I live in this areas and I would encourage NO ONE to donate to keep this shelter open until the entire staff is replaced and policies are changed.
The sparkling new dog park on site, paid for by county residents and maintained with licensing fees, are off limits to owners of intact licensed dog. Who, by the way, pay ridiculous fees to be able to even own their well behaved, intact animals.

Animal control officers are poorly trained and focused only on issues like “how many dogs do you have"or if the animals are intact- while complaints for abuse, neglect and cruelty go unanswered due to “no funds or personnel to investigate”.

Sacramento has a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance in place- which, as everyone knows, is the fast track to absolute animal services failure.
Building a gorgeous new facility, complete with public art, with no realistic funding plans for the future operations was the height of idiocy. The excuse of “use it or lose it” funding is ludicrous- at any time the county could have drafted a resolution to correct this.

The county facility’s staff are not only woefully ignorant of county ordinances, but also of state laws- they regularly refuse to release animals to rescue groups. They have a clear bias against specific breeds. They do not work with local resources, favoring instead the “Us vs Them” approach.
Sacramento Animal Care and Control is a DISGRACE and continuing to keep their doors open under the current policies of abuse of power, incompetent staff and funding mismanagement is unacceptable. Radical reforms are needed. Putting up a pretty new set of buildings doesn’t change the rot within.

I urge similarly minded individuals in the area to join me in a written complaint to the county Grand Jury.

See you on the 14th, Jennifer. I’ll be wearing pink- for PINK SLIPS.

D Romeo is exactly on point.

The shelter won’t release dogs to breed rescues if they don’t want to. Butte Humane in Chico gives the dogs away, altered, with meds, if they get short on space. There is the standard contract to adopt.

Why couldn’t SACTO shelter give their dogs away with a contract? Why do only “certain” groups get to have any say in what happens to shelter animals?

Why is HSUS working on the issue with City AC director Penny (former HSUS person who claimed killing animals wasn’t killing—it was ending their lives) all the while claiming there is “no room” when you will never have room for anything if your mental desire is simply to kill them so you can prove a point?

Has anyone actually READ the data on County Animal Control website? Did you see how many dogs went to rescue (unless I read it wrong)—about 500 in a *year*? 
ONLY 5% going to rescues?  that number is horribly low and is way off base.
http://www.msa2.saccounty.net/acr/Documents/2009-2010 Calendar Year Statistics.pdf

I can tell you what that means. It means either the dogs coming in, no rescues want, or that AC shelter won’t let rescues have them. BTW—when a non 501(c)(3) or maybe even a 501(c)(3) takes out dogs—they pay for them. When I was taking dogs, we had to pay full price just to pull them out. NO discounts.

Sacto city/county should suspend the limits law they have and enable foster to take in additional animals. That is not hoarding, but HSUS says it is.

So, Wayne P sends an “alert” to “raise a ruckus” about the monetary issues that are affecting the Sacramento shelter, but makes no offer to provide any real (financial) help that could eliminate some of the budget cuts that are looming.  Sacramento County residents who received Wayne’s “alert” should hit the reply button on the email he sent and ask Wayne to dedicate/redirect, back to the shelter, some of the $19/month donations they currently send to the H$US.  I wonder (not really) what his response to that request would be?

Oh, what an emotional scene it was when 4 of the 5 the Sacramento County Supervisors voted to build this marble-floored, state-of-the-art pet shop.  That’s exactly what it is: a gorgeous piece of art designed to make people want to buy their next pet. Clear walled play rooms, generous sitting areas, a spacious dog park (carefully segregated of course so that those paying $150. for licenses can’t play)... such a lovely place.

Expert after expert testified to the Supervisors with evidence and experience showing bad things would happen if this countywide pet shop was build - but no.  The Board didn’t listen to them.  Instead: crying rescuers carrying tiny dogs, grim placards raised along the aisles and daisy chains of empty dog collars won the day.  Surely the new pet palace was needed. Surely the old animal control shelter couldn’t possibly be renovated for many millions less than the cost of a brand new facility.

What a shame the economy and sheer audacity of this underfunded building project caused what was meant for good (by a very few misguided souls) to become such an drain on resources.  What a shame the killing at County Animal Control is now reaching new heights. What a shame that the Supervisors failed to listen to *real* experts - and now more animals than before are suffering.

Everything the real experts told the Supervisors would come to pass almost four long years ago… has come to pass. So who do the Supervisors bring in to fix the problem now?  The same group that testified Sac County needed a Pet Emporium in the first place!  H$U$, Sac City AC, Sac SPCA. Unbelievable.

Follow the money, folks.  Think about the thousands of *people* in Sac County who are out of work, have little food on their tables, who’ve lost their homes… as @ Dannielle says, Sacramento County AC has a lot to make up for. Decades worth of abuse and deliberate ignorance. 

Tell me: just how does H$U$ and Jennifer Fearing expect the Supervisors to choose funding for animals in the shelters over meals for the children in their districts?  Or does she and Wayne believe that our unseasonal rainfall will cause dollar bills to sprout on the new trees and shrubs surrounding the Sac County government pet store?

While the H$U$ doesn’t have shelters of their own, I have come to find out that ALL of them that are “supported” by them are little more than wholesale slaughterhouses of dogs/puppies & cats/kittens which is why I am doing all I can to direct family, friends, acquaintances & just about anyone who will listen to refuse support of the H$U$ & instead divert their time & finances to the either the ASPCA or the smaller & woefully ill supported “no-kill” shelters that do their best to actually keep their “inmates” alive, well, & happy, as well as doing their best to have the pet adopted even if it means smaller/non-existent adoption fees.  Of the many purported H$U$ shelters I have come across, I have learned that the death clock starts ticking for the animals that come to them & are held for 5-7 days (in case an owner shows up to claim them) & after then are given 14 days to be adopted before being killed.  The Sacramento H$U$ shelter debacle is a shame for those of us who truly care for & love animals, but when it comes to the H$U$, they would prefer that the animals that are there left as a carcass rather than a beloved pet, so perhaps if the residents of Sac. County were to look at the facility not as an over the top, high falutin’ pet shop but as an overgrown mausoleum/memorial, it would be easier to “swallow.”  I may be across the continent from California, but believe me, the sentiment when it comes to those legal animal poachers at the H$U$ is the same.  I hope that there is some way to legally punish those wretches & also be able to afford the folks of Sac. County to be able to make use of the facilities to benefit one & all.  When it comes to the apparent discrimination of “intact” pets being barred from using the dog park, I would try to find a way to demand getting some sort of financial reparation or have the rules altered so that those dogs who are currently refused admission be accepted, even if my means of having the pets wearing “bitches’ britches” (think doggie diaper) or something along those lines.  The H$U$ is constantly trying to have everyone write to your government for what they construe as animal abuse (here in NJ they want us to demand we write or call to stop the proposed hunt of bears.  Mind you, these are the same bears that eat & rip family’s pets to pieces & would think nothing of eating & ripping humans to bits as well because their habitat is overrun with other bears because they proliferated all too well & the natural sources of food for them is dangerously low to provide for such a large number…), so be sure to contact your government officials on all levels to demand that this humongous shelter/dog park facility which you folks already have sunk plenty of tax monies into which is woefully misused/ being denied from using be deducted from your property taxes.  Perhaps, when it comes to the H$U$, it’s time to “fight fire with fire” & help those poor critter “inmates” that will most likely be meeting their ends all too soon as the H$U$ only cares about taking in more money, not saving the lives of animals.  My heart & concern goes out to all of you folks & the animal “inmates” out there.

This entire pattern of behavior is so reminiscent of Hitler’s establishment of Nazi power.  So many then, as now, refused to acknowledge what was so pathetically obvious to anyone who can evaluate both sides of an issue.  Like the Nazis who were set on a mission of cleaning, so too are the animal control staff—only concerned about numbers and breeds—nothing about quality of care. But when brain washing sets in, there are no brains to evaluate anything. Create an idyllic paradise that can be used by no one but serves as a testimony to the good that can be done.  What a pathetic farce.