ROUND ROCK, Texas —
The City of Round Rock is considering some new pet protections to its fire code almost two years after the Ponderosa Pet Resort fire.
Round Rock City Council is expected to vote next week on updating its fire codes for 24-hour pet boarding facilities as a response to the deadly fire at a pet boarding facility in Georgetown in 2021.
In September 2021, a fire killed 75 animals at the Ponderosa Pet Resort. No one was on staff when the fire broke out, and there were no smoke alarms or sprinklers in the facility to extinguish the flames.
The City of Georgetown has already changed its fire code for pet care facilities, and now Round Rock is set to change theirs.
This is welcomed news to Leikyn Huckins, a pet owner turned activist who lost two loved dogs in the Ponderosa Pet Resort fire.
"This is not something I've ever done before. To tell you the truth, I'm not a political person whatsoever," Huckins said.
Huckins considers herself an activist after losing her dogs, Gizmo and Drexel, in the fire at Ponderasa Pet Resort back in 2021.
"To know that the horrible death they endured is something I cannot forget. I can't get. It haunts me to this day," Huckins said.
Many cities don't have a lot of requirements for pet care facilities. Before they changed the rules in Georgetown, Pondersa wasn't required to have smoke alarms or sprinklers – something Huckins and other pet owners didn't know.
"It was my responsibility to make them safe. And because I chose to assume that there were protections in place, they paid the ultimate price," Huckins said.
Rising from the ashes of the fire, Huckins' desire was to make a change in the policy to protect other pets.
"It's not just about the choices that humans make for them. It's about animals, too, that should have safety requirements to keep them safe," Huckins said.
Huckins travels to different Central Texas city council meetings to ask councilmembers to address regulations for pet care facilities.
If the resolution is approved, any new building or building that adds square footage or height would have to add a sprinkler system that is monitored around the clock.
Any existing facilities that offers 24-hour pet care would have to put in a monitoring system, that would include a smoke detection system, that has "eyes" on the facility at all hours of the day.
Round Rock Fire Department Fire Chief Shane Glaiser said any kind of detection can improve firefighters' response time and give pet parents peace of mind.
"Everybody loves their pet. A pet becomes another part of your family. Just it doesn't matter if it's a cat dog or whatever that's there. Another member of your family. And so you want to do everything you can to protect them," Glaiser said.
These requirements are something that Dogtopia in Round Rock already has in place.
"It wasn't required, but I felt that I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that there wasn't some sort of fire suppression system in here," said Ben Hauck, owner of Dogtopia Round Rock.
Hauck said he's happy to see so many areas making an effort to help keep pets safe.
"I think it's incredibly important. I think knowing that your fur babies are safe at night and and having that confidence is really important," Hauck said.
Round Rock City Council had a first reading on this ordinance and can vote to approve it on a second reading. The council meets once again next Thursday and if the resolution is approved, pet boarding facilities that already exist in city limits have two years to become compliant.