The shelter has many ways to help these animals.

Woody, a German Shepherd who is looking for a forever home, with Lisa Jenkins, program manager, County of Santa Clara Animal Services at the County of Santa Clara Animal Shelter. Photo by Nolan Lyle 

By Nolan Lyle

Woody the German Shepherd is hoping for a forever family home. Photo by Nolan Lyle

Meet Woody, a German Shepherd who is one of dozens of dogs now waiting in the Santa Clara County Animal Shelter. At 17 months old, he’s been at the San Martin-based shelter for a long while. Woody’s a “good boy” and likes the other dogs. But he wants to live in a home with a forever family.

The shelter is experiencing overcrowding with too many cats and dogs. Its staff are looking for people to bring these pets into their lives. Right now at the peak of kitten season, the shelter holds about 200 cats and kittens in care and manages another 200 in foster homes. During non-kitten season, there are usually 15 cats in care. The shelter has 44 dogs in care and about 40 in foster homes — about 20 more than they have space for.

With the extra animals crowding the shelter, the length of stay has also increased.

Recently, I met Lisa Jenkins, program manager, who gave me a tour of the shelter.

“You need to get animals through the system very quickly,” she told me. “If you don’t, they start to accumulate and you run out of space and you can’t properly care for them.” The average length of stay rose about three days and is now at 14 or 15 days. This may not seem long, but when taking in about 5,000 animals a year and each of them stays three more days, there begins to be an accumulation and the rise of overcrowding.

One way to combat the overcrowding is making sure the animals are quickly spayed and neutered so when they’re put up for adoption, they’re ready to go to their forever family. A forever family is very important to the animals, especially the dogs, who thrive having a bond with a human.

“Although we take them out and walk them, they don’t have that bond to their one human, and that is torturous for them,” Jenkins said.

The majority of the dogs come from people dropping them off after they found them as strays.

“We do get owners relinquishing their dogs, but because we’ve been so full, we haven’t been able to take as many surrendered dogs as possible,” Jenkins said. “If it’s a dog we know we’re going to struggle to find a home for, we try and get the owner to reconsider holding onto the dog or finding a family member or somebody to take it.”

Cats can be a different case.

“With cats, we encourage people to leave them with their moms if they have one because they can raise them and care for them better than we can, and it saves us resources,” Jenkins told me.

The shelter has many ways to help these animals. Making donations to spay neuter programs like Snip Bus or the Humane Society providing low-cost spay neuter to the local animal community is one way. For people who have the time and space, fostering is always helpful, especially people who are good about advertising the animals in their foster care, like taking videos and pictures.

“If you have photographic skills, you can use them to help promote the animals, which is very important,” Jenkins said.

For cats, the shelter’s foster program is fairly limited to kittens, usually raising kittens in some stage of their development until they’re ready for spay/neuter surgery and adoption. For dogs, the shelter offers “all flavors” of dog fostering, Jenkins said. You can come on site and be a volunteer to help socialize the dogs in playgroups that occur daily. If you prefer being alone or want less commitment, you can sign up as a foster volunteer for a day and go and take dogs to walk around anywhere. “You can even have a dog for a sleepover!” Jenkins said.

If you’d like to volunteer, email [email protected] and describe how you’d like to help. Also helpful is spreading the word and encouraging people to adopt. You can also donate much-needed towels and blankets because in the middle of kitten season, there’s always a shortage. The shelter has an Amazon Wishlist where you can view items needed. Visit it at www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3GWA0I6EVSHH0

Remember, addressing the overcrowding issue isn’t just about the animals now in the shelter. It’s about creating a sustainable system that can continue to serve animals for years to come. Whether you can open your home to a new pet, spare a few hours, or simply share this information with others, every action counts.

Visit the Santa Clara County Animal Shelter’s website at animals.santaclaracounty.gov to learn more about how you can help. Together, we can ensure every cat and dog in our community has the chance to find their forever home. Every furry friend, like Woody, deserves a loving home.

Nolan Lyle will be a sophomore at Bellarmine Preparatory School this fall.