This voluntary recurring inexactitude of record keeping is totally unacceptable, especially when it involves living creatures and shames the system, the public and our State. The added fact that nothing is done about it only compounds the shame. This is blatant evidence of a breakdown and the fact that it chronically occurs is tragic, and added to this discomforting reality is the financial cost the O.C. taxpayer must unwillingly contribute. Your casting a glaring light on this fractured system is essential if it is ever to be repaired and trust in the system restored. Your identifying those unfortunate enough to pay the harsh costs such as Rescues of this gross & deliberate flaw is painful, but vital to read of as they are clearly recognized as being victimized. Your clear identifying of that which must be done to achieve this goal and what steps those with political power must do to rectify it is invaluable. All those with a stake in this arena must take immediate note and act accordingly as soon as is possible and end this farce that purports to be a California Animal Shelter.
135 missing dogs sounds bad! Wow! But wait, it looks like there are simultaneously 147 dogs added in the "other intakes" field. (bite quarantine and natural disasters, it says) So instead of "losing" 135 dogs they actually added 12. Or 15, once you account for the 3 dogs they added to the count via transfer in from other agencies.
Huh, that's weird. It looks like they probably reclassified 135 dogs from "found as stray" to "agency intake" or "natural disaster intake" or "bite quarantine intake" and then they had 15 dogs ADDED that they hadn't reported on quarterly reports.
Well at least it looks like they lost track of 17 puppies! I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that puppies turn into adult dogs and sometimes an approximate DOB gets changed in shelter databases based on information learned later (such as locating the owner, or the animal reaching a developmental milestone earlier than expected). It's reasonable to assume that 15 of these "disappearing" puppies probably became the 15 "appearing" dogs, but saying that the shelter has lost track of 2 puppies isn't quite as damning sounding as 135 dogs.
(note: I'm not saying it's good that there's 2 puppies missing between the quarterly reports and the annual report. It's not, and needs further digging. But when one number is higher and one lower than expected, the first question to ask is if something was just counted in the wrong place.)
Thanks for taking the time to dig into the numbers, Desal. You’re right that when one category goes down and another goes up, reclassification is one possible explanation and worth checking. The problem here is that OCAC’s own documents never explain those shifts, the totals across reports still don’t cleanly reconcile, and the county hasn’t produced any clear audit trail that would show these are simple category corrections rather than basic data‑integrity failures. Until they do, the public has no way to know whether we’re looking at thoughtful reclassification or at a system that can’t reliably say how many animals came in, how many left, and what happened in between.
Warren Cox, director at 22 shelters over 60 years, 1952-2012, always emphasized to me that the first thing a director should do when he/she arrives for work in the morning is a nose count of dogs & cats, & then do another as the last task before leaving in the evening. I was with him several times at several shelters when he did those nose counts. Because he reconciled the numbers twice every single day, his monthly and yearly data were always precise. If the numbers from either count didn't match inventory plus intakes minus deaths, adoptions, and foster transfers, meaning an animal was missing, he stayed there until the missing animal or animals were accounted for. Thus, on one occasion when I was there, a kitten was found alive & well who had somehow escaped into a drain, 20 minutes of searching by all hands after Warren sounded the alarm that a kitten was missing. On other occasions dogs were found wandering the halls, having apparently been dumped on the premises instead of being properly admitted. They were microchipped & logged into the system before Warren left. One way or another, Warren made sure the numbers matched, & made sure a whole generation of shelter directors whom he trained did likewise. Those directors are now mostly retired themselves. We can only wish they had passed along a similar work ethic.
I am fortunate enough to work at a shelter where, when a guinea pig from a hoarding case delivers stillborn, under-developed pups overnight, they are duly recorded as three "shelter offspring" with the outcome "unassisted death" so that then angry cranks can fixate on that and yell about "how can you idiots be so incompetent that you let three guinea pigs die?!".
(FYI, while labor and delivery are extremely dangerous for guinea pigs, spay-abort is currently even more so, from what I understand.)
Warren’s “nose count” ethic is exactly what’s missing at so many shelters today. That twice‑daily reconciliation is such a simple, concrete practice, and your story about the missing kitten and the “mystery” dogs becoming real animals in the system perfectly illustrates why it matters. I may quote this example (with attribution) in future pieces as a model of what competent, accountable shelter leadership actually looks like.
As a postscript, the late Kent Robertson, former director at the Humane Society of Missouri, was among Warren Cox's many trainees, years before in Sacramento. I happened to stop by the Humane Society of Missouri late one day in 1996 when Warren also happened to have stopped by. Kent began his evening count at about 5:00 p.m., & Warren followed him with a clipboard, double-checking. That was actually just a joke between them, but I walked with Kent, who admitted that even though it was just a joke, he didn't dare miscount anyone while Warren was watching.
There is also a discrepancy at San Jose Animal Care Center between numbers in their yearly fiscal report, and in their ACS dashboard. Also the yearly fiscal report from the city auditor is using the numbers from ACS dashboard. All these are "in theory" presented and approved by the city council.
For example, for FY23-24, the yearly report states that total intake was 13,212 animals while the ACS dashboard says it was 12,242. Here’s a table for the past four fiscal reports (hopefully this is readable):
Fiscal Year ACS yearly reports ACS Dashboard Annual Report on City Services (approx)
FY21-22 15530 14531 14500
FY22-23 11031 10233 10400
FY23-24 13212 12242 12500
FY24-25 11189 11206 11200
Discrepancies were also found in earlier fiscal years. This issue makes it even more difficult to compare different administation (bug or feaature?)
Thank you for sharing this, and for taking the time to line up the numbers so clearly. What you’re describing highlights exactly why consistent, reconciled reporting matters: without it, meaningful comparisons across years or administrations become nearly impossible.
If you’re willing, please keep documenting what you’re finding. Patterns like this, especially across multiple reporting systems, help illuminate whether discrepancies are accidental gaps or structural features of how data is being presented. I appreciate you adding another important piece to the conversation.
Oh I have data that goes back to FY2015-16. Numbers - reported previously - change drastically from one fiscal year to another with no clean explanation and city leaders ignore it.
Thank you, Lyne, that’s helpful context. A data trail back to 2015–16, especially with numbers changing from one fiscal year to the next without explanation, is the kind of pattern that deserves daylight rather than silence.
If you’re comfortable, I’d love to see what you’ve compiled; you can email me at ed@edboks.com. Even if we can’t explain every discrepancy yet, simply documenting how the numbers shift, and how leaders respond when it’s pointed out, is an important part of this series.
This voluntary recurring inexactitude of record keeping is totally unacceptable, especially when it involves living creatures and shames the system, the public and our State. The added fact that nothing is done about it only compounds the shame. This is blatant evidence of a breakdown and the fact that it chronically occurs is tragic, and added to this discomforting reality is the financial cost the O.C. taxpayer must unwillingly contribute. Your casting a glaring light on this fractured system is essential if it is ever to be repaired and trust in the system restored. Your identifying those unfortunate enough to pay the harsh costs such as Rescues of this gross & deliberate flaw is painful, but vital to read of as they are clearly recognized as being victimized. Your clear identifying of that which must be done to achieve this goal and what steps those with political power must do to rectify it is invaluable. All those with a stake in this arena must take immediate note and act accordingly as soon as is possible and end this farce that purports to be a California Animal Shelter.
135 missing dogs sounds bad! Wow! But wait, it looks like there are simultaneously 147 dogs added in the "other intakes" field. (bite quarantine and natural disasters, it says) So instead of "losing" 135 dogs they actually added 12. Or 15, once you account for the 3 dogs they added to the count via transfer in from other agencies.
Huh, that's weird. It looks like they probably reclassified 135 dogs from "found as stray" to "agency intake" or "natural disaster intake" or "bite quarantine intake" and then they had 15 dogs ADDED that they hadn't reported on quarterly reports.
Well at least it looks like they lost track of 17 puppies! I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that puppies turn into adult dogs and sometimes an approximate DOB gets changed in shelter databases based on information learned later (such as locating the owner, or the animal reaching a developmental milestone earlier than expected). It's reasonable to assume that 15 of these "disappearing" puppies probably became the 15 "appearing" dogs, but saying that the shelter has lost track of 2 puppies isn't quite as damning sounding as 135 dogs.
(note: I'm not saying it's good that there's 2 puppies missing between the quarterly reports and the annual report. It's not, and needs further digging. But when one number is higher and one lower than expected, the first question to ask is if something was just counted in the wrong place.)
Thanks for taking the time to dig into the numbers, Desal. You’re right that when one category goes down and another goes up, reclassification is one possible explanation and worth checking. The problem here is that OCAC’s own documents never explain those shifts, the totals across reports still don’t cleanly reconcile, and the county hasn’t produced any clear audit trail that would show these are simple category corrections rather than basic data‑integrity failures. Until they do, the public has no way to know whether we’re looking at thoughtful reclassification or at a system that can’t reliably say how many animals came in, how many left, and what happened in between.
Warren Cox, director at 22 shelters over 60 years, 1952-2012, always emphasized to me that the first thing a director should do when he/she arrives for work in the morning is a nose count of dogs & cats, & then do another as the last task before leaving in the evening. I was with him several times at several shelters when he did those nose counts. Because he reconciled the numbers twice every single day, his monthly and yearly data were always precise. If the numbers from either count didn't match inventory plus intakes minus deaths, adoptions, and foster transfers, meaning an animal was missing, he stayed there until the missing animal or animals were accounted for. Thus, on one occasion when I was there, a kitten was found alive & well who had somehow escaped into a drain, 20 minutes of searching by all hands after Warren sounded the alarm that a kitten was missing. On other occasions dogs were found wandering the halls, having apparently been dumped on the premises instead of being properly admitted. They were microchipped & logged into the system before Warren left. One way or another, Warren made sure the numbers matched, & made sure a whole generation of shelter directors whom he trained did likewise. Those directors are now mostly retired themselves. We can only wish they had passed along a similar work ethic.
I am fortunate enough to work at a shelter where, when a guinea pig from a hoarding case delivers stillborn, under-developed pups overnight, they are duly recorded as three "shelter offspring" with the outcome "unassisted death" so that then angry cranks can fixate on that and yell about "how can you idiots be so incompetent that you let three guinea pigs die?!".
(FYI, while labor and delivery are extremely dangerous for guinea pigs, spay-abort is currently even more so, from what I understand.)
Warren’s “nose count” ethic is exactly what’s missing at so many shelters today. That twice‑daily reconciliation is such a simple, concrete practice, and your story about the missing kitten and the “mystery” dogs becoming real animals in the system perfectly illustrates why it matters. I may quote this example (with attribution) in future pieces as a model of what competent, accountable shelter leadership actually looks like.
As a postscript, the late Kent Robertson, former director at the Humane Society of Missouri, was among Warren Cox's many trainees, years before in Sacramento. I happened to stop by the Humane Society of Missouri late one day in 1996 when Warren also happened to have stopped by. Kent began his evening count at about 5:00 p.m., & Warren followed him with a clipboard, double-checking. That was actually just a joke between them, but I walked with Kent, who admitted that even though it was just a joke, he didn't dare miscount anyone while Warren was watching.
There is also a discrepancy at San Jose Animal Care Center between numbers in their yearly fiscal report, and in their ACS dashboard. Also the yearly fiscal report from the city auditor is using the numbers from ACS dashboard. All these are "in theory" presented and approved by the city council.
For example, for FY23-24, the yearly report states that total intake was 13,212 animals while the ACS dashboard says it was 12,242. Here’s a table for the past four fiscal reports (hopefully this is readable):
Fiscal Year ACS yearly reports ACS Dashboard Annual Report on City Services (approx)
FY21-22 15530 14531 14500
FY22-23 11031 10233 10400
FY23-24 13212 12242 12500
FY24-25 11189 11206 11200
Discrepancies were also found in earlier fiscal years. This issue makes it even more difficult to compare different administation (bug or feaature?)
Thank you for sharing this, and for taking the time to line up the numbers so clearly. What you’re describing highlights exactly why consistent, reconciled reporting matters: without it, meaningful comparisons across years or administrations become nearly impossible.
If you’re willing, please keep documenting what you’re finding. Patterns like this, especially across multiple reporting systems, help illuminate whether discrepancies are accidental gaps or structural features of how data is being presented. I appreciate you adding another important piece to the conversation.
Oh I have data that goes back to FY2015-16. Numbers - reported previously - change drastically from one fiscal year to another with no clean explanation and city leaders ignore it.
Thank you, Lyne, that’s helpful context. A data trail back to 2015–16, especially with numbers changing from one fiscal year to the next without explanation, is the kind of pattern that deserves daylight rather than silence.
If you’re comfortable, I’d love to see what you’ve compiled; you can email me at ed@edboks.com. Even if we can’t explain every discrepancy yet, simply documenting how the numbers shift, and how leaders respond when it’s pointed out, is an important part of this series.
Bravo Michael Mavrovounioitis for preserving records and exposing discrepancies.
Another important article as foundation for reform.
This is quite the shift from Nathan Winograds " No Kill" movement, to this.