Opinion | Our community deserves a decent animal shelter
There’s a strategic plan to improve the current condition at the OC animal shelter but incompetent managers are ignoring it. Photo collage by EMILY PARIS, Photo Editor, photo courtesy of Michael Mavrovouniotis
At OC Animal Care, down the road from Chapman, Arnold was on the euthanasia list.
Like many dogs at the shelter, Arnold had spent months in the shelter. In 2023, the shelter was clinging to its pandemic-era procedure, meaning that instead of walking through the kennels to see available dogs, visitors had to use web photos to select a couple of animals they wanted to visit. Arnold was potty-trained, calm and affectionate with volunteers, but his photo was, well, unremarkable. Can you tell a dog’s charm & personality from a web photo? Not really.
It wasn’t just Arnold. The shelter’s restrictions mean fewer adoptions – and a chronically overcrowded shelter. When a shelter gets full, it wants to free up space, and that means a grim fate for many dogs and cats. In January 2023, it was down to the wire. With help from volunteers, an out-of-state rescue whisked Arnold to safety. Other dogs weren’t so lucky. Cats were euthanized by the hundreds.
The fatal mismanagement did not go unnoticed.
In June 2023, the OC Grand Jury criticized the shelter for abandoning industry standards in their report titled “Gimme Shelter and a Pound of Advice: The State of Animal Welfare Overseen by the County of Orange.”
“The Grand Jury’s investigation determined that termination of the TNR [trap-neuter-return] program had detrimental consequences for the welfare of the animals under the shelter’s care,” the report stated. “Euthanasia rates related to dog behavior and to cats have increased significantly within the last two years. The increase… suggests that there is inconsistency over time as to how dogs are being assessed… Animal Care Attendant staffing at the shelter is inadequate… Status quo at the shelter is unacceptable.”
The county stubbornly refused to address the problems.
An avalanche of revelations followed. Citizens showed that shelter managers weren’t keeping track of animals, were grossly violating the shelter’s strategic plan and even lied about the shelter’s safety record in a desperate attempt to justify bad policies.
The elected Orange County Board of Supervisors and the County executives did nothing. OC Community Resources (OCCR), directed by Dylan Wright and Cymantha Atkinson, is the agency that should be fixing the shelter’s problems. Instead, this bureaucracy abetted the disastrous policies and deployed a disinformation campaign, a repeat of their 2022 tactic.
And what about the shelter’s director you may ask? There isn’t one. The previous director left in May, an implicit recognition of failure. OCCR has kept the position empty since, making do with an “interim” director, Monica Schmidt, who is the main instigator of the fatally flawed policies. Is OCCR intent on carrying out a deadly experiment, with a fumbling temp at the helm?
In January 2024, after State Senator Janet Nguyen wrote an unsparing opinion piece, OC Animal Care finally softened one pandemic-era restriction and let the public in. It’s a small step in the right direction.
But the mismanagement went on too long, and that’s depressingly obvious in the shelter’s dismal statistics, as exposed in a most recent Orange County Register article. Small steps are not enough.
We already have the blueprint for a well-run shelter: the shelter’s own strategic plan, which was developed by national experts and unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2018. Was that just for show?
By this plan, the shelter should:
Give dogs daily opportunities to socialize with other dogs. Take cats out of their kennels at least three times per week. Log and track these activities for each animal.
Minimize the animals’ length of stay in the shelter. Remove roadblocks to getting animals adopted or, when appropriate, rescued. Provide veterinary care for animals that need it, while making them available for public adoption.
Return at least 45% of stray dogs to their owners. Ramp up a program to trap, neuter, and return (TNR) community cats. Get at least 85% of incoming cats adopted or rescued.
Follow national standards written by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV).
The shelter is way behind on all of these. Trying to hide their failure, shelter managers are keeping the strategic plan and the ASV national standards well hidden.
Will the shelter, at long last, serve its mission and OC residents? Will County Supervisors do right by our community and its companion animals?
If you want to help this cause, you can do so by emailing elected officials and signing a petition. For updates, go to OCShelter.com.