San Jose Animal Care Center: A Breath of Fresh Air

SJACC Lobby

After living in California for a full month and getting somewhat settled, I finally ventured out last week to explore the AC/rescue scene around here. Take a look at San Jose Animal Care Center, my local shelter. That's right, it's beautiful. It's so impressive that I had to ask the front desk people if I was in the right place the first time I walked in. It's not a sanctuary. It's not a humane society. It's not privately funded. SJACC runs as a division of our city government. It is the City of San Jose's animal control facility. That's the pound, folks. Feel free to let your jaws drop for a minute. Mine certainly did. Coming from the dire straits of AC hell at DeKalb County Animal Services in Atlanta, to say I was completely blown away by SJACC is a massive understatement. I'd like to use this post to shine a light on what SJACC is doing RIGHT, not what shelters elsewhere are doing wrong. Having said that, the only way I can do that is by comparison through my own experience. I'm not going to post pictures of what DeKalb looks like. You guys can google that. I try to use my own photos in my blog anyway and I never really took any of the inside of DeKalb. It's been in the news enough. Please know that there are amazing people who work at DeKalb and devote many hours of their lives to helping the animals in every way they possibly can. It's not their fault, so please know that anything I say here is not said against them, but against the situation at the shelter. I promise you, they wish DeKalb looked like this as well. Now, on to the relative Utopia of animal control that is SJACC...

Small animal habitats, kitty cubbies, volunteer lounge, & kiosk

SJACC is gorgeous. Shiny floors, fresh paint on the walls, natural light galore, and abundant green space are all just the first few features that catch your eye. The facility's design is really innovative. The lobby is an open atrium with a large skylight (shown above) that is very inviting and easily accommodates crowds on high volume days. Brightly lit small animal habitats greet you as you walk in the door. This draws attention to the small animals in a fun way. There's a "find-a-friend" touch screen kiosk that allows visitors to browse adoptable animals easily. There's even a large volunteer lounge equipped with computers to track our schedules, update animal photos and bios, and print out adoption charts. The best part of the volunteer lounge is the quiet space (shown in bottom left photo in above collage). It gives volunteers a special place to chill with extra shy dogs so that they can enjoy human attention free of any scary/startling distractions. The top right photo in the collage above shows some of many "kitty cubbies" that house adoptable cats. It's a really great way to show off the kitties in all their whiskery glory. Just so many great ideas...who needs a pet store when you have an adoption facility like this?

One of many kennel rooms: bright, clean, and fairly inviting.

Rather than having one giant "main ward / gen pop" room full of animals, there are kennels featuring adoptable animals housed in several small rooms all down each side of the building. Having a bunch of small rooms like this is absolutely brilliant. It cuts down on the noise, smells, and the overwhelming visual volume that smacks you in the face in shelters that have one giant warehouse-style kennel room. Inside the kennel rooms, there's no standing water (note the hose tidily kept off the ground on its reel in the picture to the left), there are no roaches scurrying about, there are no mice or rats squeaking in the drains underneath the dog runs, and there are no abominable grated floors in the runs. The absence of grated kennel floors is HUGE. Although grated floors make high volume cleaning easier, they cause discomfort for the dogs' feet and often lead to musculoskeletal development problems in growing puppies. Imagine being a senior chihuahua with teeny tiny arthritic toes splayed across the grates or a puppy who now has "frog feet" because his stance and alignment were so compromised. The dogs at SJACC don't have to suffer these issues. The dog runs at SJACC are pretty spacious too, especially considering most of them only contain one dog. Another major thing: there is generally only one dog kept in each run. Sometimes they'll pair up lonely dogs or really small dogs, particularly friendly Chis. In the collage above, you can see a metal divider behind the black Chi in the bottom right photo. Each kennel has a dividing wall that can be lowered so "roommates" can be separated while they eat. That means no fighting over food!

Toward the back of the building, you'll find the vet clinic, wildlife, staff lounge, dispatch and field operations, different quarantine and recovery wards, and of course storage. There's also a full laundry room with industrial washer/dryer where volunteers and staff are constantly washing bedding. Each dog is given fresh bedding every day so they can have a little bit of comfort. The little dogs especially appreciate having somewhere cozy to burrow so they can escape the stress around them. Volunteers also provide each dog with a frozen stuffed KONG on a daily basis. At the end of the day, the KONGs are all collected, soaked in hot soapy water, sterilized in the industrial dishwasher, re-stuffed, and frozen for the next day's distribution. In the world of animal control, that's above and beyond.

Just a sampling of SJACC's outdoor space

Feast your eyes upon the outdoor space at SJACC. Top left photo shows just one of the three fenced play yards. Volunteers can bring dogs out here for a romp, but the SJACC animal behaviorist also holds play groups in this space three times a week. Play groups give him a chance to evaluate how each dog interacts with each other and take notes on their personalities. Then volunteers know what each dog needs to work on individually. These efforts combine to help SJACC appropriately match dogs with suitable adopters. The middle left shows the doggy courtyards, where potential adopters can meet and get to know pups they're interested in taking home. Both of the photos on the right side of the collage show the outdoor cat courtyards. These spaces are totally wired in so that the cats can get some playtime in the fresh air without risking escape. How awesome is that? Cats get very stressed if they don't have mental stimulation, just like dogs if not even more so. Getting them outside in a safe manner is a great way for them to fantasize about snagging birds as they fly past, bat at butterflies, and just get a genuinely good sniff of the outside world. In the bottom left picture you can see part of the outdoor hallway going down one side of the building. Along this side of the hallway are several more kennel rooms that house mamas with litters, orphan pups, and pregnant moms.

Rockin' the volunteer swag (snerk)

I could go on forever about SJACC. Yes, it's still animal control and they still euthanize, but I really think this is about as good as AC can possibly get. I love knowing that the dogs are well-cared for, even though I desperately wish they were all in homes instead of kennels. I love what a strong volunteer corps there is and how everybody really works together. I love that SJACC is so well-staffed. They've got fantastic employees who are always milling about doing whatever is needed. Where I come from we had one vet, not three. We didn't have a dedicated administrative / front desk person, let alone a couple of them. There was even an extra bad time where we only had eight field officers and ONE person to handle all of the adoptions and rescue coordination. They were spread so thin due to chronic under-funding. So to me, seeing how many wonderful people go to work every day at SJACC is really an incredible thing. So yes, we are lucky enough to have the funding here at SJACC to do these awesome things. San Jose is the capital of Silicon Valley; I realize this is an area with a high concentration of wealth and a mindset geared toward the environment. But we can see these changes elsewhere! Look what can be done when we take responsibility for our overpopulation mess, when we focus on the environment and caring for the creatures in it, and when we allocate adequate city/county funds to improving the animal welfare climate. Having a building that the public wants to visit makes such a huge difference for our homeless animals. No people coming in = no animals getting out. SJACC is a place where families can feel comfortable coming to adopt a new addition. It is clean, bright, welcoming, organized, and minimally depressing. I so desperately hope that someday there will be no more DeKalbs out there, that someday soon our whole country will be able to devote enough focus to animal welfare, and of course that someday we will finally get a handle on our overpopulation problem. Call me an idealist, a tree-hugger, a hippie, or an overzealous Californian. Call me whatever you want, but I'm an animal lover and I'm super mega proud to be an SJACC volunteer.

To see all the wonderful adoptable animals at SJACC, click here: 

http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=1389

For more information about volunteering, feel free to ask questions in the comments below or click here to be re-routed to SJACC's volunteer page:

http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=1395

In Memory of Colby

**This post is dedicated to all homeless animals facing loneliness, fear, and death every single day, but especially to the animals of DeKalb County Animal Services in Atlanta, Georgia. I am in awe of your ability to love us unconditionally despite the situation we've created for you. It is my utmost hope that someday soon we will make up for our irresponsibility and ignorance by creating a society where each of you is valued.**