Stakeholders are responsible for the remarkable success of the Santa Barbara Shelter in getting dogs adopted and making sure their time at the shelter is as positive as possible. The stakeholders include volunteers, rescues, and community members. Animal Services Management has a history of silencing stakeholders that point out problems at the shelter. Recently a long time volunteer who had fostered 20 dogs and gotten them all adopted was terminated for sending private emails critical of the County's "miscommunication" about Floyd, Dexter, and Jake. 

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The previous volunteer contract required preapproval of any media contact by the volunteers, including posting of information on Facebook, EdHat, and Craigslist. The recent volunteer agreement contained excessive legal language and liability waivers so most of the long term volunteers refused to sign it. Because of this the volunteers are operating under two separate agreements - one for the long time volunteers and one for the new volunteers. 

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The foster agreement has similar liability waivers and legal language, making some people reluctant to help the shelter by fostering dogs that are not kenneling well.

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Surprisingly, the Animal Service Department does not have a formal stakeholder model to use. Stakeholder models spell out how volunteers and rescues are to be treated, when they can be involved in shelter decisions, and how issues can be raised in a productive way. Public Health Departments (the parent organization for Animal Services) are usually experts in stakeholder models. 

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Rescue Groups  include both local, state, and interstate organizations. Two groups that have taken dogs that have been threatened with killing by the County are DAWG and Shadow's Fund. DAWG was given a lease for part of the SB Shelter in 2000 and has a contract to only accept dogs from SB County.  State laws says any rescue can take any dog from County Shelters but SB County limits the dogs that are rescued, preferring to give up only problem or long term dogs. 

K-9PALS used to run the volunteer organization at the SB Shelter and pay for special food and medical care for shelter dogs. They funded a shelter renovation and upgraded some outside gravel kennels with concrete floors and a roof.

During a stressful period where the dog census increased to 110 dogs for 50 kennels, the AS managers created a situation that made it impossible for K-9PALS to remain at the shelter. Over the years they have decreased K-9PALS contributions from close to $200K per year to almost $0 now, requiring additional  taxpayer dollars to be spent to cover these costs, or funding to be obtained from other sources.

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The County in past years created a partner agreement for rescues to sign that was so onerous that most of them refused, The County wanted the rescue groups to gather and report extensive data. The required data includes info that the County does not collect on for its own operation. Because of these requirements, some of our local rescues have decreased the number of dogs they take from the County and instead take dogs from shelters in  Ventura County. 

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The County is very secretive about the dogs that it is trying to transfer to rescue groups. Rather than broadcasting the list of dogs they are trying to transfer to a general list so they can be networked, the County is selective about which groups they contact. They do not post this list publicly and it can only be obtained if you know someone that received it. It is not clear why this information is not made more public in an attempt to save more dogs.