TO: NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES
AND EDUCATION
COMMITTEE
FROM: Matt Loesch
SUBJECT: Animal Care and Services
Annual report
DATE: December 05, 2024
Approved Date:
12/5/2024
RECOMMENDATION
Accept the annual report on the Animal Care and Services Division’s accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2023-2024.
BACKGROUND
This annual report provides an update on the activities of the Animal Care and Services (ACS) Division, a division of the Public Works Department. ACS is made up of four units; Shelter Operations, Medical Services, Field Operations, and Administration.
ACS leads the local efforts to care for unwanted, lost, found, and unclaimed domestic pets in San José, Cupertino, Saratoga, and Milpitas, and to ensure rabies compliance and licensing requirements are met by pet owners. All Domestic pets that come into the care of ACS receive vaccines including rabies, sterilization surgery, a microchip, and if they require it, medical care at the Division’s Animal Care Center on Monterey Road.
Exotic, wild, or farm animals that come into care are transferred to rescue partners who specialize in those species.
This report details the activities of the fiscal year 2023-2024, unless otherwise indicated.
ACS welcomes the audit released in November 2024 and agrees with the recommendations. Though the scope of community-based animal care has greatly changed in the 20 years since the Division was established, our core mission remains the same; we will always be the temporary caretakers to adoptable pets until they are able to find their forever families or rescue champions. There is a national crisis in shelters across the country, and the crisis is felt right here at home, with more pets entering our shelter and staying longer, especially our large breed dogs.
NSE AGENDA: 12/12/2024
ITEM: (d)4
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
We look forward to delivering all the recommendations of the audit and continuing to build our presence in the South Bay to be a resource for pets in need in our community.
ANALYSIS
Overview
The Division continues to navigate through the national pet overpopulation crisis that many animal shelters faced. ACS worked throughout this Fiscal Year to restore valued partnerships and improve animal outcomes. The Division continues to see more pets come into its care than it has the facilities, employees, or resources for. Staff are dedicated to work with rescue partners and the community to work through the challenges and create a collaborative solution. Adding more staff and volunteers, and with the mindset of it-takes-a-village, ACS is clearing the path for a future where more pets on average can be saved thanks to work of the Division, the community, rescue, and shelter partners.
ACS took into its care 13,212 pets, found homes for 4,666 pets, provided temporary foster homes for 3,588 pets. Rescue partners and other shelters helped ACS by accepting 3,277 animals. An additional 1,243 pets were reunited back with their owners.
Not all pets that came into the care of ACS could be saved due to extreme medical trauma, disease, behavior, or at the request of the owner (euthanasia requests by owners are assessed by a medical professional to verify the most humane outcome). A total of 1,434 pets were humanely euthanized.
As reported in the Division’s fiscal year 2022-2023 Annual Report, the buyout of private veterinarian practices across the country, coupled with landlord pet fees and breed restrictions, and the general cost of living in the Bay Area, continues to greatly effect some owner’s abilities to care for the pets that they love.
ACS intake staff has witnessed an increase in abandoned pets brought to the Center by good Samaritans, or good-intentioned neighbors rescuing outdoor pets that live in the community who are not lost but are just wandering. Pets who come to the Animal Care Center are scanned for a microchip and the owners are contacted if a chip or any identification is found.
The remainder of this report details the activities of the four units within ACS—Shelter Operations, Medical Services, Field Operations, and Administration—and closes with a discussion of the strategies employed by ACS over the past fiscal year and its goals for the current year.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Shelter Operations
Shelter operations include adoptions, animal enrichment, animal feeding, owner surrender, support spay and neuter surgeries, cage and kennel cleaning, and animal euthanasia (for medical and behavioral issues that affect the animal’s quality of life or to protect public safety). Shelter operations also include the Volunteer Program.
Volunteers help socialize adoptable animals, walk adoption dogs, assist with some cleaning, provide enrichment, help with adoptions, conduct play groups, and support other shelter activities. Volunteers have also helped with the coordination and transport of animals for spay and neuter surgeries. The volunteers continue to be an important part of the operation.
Animal Intake
The animal population at the animal shelter has continued to stay at a high level. The number of cats and kittens fluctuate every season but the number of large dogs at the shelter has not decreased. The increase in animal population has increased the number of staffing and resources needed. Additionally, the increase in animal population has also extended the length of stay for many animals. As shown in the chart below, the animal intake at the shelter increase by 19.8% from the prior year.
As fiscal year 2022-2023 and in the March through June timeframe, staff needed to stem the tide off animals into the shelter. They prioritized the intake of sick, injured, and aggressive animals. Healthy animals were taken in on a case-by-case basis when staffing resources and space were available.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
The condition of all animals is evaluated based on the weCARE Pet Evaluation Matrix1.
The condition rating on intake of the animals arriving to the shelter worsened even more this year as a percent of total animals served. This was, in part, due to San José ACS controlling animal intake to sick and injured and because community access to veterinary care elsewhere has been challenged due to cost and availability. The number of unhealthy and untreatable animals (U/U) that were impounded at the shelter increased from 1,791 to 3,831. That is an increase in the percent of intake from 16% to 29%.
Animal Outcomes
The goal for animals entering the shelter is to provide them care and treatment which results in a live outcome. Live outcomes are adoptions, transfer to a rescue partner or shelter, return to an owner, and return to the field (community cats).
ACS continues to work on improving collaboration and coordination with rescue and shelter partners. There was an increase of 7% in the number of Rescue Partners that pulled and animal from the prior year involvement 104 from 97. Overall, the number of animals sent to rescue partners decreased by 4% from 1,672 animals (fiscal year 2022- 2023) to 1,598 animals (fiscal year 2023-2024). While dogs going to rescue increased by 29% (464 animals), there was decrease of 27% (823 animals) in cats. ACS staff will endeavor to improve overall rescue relationships through processes and financial support.
The most notable increase in live outcomes was through adoptions. During fiscal year 2023-2024, ACS adopted out 4,666 animals, which is a five-year high and an increase of 37% when compared to fiscal year 2022-2023 (3,400 adoptions). ACS continues to work with the community, rescues, and shelter partners to improve an animal’s outcome.
Non-live outcomes include animals who died or are euthanized. When compared to fiscal year 2022-2023 (1,072 euthanized), the number of animals euthanized at ACS during fiscal year 2023-2024 was 1,434 animals. The number of animals who died in the shelter and outside of the shelter (still considered ACS animals) was 592, which was an increase of 164 over the prior year.
Live Release Rate
Starting fiscal year 2023-2024, ACS will report the live release rates (LRR) consistent with the Asilomar Accords and in line with industry standards. The Asilomar Accords2 was created in 2004 and created a standard for calculating live outcomes. These will be posted to our website in the coming weeks and will also share the prior four fiscal years 1 https://www.hssv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/weCARE_Pet_Evaluation_Matrix.pdf 2 https://shelteranimalscount.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/2004aaccords5_c97fa2dafd.pdf
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
with this format for easy comparison to other shelters. The LRR increased to 86% for all animals.
Medical Operations
The medical operations team consists of Animal Health Assistants, Animal Health Technicians, Veterinarians, Operations Supervisor, and a Division Manager (Medical Director). The medical team provides medical care, treatment, herd health management, and emergency care for all animals within the shelter. Medical staff perform procedures such as vaccinations, x-ray, blood analysis, dental procedures/extractions, major surgeries, emergency procedures, orthopedic procedures, forensic analysis for criminal investigations, in addition to spay and neuter surgeries for shelter animals, owned pets, and stray community cats.
Spay and Neuter
Sterilization of pets may help with behavioral issues, provide protection against some serious health problems, and most importantly, reduce the overall pet population. Spay and neuter aims to provide surgeries for the animals in the shelter and the community.
Internally, the goal is to provide spay and neuter to shelter animals. Sterilizing an animal increases its ability for a timely outcome for adoptions, foster, and transfer to a rescue partner. Staff prioritized surgery for animals who had an immediate outcome to the community or partner.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Externally, the intent is to have spay and neuter services available to pet owners, community members, and community trappers. ACS faced the head wind of sick and injured animals in the care of the shelter that decreased the availability of staff Veterinarians and Animal Health Technicians who could perform public spay and neuter including Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). ACS utilized contracts to outsource surgical services. Externally outsourced surgeries required more resources. Acquiring the contracts involved the administrative team for the proper documentation and insurance requirements. ACS shelter staff and volunteers helped with coordination and transport of the animals to the location of the contracted entity.
ACS acquired contracts with the Humane Society of Silicon Valley, Valley Humane Society, Spay Neuter Imperative Project (SNIP) and Nine Lives Foundation for veterinary services and spay and neuter surgeries. The contracts and purchase orders, helped with animal adoptions, rescue transfers, and foster placements, which helped decrease the population at the shelter. The contracts and purchase orders demonstrated the commitment to the spay and neuter program, the animals, and community.
Overall, the ACS team and partner organizations completed a total of 6,225 surgeries, (including spay and neuter) which was an increase of thirty-nine percent (+1,761 surgeries) when compared to completed surgeries from fiscal year 2022-2023 (4,464).
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Staff are also working internally to develop an internal communications flow of these vital operations for all adoptable pets and pets from the community and once that is well established, hopes to extend its services to the public in the cities that it serves. The aim is to create a sustainable program. This effort is not a one-agency response but will require an all-hands-on-deck commitment and will take time, pilot projects, and a strategic, management roll-out to be effective.
Medical Treatment
The medical team provides treatment for animals that need care. During fiscal year 2023-2024, a total of 3,638 animals who entered the shelter were categorized as unhealthy and untreatable (U/U), this number was an increase of 103 percent when compared to fiscal year 2022-2023 (1,791 U/U). The high number of unhealthy and untreatable animals strained staff resources. The medical team continued to work to ensure that disease spread was limited and provide medical care and treatment to all animals entering the shelter. The increase in the number of unhealthy and untreatable animals demonstrates the need for more veterinary resources available for the community.
Field Operations
During the fiscal year 2023-2024, San José Animal Services Field Unit provided services to the citizens of San José, as well as our contract cities, Milpitas, Cupertino, Los Gatos, and Saratoga. These services included responses to emergency calls, stray and sick domestic and wild animals, criminal investigations, public safety investigations involving aggressive dogs, municipal investigations and inspections and permitting of animal facilities.
This year, new 3-year contract agreements were initiated with the Cities of Cupertino and Saratoga. However, Los Gatos, a previous contract city, declined to renew. The new agreement’s response times are now in alignment with the City of Milpitas.
Calls For Service
San José Animal Services Field Unit respond to numerous types of calls for service and are organized by levels of priority.
Priority 1 calls are emergency situations that have a 1-hour response time, and include first responder assists, sick or injured animals, public safety calls involving aggressive animals, active crimes involving animal victims and any other emergent situations involving public safety or animal welfare. The ACS Field Unit responded to 2,566 Priority 1 Calls.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Priority 2 and Priority 3 calls include bite and exposure investigations, dangerous dog and humane investigations, municipal complaints, dead animal pick-ups, stray animals, and facility inspections. The ACS Field Unit responded to 13,932 Priority 2 and 3 calls.
Criminal investigations are a priority for the Field Unit. The opportunity to get justice for an animal who was criminally abused or neglected is a goal for our team. The reporting of these crimes is also on the Federal radar.
The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a federally run information system that documents crimes against humanity, and animal crimes are part of that reporting. Within the past year, San José Animal Services Field Unit has reported over 350 reported cases of animal crimes, neglect, and abuse into the NIBRS system.
Over the past 5 years, the San José Animal Services Field Unit has responded to over 95,000 calls for service. The field unit average response time for all Priority 1 calls was 29 minutes. The average response time for Priority 2 calls was 1 day and Priority 3 calls was 2 days. The San José Animal Services Field Unit continue to provide service to the citizens and animals within our city and our contract cities.
Administration
The Administration unit oversees customer service, licensing, fees, accounts receivable/payable, billing, purchase order and contract management, human resources and onboarding, and budget tracking.
Donations and Revenues
Throughout the year, Animal Care and Services (ACS) conducts fundraising efforts for donations. These funds cover a wide range of treatments from foster care supplies for newborn kittens to dental work, broken bone repairs, and other serious health issues.
Additionally, the funds help enrich the lives of shelter animals by providing stimulating activities and support marketing efforts to promote adoptions. Currently, we have a fundraising effort to upgrade the dog play yards.
Part of our donations from this program fund our Guardian Angel Program, which are primarily used to provide additional medical care for unowned animals at the facility and to assist rescue partners with animals they save from the shelter.
Total donations accounted for in fiscal year 2023-2024 were $476,641 which was a decrease from $489,435 when compared to fiscal year 2022-2023. The overall revenue for fiscal year 2023-2024 was $3,491,632 which was an increase from $3,393,517 when compared to the previous fiscal year. Overall revenues resulted in an 22% cost recovery against the ACS operating budget.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Animal Licensing
Fiscal year 2023-2024 resulted in an overall revenue of $1,575,495, which was lower than the previous fiscal year of $1,650,468. ASC will continue to evaluate how to increase license compliance rates for pet owners within the City of San José.
Communications & Outreach
ACS added a new full-time Public Information Manager and a part-time Public Information Representative to our staff. In January, both were busy recalibrating how we talked to the public and implementing a storytelling-based strategy to our social media marketing. The new team emphasized customer service by being responsive to social media comments and social media direct messages. The team cleaned up the webpages and social platforms to remove any barriers for access (broken links, textheavy webpages, etc.). They built new webpages that made finding pets, our services, or our information easier (i.e. Most Overlooked Dogs webpage) and added a robust link tree for Instagram. The team expanded the Division’s social media reach into the City’s Next-door. The team also reached out to the Division’s service cities, some rescue partners like Humane Society Silicon Valley and Adopt My Block to leverage those audiences and expand our reach.
ACS Continuous Improvement Strategies
During fiscal year 2022-2023, ACS identified strategies with the intent of improving the lives of the animals at the shelter and the community.
Rebuilding Relationships with Rescues and Shelter Partners- To improve relationships with partners, ACS meets with rescue and shelter partners every quarter. The goal is to improve overall communication as well as improve outcomes for animals at the shelter and community. ACS is also updating its policy and process to improve on providing financial support for rescue partners. The need to improve the focus on the rescue and foster program resulted in a creation of a Rescue and Foster Coordinator. Once hired the Rescue and Foster Coordinator will be able to focus on relationships and live outcomes to rescue partners and the community.
Spay and Neuter and Enhancing TNR- ACS worked with external resources and created contracts to outsource TNR services. The limited number of veterinarians at ACS could not sustain the constant demand for TNR services. ACS committed a total of $285,000 in contracts or purchase orders to help with spay and neuter for adoptable animals and support the TNR programs.
Animal Behavior- ACS worked with a certified behavior counselor and a certified behaviorist to improve processes and behavior evaluation for dogs at the animal shelter.
Staff have applied the information with the goal to improve outcomes for dogs with behavior challenges.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Medical Service Protocols- In January 2024, California Veterinary Board inspectors conducted an inspection at the animal shelter and additional investigations of various medical records. Corrective items were identified at the shelter and listed by the inspectors. ACS staff were provided a timeframe to correct the noted items. ACS staff worked with the medical team and achieved compliance as set forth by the California Veterinary Medical Practice Act by the corrective action date and achieved compliance in March 2024.
Updating Medical Processes- The Medical Director updated several processes and policies to ensure better alignment with Association of Shelter Veterinarian Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters. Renewed Ringworm and Panleukopenia policies have been implemented to ensure timely disease identification and provide better consistency of treatment and care. Additionally, two full-time Veterinarians were hired and fully trained. These doctors have been a real asset for the hundreds of animals in our shelter and in foster care who require daily treatments, as well as more specialized care which can only be provided under the direction of a licensed Veterinarian. With our additional Veterinarians, we were able to increase our TNR appointment schedule to twice-a-week. The shelter also prioritized accepting pregnant cats to curtail unwanted litters being born. The increase in doctors allows for enhanced care for the more than 3,500 cats, dogs, rabbits, and guinea pigs, who were cared for in foster homes last year. The medical unit also increased some automated functions such as auto-generated emails for people who found feral cats, and were willing to pick them up after their surgeries were performed.
The medical unit also experienced some facilities enhancements, including the expansion of the shelter hospital, by removing a wall. This allows critical animals to be housed inside the hospital, allowing for better observation and care delivery.
Communication and Conflict Resolution Protocols- ACS staff continue to engage in dialogue and communication with the community and partners through social media and direct communication. ACS staff are working with the CMO team to improve communication and conflict resolution strategies. One of the projects that started was to translate forms that the community fills out or provided while conducting business with ACS. The translated forms will improve customer service and equity.
Expanding Live Outcome Options and Opportunities- Key to audiences finding the available pets has been telling their stories. Our social media pivoted to story-telling based marketing starting in January 2024, and that approach netted our most rapid number of followers when a German Shepherd puppy was brought in early one January morning with a bullet hole in her snout. The bullet had shattered portions of her jaw and shot off a toe and she was recovering in our medical unit when we posted her story. The team named her Marley. Combined with an image of Marley recovering from surgery and her bound paw, the story told of her injuries and our work to stabilize her. Marley would go on to have many more updates from our rapt audience until she was adopted
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
to a private citizen. We then applied that strategy to all our social media posts. By telling our stories – our medical, our field unit, our adoptions, our reunions – we lifted the visibility of the Center in our community thus resulting in more adopters, volunteers, donors looking at the pets in our care.
Combined with storytelling, we worked to improve the imagery of the pets in our care.
Both our Public Information Manager and our part-time Public Information Representative worked to diversify the imagery of the pets in our care to highlight their individuality. Once our Communications team started taking wider shots of the pets’ full body and encouraged those types of images, we noticed a marked improvements in adoptions. Part of our story-telling approach was having stories to tell about the pets, in many cases how they arrived at our shelter was compelling story enough, or if it was relevant, how we helped the pet heal or come out of its shell in our care. We reached out to corporate partners like Embark and found an eagerness to partner with us. The company provided complementary DNA test kits and we used those on most of our longest terms dogs. In many cases the results revealed breeds that changed perspectives on the dog. When the rate of adoptions for those featured dogs rose fast, we ordered more tests and repeated the marketing angle. By the new fiscal year, the company approached us to try its newest product: an age test. We collected swabs for our current overlooked dogs with some surprising results that our team is still assessing.
ACS staff also removed barriers to finding our adoptable pets online. We cleaned up the adoptable pets' webpages to make finding the Pet Compass database as easy as possible; we added the Most Overlooked Dogs webpage and added the Most Overlooked Cats after the new fiscal year. Each of those pages provided direct links to the pets' profiles, DNA results, if we had them, and social media coverage. Part and parcel with promoting dogs for adoption meant we attracted volunteers and foster parents. They are the collateral joy that is the result of better visibility in the community.
Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Goals
ACS continues to be committed to serving the animals and the community. For fiscal year 2024-2025 and fiscal year 2025-2026 ACS will continue to implement the following categories and strategies.
Rebuilding Relationships with Rescues and shelter partners Spay and Neuter and Enhancing TNR
Animal Behavior Training
Medical Service Protocols
Redesigning Intake Process
Communication and Conflict Resolution Protocols
Expanding Live Outcome options and opportunities
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES & EDUCATION COMMITTEE
December 5, 2024
Subject: Animal Care and Services Annual Report
Along with the categories and strategies, ACS staff will create a workplan to complete the audit recommendations, which includes the completion of the Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge Recommendations and implement the Association of Shelter Veterinarians Guidelines with new policies and practice. A progress update will be provided at the May 2025 Neighborhood Services and Education Committee Meeting.
COORDINATION
This memorandum and attached report have been coordinated with the City’s Attorney Office.
/s/
MATT LOESCH
Director, Department of Public Works
For questions, please contact Jay Terrado, Deputy Director, Public Works Department at [email protected]