A critical city report highlighting deteriorating conditions at the San Jose animal shelter echoes concerns advocates and former volunteers have raised for years.
San Jose’s Animal Care Center is the city-run adoption center that also serves residents in neighboring cities like Cupertino, Milpitas and Saratoga seeking dogs, cats or rabbits. But several residents with firsthand experience of the shelter told San José Spotlight it has become uninhabitable and inhumane. Years of piling complaints led the City Auditor’s Office to investigate the shelter, resulting in a 134-page report chronicling evidence of mismanagement that will be reviewed by the San Jose City Council on Dec. 3.
The report shows the shelter is consistently over capacity by several hundred animals, with workers ignoring protocol and record keeping to the detriment of the animals’ well-being. To illustrate these concerns, the report contains several images of animals in unkempt kennels littered with feces.
Auditors also found almost 60% of shelter animals have expired rabies certificates — a violation of state law. They also reported the shelter is out of compliance with Drug Enforcement Agency laws because paperwork keeping track of drugs is sometimes incomplete or missing.
The report gives open-ended recommendations on how the shelter can improve conditions, such as suggesting staff look into whether more kennel space is needed, increase opportunities for adoption and identify funding needs for the most necessary improvements.
While the report confirms much of what animal advocates have reported, such as overcrowding, lack of medical care and staff negligence, Sustain Our Shelters co-founder Rebekah Davis-Matthews said she isn’t confident city officials will take any action. She is organizing a rally outside City Hall with fellow supporters during the Dec. 3 council meeting to call for a change in shelter leadership and hopes city officials heed the call.
“The animals need us to speak for them, and people need to pay attention because what’s happening at the shelter is inhumane,” Davis-Matthews told San José Spotlight. “I’m hoping this report will be what city leaders need to do something.”
While Mayor Matt Mahan and several fellow councilmembers recently published a letter in support of the auditor’s recommendations, there’s no mention of possible consequences if animal shelter leaders don’t meet them. The recommendations are set to be complete by Dec. 31, 2025.
“Our shelter is overcapacity, underwater, and needs to rapidly embrace significant changes to improve outcomes for animals,” the letter published Wednesday reads. “We’ve tried to help animals that come our way without proper record keeping and disease control management practices, trainings for staff and volunteers, or maximizing the capacity of our rescue partners.”
Kiska Icard, acting director of the animal shelter, said after reading the report, the shelter will launch a community action committee to increase engagement with residents.
“This will be a really good way to be able to address some of the animal welfare problems that we have that extend beyond the shelter, like increasing the amount of spay and neuter and improving the communication with our rescue partners,” Icard told San José Spotlight.
She said she hopes to ramp up efforts with local rescue partners who will help alleviate the burden of animal care.
“We are the largest intake shelter in Northern California, and whether folks are looking for a companion, cat, dog or a rabbit, we really pride ourselves in attempting to deliver really good customer service,” Icard said. “Our robust foster program is also a way that people can help without making a long term commitment. I encourage people to come and visit the shelter.”
San José Spotlight reported last year 426 animals died at the shelter and 1,072 animals were euthanized, according to the report. At its peak, the San Jose Animal Care Center had more than 900 animals — more than double its capacity.
Resident Mary Shoane said she witnessed the dirty shelter conditions as far back as two years ago when visiting in hopes of adopting a dog.
“The scene is very depressing, and it’s been like that for years,” she told San José Spotlight. “The worker who came up gave me a dirty look, and I told her the dog I wanted to see, she just told me ‘go to that spot’ like she doesn’t even want me to see the dog.”
On top of staff neglect, the report shows workers mismanaging volunteers and using outdated software, which makes it difficult to track progress.
Los Gatos resident Teresa Spalding told San José Spotlight she signed up to volunteer as a dog walker though a partnering nonprofit program after friends told her animals at the shelter hardly left their kennels. She said she was surprised to receive an email rejecting her application because the program was at capacity.
Ani Elmaoglu, founder of Kosmo Dog Training, said she was also turned away as a volunteer despite being a certified dog trainer and former volunteer at the shelter. She made a social media post including a copy of the rejection email — which prompted an apologetic response from San Jose Public Works Director Matt Loesch, who blamed the application rejection on staff error.
“They’re not accepting volunteers fast enough, and when they do get accepted they just get mistreated,” Elmaoglu told San José Spotlight.
The shelter also does not specialize in behavioral training, Elmaoglu said, and it’s necessary for dogs to adjust to life outside the shelter.
Cupertino resident Chris Favero said she witnessed the shelter’s effects on animals after taking home a dog with too many behavioral issues for her family to handle. But when she tried to return the dog a few days later, she said the shelter refused to take the animal back.
“I called every animal shelter in the Bay Area and got the same answer from everybody, ‘We’re overwhelmed with animals,’” Favero told San José Spotlight. “When the San Jose shelter finally listened to me, I cried returning this little dog to the shelter situation. It was heartbreaking.”
Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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