In 2022, the city’s Front Steet Animal Shelter killed 747 dogs and cats. The county’s Bradshaw Animal Shelter killed 738.
By mid-July this year, Front Street killed 547 animals, more than 150 over last year’s pace.
The majority of animals were euthanized because they were too old, too aggressive, too fearful at the shelter—and there are just too many.
Front Street Animal Shelter took in 6,306 stray dogs and cats last year. Bradshaw Animal Shelter took in 7,380. Intakes are up. Adoptions are down. Shelters are over capacity.
The questions were straightforward. Does Front Street Animal Shelter provide policies and protocols to 311 on how to respond to animal-related requests?
How do 311 call agents determine if a situation is serious enough to dispatch an animal control officer?
How does 311 address urgent situations when animal control is days behind responding to requests?
There is a hidden world in Sacramento, off the grid and unknown to most. Dogs in small cages or padlocked to trees and poles. Chains tangled with little room to move. Many without food, water or shelter.
These are the dogs of homeless camps.
“You know those commercials on TV?” Debbie Tillotson says. She’s talking about the heart-wrenching public service ads that expose the underworld of animal abuse. “You can easily insert Sacramento. This is your backyard, it’s the same thing.”
The meeting was touted as a Community Participation Workshop. It was anything but.
Its purpose was to give the public an opportunity to share comments, concerns and suggestions with the Animal Care Citizens Advisory Committee, a seven-member panel that makes recommendations to the City Council regarding the Front Street Animal Shelter.
Community members who turned out to have an open discussion about the city shelter were shut down after two minutes of comments—four minutes if the committee had no follow-up.
Questions from the public went unanswered. Dialogue was zero.
Waffles was a stray when he arrived at the city’s Front Street Animal Shelter last September. The friendly 3-year-old shepherd/bull terrier mix became a shelter favorite. Volunteers called him a “belly-rub addict.”
The brown and black brindled canine was adopted Oct. 6 and returned Oct. 18; adopted again Dec. 11 and returned Dec. 15.
This is about Bella and the system that failed her.
Dec. 4, a neighbor calls 311 about a dog at her apartment complex in South Natomas. The canine is left 24/7 on a small uncovered patio with no food or shelter. Storms are raging, temperatures are in the 30s.
Photos taken over the fence show a short-hair, medium-size, brown dog on a 3-by-5-foot cement patio. Her ribs protrude. She stands in her feces.
