The Seattle Animal Shelter’s Two-Year Road Map: Shelter Animals

The Seattle Animal Shelter has experienced turmoil in the last few years post-COVID. In addition to external forces such as increased surrenders and abandonments due to rising costs and housing instability, SAS has had internal strife resulting in lost volunteers, high animal care officer turnover, and the departure of a controversial shelter director.

SAS is currently in the process of hiring a new director by May. In the meantime, they are also in the process of implementing a Two-Year Roadmap to improve internal processes and morale.

We’ve published an overview of the roadmap and will now focus on specifics regarding shelter animals and their care. Shelters can be incredibly stressful places for everyone. The attention and compassion of both shelter staff and volunteers are critical to the physical and mental health of all the animals that enter their doors.

Here is their baseline progress as of November 2024. We’ve submitted a public disclosure request for updated information.

Q: How much of the Two-Year Roadmap addresses animal care?

A: Animal care is interwoven into many of the action items but we chose to focus on 25 items that fell under these report categories (these items comprise 10 percent of the overall roadmap action items:

• Dog Care

• Dog Welfare

• Bite Reporting and Assessment

• Cat Care

• Behavior Management 

It is worth noting that the roadmap includes only one specific action for in-shelter cat care and no report category whatsoever for in-shelter critter care. The Seattle Animal Shelter’s Critter Program includes a range of species including birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, and mice. All of these species have unique habitat and care requirements. An entire room is dedicated to the critter program..

Q: What are the action items related to in-shelter dogs and what are their status?

A: We determined that the dog-specific action items fell under the following report categories: Dog Care, Dog Welfare, and Bite Reporting and Assessment. There are a total of 17 action items. Ten are completed and seven are in process.

Q: What are the action items related to in-shelter cats and what are their status?

A: There is only one action item under the Cat Care report category and that item is marked as “completed.”

• Provide daily quiet time hours, at least one hour per day where staff and volunteers are strongly encouraged not to walk through the kennel area so that cats can rest.

Q: What are the action items related to in-shelter critters and what are their status?

A: There are no report categories in the Two-Year Roadmap specifically related to in-shelter critters.

Q: What is the status of the assigned items under the report category of behavior management:

A: There are seven action items under behavior management. The table below shows each item and its status in November 2024. Only three are completed, while one is in process, and three have not yet been started.

Of interest are the three action items addressing the shelter behaviorists, particularly the one in which the behaviorist should be removed from interview panels wherever possible except for manager or supervisor interviews.

The SAS behaviorist position was vacated late last year and the position announcement for a new behaviorist closed on January 21st.