Dexter, Floyd, and Jake. Dogs threatened by County decisions! See their stories.
What's New
City of Lompoc cancels contract with County, extends it for 1 month to find another provider if possible. City pays ~$320K to County for sheltering and animal control services and the costs have been going up faster than inflation. City has $1.5M deficit to fill.
April 2017- Animal Services reports to Board of Supervisors everything is going great at 4/4 board meeting. AS will form advisory board to continue staff-dominated process of Oversight Team. Board votes 5-0 to accept report. See meeting summary.
April 2017- County hiring 6th SB Shelter Dog Volunteer Coordinator in 6 years. Does not include dog volunteer on interview panel until issue raised in Oversight Team meeting.
Feb 2017- County Auditors Office substantiates allegations of timecard and database fraud at shelter. Full story here.
Feb 2017- Independent story on shelter doesn't refer to Auditor's memo provided to reporter. Dog featured in story is in list of dogs scheduled for euthanization sent to rescues by email.
Feb 2017- SB Shelter has not replaced the tarp on the 'covered yard' where dogs are exercised during rain. This yard is critical for dogs who don't like to go to the bathroom in their kennels. Pic from 6/2016.
Nov 2016- SB Shelter dog with history of swallowing balls is sent for emergency surgery to remove ball. A volunteer had previously had to reach down his throat to remove a ball.
Long-Time Volunteer Resigns- Nov 2016. A volunteer that had spent up to 20 hrs/week at the shelter has resigned. She no longer could tolerate the mistreatment of volunteers by shelter management.
November, 2016- The County trainer/evaluator hours cut to 10/wk. The trainer was hired in January 2016 and was paid almost $40,000 for her time through June. She worked more than 30 hours a week during this period so the County could spend the budget they had allocated for that fiscal year. Now they are facing budget pressures and have decreased her hours significantly. It is unclear how she can service all three shelters with this number of hours when she is paid to travel to Lompoc and Santa Maria.
11/14- Santa Barbara Adoption Counselors threatened with termination. A recent comment on Edhat related that all but one of the adoption counselors at the SB shelter have been sent a "firing message" for not attending the 3rd in a series of meetings about the open adoption process. This has been confirmed.
Another Threatened Dog- Lulu! On 11/2 the County threatened this dog with euthanization if a rescue didn't take her by 11/4. This is a now familiar tactic to get a dog that needs training out of their shelter and off of their books without increasing their euthanization rates. See the full story here.
Animal Services delivers report to Board of Supervisors- Public commenters want major changes. 10-4-2016 One proposal is a Commission to review shelter practices. See full proposal here. More about the AHA process here.
Rest in Peace, Raven. Young lab put down after emergency surgery. Sept 23, 2016. More here.
Dogfight in playgroup at shelter, playgroups suspended Sept 2016. Playgroups still suspended as of November. More here.
Kyle Barbre to be Sentenced for Torturing and Killing Floyd (shown at left) at SB Courthouse 9-29. Delayed to 10-27. See more here.
Rico Killed at SB Co Shelter 9-29-2016.
Rico was considered to be unadoptable by the County but was allowed to attend lunchtime gatherings with many chances to make some poor choices. He had not been given a 1 wk deadline for rescues to take him as his risk was considered to be low. He bit a staff member at a lunchtime gathering on 9-28. He was euthanized on 9-29. See more here.
Dog Found Dead in Kennel at SB Shelter 9-16-2106. Wall-E, a 5 yr old lab/samoyed mix was found dead in his kennel by a volunteer Friday morning. His death is being listed as due to "natural causes." See more here.
R.I.P Corazon, Senior Santa Maria Shelter Dog 9-4-2016 Corazon was killed by the County on Thursday even though a rescue was trying to pull him on the day he died. See the full story here.
High Dog Transfers Out of County 9-4-2016 The latest year end numbers show that almost as many dogs have been transferred to rescues and out-of-county shelters as have been adopted. DAWG and Shadows Fund take some of these, but others go to places with high kill ratios such as in the case of Dexter sent to Orange County. Here are the numbers.
FY end 2013 2014 2015 2016
Adopted 987 766 742 724
Transferred 803 793 719 626
Corazon
Shelter Quick Facts
Guadalupe City approves contract with County for sheltering and Animal Control Services for $57,500. Last year County handled 170 animals. Currently 13% of the dogs from Guadalupe are euthanized. See story.
Fiscal Year End
Category 2012 2016
Budget $3.9M $5.1M
Incoming Dogs 4,692 3,203
Adopted Dogs 1,149 724
Transferred Dogs 614 626
Euthanized Dogs 939 142
Incoming dogs down 28%, budget has gone up by 25%.
Four new staff positions added in last Fiscal Year. One more this year.
Almost as many dogs being transferred out of County, some to high kill shelters, as are adopted in this County.
Dog volunteer hours at the Santa Barbara Shelter are down compared to 2011. The SB shelter has had more dog volunteer hours recently than Lompoc and Santa Maria combined.
Lompoc and Sta Maria Shelters killing less than 10% of incoming dogs. Santa Barbara Shelter has a 3% kill rate.
Shelter Comparison
SB SM Lompoc
Category 2012 2016 2012 2016 2012 2016
Incoming Dogs 1,031 691 2,622 1,685 1,039 827
Adopted Dogs 317 224 582 380 250 120
Transferred Dogs 61 77 385 375 168 174
Euthanized Dogs 43 16 762 96 134 30
AHA Project Costs Through June, 2016
Misc $ 705.31
Trainer $ 39,060.00
Travel $ 1,832.24
Vet Services $ 17,985.01
Medical Dir $ 50,521.25
Shelter Dir $ 5,525.00
Total $ 115,628.81
County labor costs to attend more than 30 AHA meetings in Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, and Santa Maria, including prep and travel time, estimated to cost more than $100K as of July 2016.
AHA Project Costs- 9-3-2016. The AHA projects costs as of 7/2016 have been about $115K. The labor costs for the County's participation on the Oversight Team and its subcommittees is estimated to be another $100K. The additional staff positions added due to the AHA report (trainer, head vet, vet tech, shelter director) cost more than $500,000/yr. This has pushed the Animal Services budget to about $5.2 million this year.
