The OC animal shelter keeps raising its budget but reducing frontline staff. The shelter had about 32 Animal Care Attendants (ACAs) back in 2017; it’s now down to 16. This has dire consequences for the staff and for the animals in the shelter’s care, including big dogs, small dogs, puppies, cats, kittens, and bunnies.
Where does the county expect frontline staff to cut back? Does the county expect ACAs to rush through adoption counseling? Skip some of the cleaning? Not check whether dogs have enough water on hot days? Give a day’s food to a dog in one go, rather than the industry standard of two meals? Or leave the dogs in their kennels for days on end? To avoid unacceptable shortfalls in animal care, the shelter needs more ACAs. A lot more.
Proper animal care should meet all the animals’ needs, laid out in the guidelines of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV). These ASV guidelines are part of the shelter’s own 2018 Strategic Plan, unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors. But the shelter is violating both the Strategic Plan and the ASV guidelines. The result is poor performance and community criticism. The OC Grand Jury said as much in a scathing report.
Daily responsibilities of ACAs include feeding, watering, cleaning kennels, getting animals out for exercise, and facilitating adoption visits. The Strategic Plan also calls for dogs to receive daily playgroups and positive social interaction. The ASV states that these social and behavioral needs “must be given the same significance as other components of animal care, such as nutrition and medical care, and [are] never considered optional”.
What’s the appropriate level of staffing to do all this? The county’s own consultants said that, using industry guidelines, 26 Animal Care Attendants should be on duty on any given day. Instead, the shelter usually has about 7. Can 7 staff, no matter how conscientious, do the work of 26? The shelter needs to invest in building a strong team of attendants to care for the animals.
Right now, the shelter is full. It should do everything possible to increase adoptions. Instead, the shelter is limiting kennel viewing to just 21 hours a week, significantly lower than the pre-pandemic schedule of 42 hours a week. Not only that, if you want to go to the shelter and look at smaller dogs, you cannot! You can only visit the bigger dogs!
Other area shelters are more welcoming: LA County allows 36 a week. LA City 48 hours, Mission Viejo 28, Irvine 30, Laguna Beach 35, and Long Beach 29.5, all leaving OC in the dust.
Why hasn’t OC Animal Care returned to pre-pandemic viewing hours? To increase adoptions, make it easy for adopters/taxpayers to see the animals! People need to experience first-hand the personality and charm of a potential family pet.
This takes us back to Animal Care Attendants. Who handles the adoption visits? You guessed it – the overworked ACAs. Adequate staffing and visiting hours are the key to more adoptions. And getting animals adopted is the key to reducing overcrowding and ultimately reducing costs. Frontline staff are the cornerstone of a good shelter and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
Shelter staff do their best because they love animals. But the actions and policies of handsomely-paid managers Monica Schmidt, Cymantha Atkinson, and Dylan Wright are incoherent and inexplicable. They’re dodging the Strategic Plan. They’re curtailing the adopters/taxpayers’ access to kennels. They’re not providing enough frontline staff to care for the animals and facilitate adoptions.
What about elected officials? County Supervisor Katrina Foley has been giving cover to failed policies, placing her faith in incompetent managers, and staying away from data and facts. It’s a complete failure of leadership.
The citizens of OC don’t want filthy kennels, isolated and stressed dogs, or blocked adoptions. Dear county leaders, you can and must do better. Dust off your Strategic Plan and use it. Provide for the animals’ physical and behavioral needs. Boost the number of Animal Care Attendants. Open kennel viewing for additional hours. Become the high-quality shelter I know you can be.
I urge citizens to get more information at OCShelter.com and tell Supervisor Katrina Foley to face the facts and put an end to the mismanagement.
Margot Boyer, an animal welfare advocate, lives in Yorba Linda. She is an experienced Event and Trade Show Manager, Green Industry Hall of Fame Director, and Event Director for the California Association of Landscape Contractors.
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