Author: Melanie Sadek
President & CEO, Valley Humane Society
Chair, Legislative & Advocacy Committee, California Animal Welfare Association
Across California, government-run animal shelters are overwhelmed. From large urban counties to smaller rural communities, shelters grapple with an unrelenting influx of animals, especially young puppies. The constant arrival of litters is straining already overburdened systems battling rising costs, insufficient budgets, limited staffing, and increasing public expectations. California’s public shelters are on the front lines of a growing crisis and are not alone.
Government-run animal shelters are often misunderstood. Media portrayals tend to depict them as places of last resort. The reality is far more complex — and far more compassionate. The people who work in these facilities are animal lovers and public servants doing emotionally difficult work under constant scrutiny and with limited resources. Most are deeply committed to the wellbeing of animals and the communities they serve.
Understanding Government Shelters
To understand the system, it’s important to know who does what. Government shelters handle animal control and public safety, reuniting lost pets with their families, offering adoption programs, responding to field calls, and offering community services. Nonprofit shelters with city or county contracts perform many of the same duties and face the same challenges. Those without contracts often focus on adoptions or community services. Rescue groups — usually volunteer-run — help by transferring animals out of shelters and into foster care.
But government shelters are different in one important way: they’re required by law to accept certain animals, regardless of how full they are. Many of these facilities were built decades ago and simply weren’t designed for today’s intake levels. Combining the legal obligations, limited staffing, and aging facilities creates overwhelming pressure.
Animal shelter population management at its most basic level is math. When more animals come in than go out — through adoption, owner reclaim or transfer — overcrowding can become an issue. Overcrowded shelters, no matter how hard the staff work, create stressed animals, which lead to illness and behavior deterioration.
To ensure overcrowding doesn’t become a reality, shelters prioritize urgent cases and employ strategies such as managed admission, fostering programs, transfers to other agencies, partnerships with animal rescue groups, and adoption promotions. These approaches help, but they can’t solve the bigger problem: too many animals and not enough support.
No one in animal welfare wants to euthanize healthy or treatable pets. And in fact, euthanasia rates have dropped significantly over the past 20 years. But when every other option has been exhausted, it remains a last resort. Decisions are typically based on medical suffering, public safety concerns, and available space to maintain humane levels of housing — not convenience. These choices weigh heavily on staff who often carry the emotional toll long after the decision is made.
What’s often overlooked is that government shelters don’t just protect animals — they protect people. They work with public health departments to manage rabies risks, address cruelty cases, and evaluate whether animals pose a danger to the community. The decisions they make aren’t simple, and they need your help.
The Public’s Role Matters
The public plays a critical role in reducing shelter admissions. Rehoming their own pets, rather than bringing them to overwhelmed animal shelters, helping strays get back home, and waiting to see if a mother cat returns before scooping up her litter and bringing them to the animal shelter can all make a real difference. Keeping pets microchipped and ensuring they wear ID tags streamlines lost pet reunification and spaying and neutering pets reduces their desire to roam and become separated from their families.
Adoptions are still a critical way to help animals in California, and yet studies show that most people still acquire their pets from breeders, online, or friends, not shelters. That’s a missed opportunity. Adopting gives a deserving animal a second chance and opens up space for another in need. It’s a win-win. Fostering, volunteering, and donating are also powerful ways to support the cause.
Animal services are expensive. Shelters must provide food, medical care, behavioral enrichment and housing for every animal in their care — and that’s before factoring in field services, cruelty investigations or responding to loose animal calls. And yet, as cities and counties grapple with tight budgets, animal services are often among the first areas cut.
In one real-world example, a nonprofit shelter contracted to handle dog impounds received just $2,400 annually — even though the actual cost of the service exceeded $67,000. They simply couldn’t absorb the gap anymore. And they’re not alone.
Shelters want the same outcome the public does: more lives saved, fewer euthanized. But it takes shared responsibility and honest conversations. That includes advocating for funding, expanding access to veterinary care, supporting effective sheltering practices, and recognizing what shelter workers experience daily. Local governments must acknowledge the vital role animal shelters play in the community and fund them accordingly.
Animal shelters are part of our public infrastructure. They protect families, neighborhoods and the animals we love. If we want better outcomes, we must treat them like the essential services they are.
Where we spend our tax dollars reflects our values. If we want animal shelters to thrive — not barely survive — they need to be part of that conversation. And if we work together — government, nonprofits, and residents — we can share the care and build a more humane world.