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.
A 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 shelterâs decline persist, forcing the community to fend more often for itself when animal issues arise.
âThe biggest issue is mismanagement, and Iâll just say I think itâs incompetence,â said Lyne Lamoureux, a longtime volunteer at the shelter. âThey should prioritize local spay and neuter to stop the onslaught of animals coming in, and itâs horrible because they havenât been doing it for five years. At the same time, theyâre not working with rescues to the point that they have basically broken all the relationships.â
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 â nearly 700 compared to the facilityâs 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 shelterâs 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.
âWe 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,â 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.
âThey can finally stretch out from tail to nose, (theyâre) more relaxed and healthier, (and) that way we can remove them faster, and on the flip side, then youâre able to help more cats,â Kather said. âI know itâs a struggle for some people to accept that, but weâre always going to go with what our industry standards â with experts in shelter medicine fields (say). Everybody has opinions, but weâre going to follow the industry standards of professionals.â
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 shelterâs 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.
âNobody on our staff has said, âTake it down to PetSmart,â and we absolutely would not do that,â division manager Kiska Icard said. âWe give resources, and if somebody said we absolutely canât, thatâs why we buffer a little bit of space for truly the ones that need it the most.â
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 âno neglectâ and characterizing it as a âfreak accident,â 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 â 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 shelterâs level of services, despite the City Councilâs direction to restore relationships with rescues and expand trap-neuter-return and low-cost spay-and-neuter offerings.
âThe 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,â advocate Dinah Hayse said. âWe 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.â
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 communityâs 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.
âShould we achieve all these things and get all 39 (recommendations) done, there has not been an audit of this volume thatâs been achieved in a year that Iâm aware of that the auditors ever produced,â Loesch said. âThis is a massive focus by us, in addition to caring for the animals that we have.â
