Six months after a scathing audit rebuked the San Jose Animal Care and Services Center for squalid conditions and overcrowding, animal advocates and volunteers remain at odds with the city over the progress its making at the shelter, accusing administrators again of mismanagement and failing to adequately serve the community.
Related Articles
Take a pet-friendly foodie day trip to Bodega Bay Check out these Bay Area events on Mother’s Day weekend and beyond How Valerie the dachshund was finally nabbed after 529 days on Kangaroo Island May the Fourth, and rest of month, be with you at these Bay Area events Bay Area events calendar for April 25 weekly editionsA report from the city auditor in December confirmed the legitimacy of many concerns volunteers and advocates had raised for years about the troubling conditions at the shelter, triggering 39 recommendations and leading elected leaders to demand improvements.
While the shelter has managed to lower its population below capacity, advocates argue that some of the underlying issues that led to the shelter’s decline persist, forcing the community to fend more often for itself when animal issues arise.
“The biggest issue is mismanagement, and I’ll just say I think it’s incompetence,” said Lyne Lamoureux, a longtime volunteer at the shelter. “They should prioritize local spay and neuter to stop the onslaught of animals coming in, and it’s horrible because they haven’t been doing it for five years. At the same time, they’re not working with rescues to the point that they have basically broken all the relationships.”
The animal shelter, which did not challenge any of the recommendations made by the auditor, has begun implementing some of the changes and has been tasked with phasing them in at various points over the calendar year.
It came under heavy scrutiny after facing a barrage of complaints and an uptick in deaths that led the City Council to ask for an objective review of its operations.
One of the main noticeable areas of concern was the number of animals sitting in the shelter — nearly 700 compared to the facility’s capacity of 500, resulting in substandard conditions and an increased risk of disease.
Among the other findings in the audit were that the shelter had taken in fewer animals despite a sizable increase in budget and had not expanded medical care, including trap-neuter-return services, to help stem the expanding pet population. It also found that the organization had a 68% decrease in engagement with rescue groups, many of whom said they did not have a positive relationship with the shelter.
As of Wednesday, Public Works Director Matt Loesch said the shelter’s population was 386 animals, and though the figures could quickly fluctuate, he recognized that past levels were unsustainable as the audit called for the shelter to address its capacity issues.
“We are trying to figure out how to exactly meter in the number of animals so that we stay under a healthy population (and) so we can maintain the health and care of the animals, and also the staff,” Loesch said.
Medical Director Dr. Elizabeth Kather also noted that the shelter saw lengths of stay decrease from 14 to 6 days for cats, and fewer infections and less stress on the animals.
“They can finally stretch out from tail to nose, (they’re) more relaxed and healthier, (and) that way we can remove them faster, and on the flip side, then you’re able to help more cats,” Kather said. “I know it’s a struggle for some people to accept that, but we’re always going to go with what our industry standards — with experts in shelter medicine fields (say). Everybody has opinions, but we’re going to follow the industry standards of professionals.”
Despite the shelter solving its overcrowding issues, advocates say it has come at the expense of the community, and that many of the concerns that prompted the audit still exist.
Along with noting the number of complaints from residents who were turned away when bringing an animal into the shelter, advocates recounted a story from Diane Cascia, an experienced trapper with a longstanding relationship with some of the shelter’s employees.
Cascia claimed she witnessed a woman attempting to turn in three kittens before an employee allegedly turned her down and told her to go down the street to PetSmart to try and give them away outside the store.
The shelter has denied those allegations.
“Nobody on our staff has said, ‘Take it down to PetSmart,’ and we absolutely would not do that,” division manager Kiska Icard said. “We give resources, and if somebody said we absolutely can’t, that’s why we buffer a little bit of space for truly the ones that need it the most.”
Questions about medical management have also surfaced in response to animal deaths.
Drawing the particular ire of volunteers and community members was the death late last year of Rufus, a pitbull who had been at the shelter for several months after going in for neutering surgery. The dog had been placed back in his kennel and left unmonitored while still anesthetized.
Despite shelter officials previously asserting in December that there was “no neglect” and characterizing it as a “freak accident,” they drafted a new policy to use a ward near the medical clinic that had been unavailable due to overcrowding issues so that staff could closely monitor the animals.
One month prior, an internal email showed that some cats that were still anesthetized had also passed away following surgery due to suspected airway obstruction, prompting staff to be reminded of proper protocols.
Mike Wagner, an advocate heavily engaged with the city, also noted that in April, the number of cats euthanized surpassed the number of adoptions — the first time he could remember seeing the numbers inverted in the three years he had tracked the data.
Advocates have also called into question the shelter’s level of services, despite the City Council’s direction to restore relationships with rescues and expand trap-neuter-return and low-cost spay-and-neuter offerings.
“The audit implementation status report highlights incremental outreach and internal protocols that fail to meaningfully address the most urgent issues facing our city, which is access to spay and neuter,” advocate Dinah Hayse said. “We cannot solve the ongoing cat and kitten crisis by turning away animals and pushing the burden onto residents, especially when you are not offering them timely and adequate access to spay and neuter or more meaningful support. That is not a strategy. It is avoidance and denial, and it has consequences.”
Data Loesch provided showed that spay and neuter services increased 15% in the first four months of 2025 over the same period last year. And while the Humane Society Silicon Valley and Animal Care Center vets use the facility for those services twice a week, the city plans to bring in a part-time veterinarian in June to offer low-cost neutering, starting with five appointments per week and progressing up to 15 in August.
Loesch acknowledged it was not enough to satisfy the community’s needs, but said it was a starting point for a more sustainable model that the shelter could continue.
He added that while the audit recommendations posed a gargantuan task, the shelter remained committed to implementing the improvements.
“Should we achieve all these things and get all 39 (recommendations) done, there has not been an audit of this volume that’s been achieved in a year that I’m aware of that the auditors ever produced,” Loesch said. “This is a massive focus by us, in addition to caring for the animals that we have.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Six months after scathing audit of San Jose shelter, animal advocates fume over unresolved problems )
Also on site :