” city council member Dwight Boykins told us around this time last year.

After announcing his plans to use $50,000 of his city budget to have a massive sweep of strays in District D, some animal advocates asked Boykins to consider other options.

“I offered non-lethal solutions to this,” said Bett Sundermeyer with No Kill Houston. “There are other ways to handle the stray dog problem besides picking them up and killing them.”

This e-mail from the council member's staff states $180 to $200 per animal was being spent to secure the adoption of approximately 250 to 270 dogs. But instead of being adopted, about a third of the dogs got a death sentence.

“A lot of these were people’s pets that were killed,” Sundermeyer said.

According to the kennel cards obtained from BARC, a total of 224 dogs were picked up during the sweep. These kennel cards show pictures of all the ones who were euthanized. We know these dogs were part of the Boykin sweep because it says that on the kennel cards. Out of the 224 total we know at least 74 dogs were euthanized. It’s not known what happened to at least 10 more because no outcome is listed on their kennel cards.

“I’m assuming 84 animals were killed in these sweeps,” said  Sundermeyer.

The number of deaths from the sweep could be even higher since these sweeps mean other dogs are euthanized to make room for more.

“It’s heartbreaking looking into these faces perfectly wonderful adoptable pets,” Sundermeyer said.

In a statement, Boykins told us “I am in the process of identifying an adoption agency because I am not for euthanizing any animal, but I will always be concerned with the safety of my constituents first.”