The Santa Barbara Shelter on Overpass Road was built in the 70s as a stray holding facility. It was never intended to hold adoptable animals for long term kenneling and does not meet the Humane Society guidelines. Dogs held in these small kennels are supposed to have at least two 20 min exercise periods a day and it is up to the volunteers to meet this goal as the staff does not exercise the dogs except in limited cases. 

The Pillsbury Building where Protective Custody and Quarantine Dogs are generally held if the main shelter building is full has even smaller kennels. A large dog barely has room to turn around in those kennels and several dogs have been killed by other dogs there. It does not have true isolation rooms for sick dogs so when a dog is put in there with a contagious disease all of the other dogs have to stay in the building with them until the sick dog is better. Sometimes there isn't any room in the building for all of the sick dogs so they stay on one side of the main building and all of the dogs on that side can't be exercised until the sick dogs are better. 

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K-9PALS paid for a renovation of the main dog building before they left the shelter in 2011.

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BUNS has their own area on the shelter grounds and operates independently of the County. ASAP (cats) has a separate trailer across the parking lot and operates independently of the County.

The Santa Maria Shelter was fully renovated in a project paid for by Wendy McCaw. It has more kennels than the other two shelters but lower adoption rates and fewer volunteers than the Santa Barbara shelter. Santa Maria achieves their 90% live release rate in part by transferring a large percent of their dogs to private rescues, other shelters, and the Santa Barbara shelter. 

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The Lompoc Shelter is the smallest shelter in the Santa Barbara system. It was upgraded in 2011 in project costing $150K. It achieves a 90% live release rate in part by transferring a large number of its adoptable dogs to rescues, other shelters,  and the Santa Barbara shelter.