Over the past year, The San Diego County of Animal Services has acknowledged problems in its shelters and taken steps to make improvements.
Most notably, the dog euthanasia rate dropped substantially in the last six months of 2025, according to the county’s most recent data. The department also reduced its staff turnover rate by about half in the last year.
Yet other problems remain.
Kennel cleaning practices at the county’s Bonita shelter continue to violate national shelter guidelines, while staffing shortages have hampered shelter operations. And completion of the county’s new shelter in Santee has been pushed back multiple times, delaying the transfer of animals from the substandard facility in Bonita.
All of this comes as the department has faced increased scrutiny from the public and county leaders following an investigation from KPBS.
The department operates the shelter in Bonita and another in Carlsbad that serve residents in unincorporated parts of the county. Last summer, KPBS revealed the department’s dog euthanasia rate spiked coming out of the pandemic; it also struggled with chronic staffing shortages and poor recordkeeping. The reporting later uncovered how the department buried an audit years ago that pointed out issues at its shelters.
Dr. Amy Fischer, a professor at the University of Illinois Department of Animal Sciences, previously reviewed the audit uncovered by KPBS. She said delaying the opening of the Santee shelter endangers animal welfare.
“It does sound very urgent because the dogs are clearly in substandard housing,” she said. “The environment in which we keep these animals just affects everything else.”
Have a tip? 📨
The Investigations Team at KPBS holds powerful people and institutions accountable. But we can’t do it alone — we depend on tips from the public to point us in the right direction. There are two ways to contact the I-Team.
For general tips, you can send an email to investigations@kpbs.org.
If you need more security, you can send anonymous tips or share documents via our secure Signal account at 619-594-8177.
To learn more about how we use Signal and other privacy protections, click here.
The county declined a KPBS request to interview Animal Services director Dr. Brieana Sarvis, who was appointed to the role last month after serving as the department’s chief veterinarian.
“Dr. Sarvis is assessing the operations of the department to identify best practices and opportunities for improvements to support the animals in our care, as well as the staff and volunteers who serve them and the community,” wrote county spokesperson Chuck Westerheide in response to emailed questions.
Meet Hiro
The story of Hiro, a seven-year-old shepherd mix at the Bonita shelter, helps illustrate the recent improvements and ongoing shortcomings at county-run shelters.
Here’s the good news for Hiro: He has a better chance of leaving the shelter alive compared to just over a year ago.
From 2019 to 2024, the dog euthanasia rate at county-run shelters increased from under 5% to about 12%. In interviews with KPBS, former employees and shelter volunteers described how dogs with mild, treatable behavioral issues were routinely and unnecessarily euthanized at the county’s two shelters.
Following KPBS’ reporting, the county committed to making changes in order to bring down the euthanasia rate. In the last six months of 2025, it dropped to 6%, according to the most recent county data.
In an email, Westerheide wrote the department has added to its medical team, expanded staff training and “has been updating medical and behavioral processes” at the shelters, though he did not elaborate on how the processes have changed.
Westerheide also points to the success of the department’s foster program and the hiring of a volunteer dog trainer.
Here’s the bad news for Hiro: Staying in the Bonita shelter means being subjected to harsh conditions.
On a recent Friday morning, Hiro peered through the bars of kennel 108, wagging his tail and occasionally barking when someone walked by. KPBS observed two shelter employees tending to about 60 dogs in the covered outdoor space. Most of the kennels — including Hiro’s — still had poop on the floor from the previous night.
One staff member pulled a hose along the backside of the kennels and sprayed through the bars to clean them. Many of the dogs remained in the kennels while the floors were hosed down. The water sprayed with enough force to come through the front of the enclosures.
Hiro tapped his white paws on the wet concrete floor after the employee moved on to the next kennel. He would have to stand or lay on the soaked ground until it dried. Like most dogs at the Bonita shelter, Hiro doesn’t have a bed.
The Association of Shelter Veterinarians considers hosing down kennels with dogs inside an “unacceptable”practice, meaning it “need(s) to be avoided or prevented without exception.” The department audit from a few years ago flagged this issue, along with the lack of kennel beds.
After KPBS published a story last year on the buried audit, the county said it would improve its kennel cleaning practices. But nothing has changed.
Fischer expressed bewilderment when told about the county’s continued disregard of the national shelter guidelines.
“It’s mind boggling,” she said. “If you're housing these animals, they should have a bed. They should not get hosed down during cleaning. It's just common sense.”
In response to emailed questions, Westerheide pointed to “the limitations of the kennel design” at Bonita. Unlike newer kennels, the ones in Bonita do not include a separate, walled-off space to hold a dog while the kennel is being cleaned.
“We continue to explore options to properly clean the kennels at Bonita to ensure a safe environment for the animals, staff and volunteers,” Westerheide wrote.
He added that the new facility in Santee “will allow us to use best practices in cleaning the kennels.”
Staff shortages, shelter uncertainty
KPBS’ reporting found staffing shortages in recent years left the department hamstrung, often to the detriment of shelter animals. In 2024, the department had a staff turnover rate of more than 65%.
The department has started to reverse this attrition trend. In 2025 Animal Services had a turnover rate of under 35%.
The improvement in staff turnover has coincided with the departure of the agency’s top leaders.
In January, the county fired assistant director Rachael Borrelli. She was put on leave months earlier, after KPBS revealed Borrelli sent a profanity-laced voice memo that disparaged shelter dogs and bemoaned the lack of euthanasias at one shelter. She has since filed a claim against the county seeking $8.5 million for alleged retaliation.
About a week after Borrelli’s termination, then-director Vaughn Maurice abruptly resigned.
In addition to promoting Sarvis to the director position, the county hired Kendra King as the new deputy director.
Despite the improved turnover rate, inadequate staffing continues to impact shelter operations.
Shelters typically see the most foot traffic on weekends, which offers the best chance for dogs like Hiro to be adopted. But on a Saturday in late April, the Bonita shelter had to close for the day “due to unexpected staffing shortages,” according to a handwritten sign posted out front.
A lack of staff caused the Carlsbad shelter to close on five separate days from late 2025 to early 2026.
KPBS reviewed multiple department emails sent in recent weeks that asked volunteers to cover shifts introducing dogs to potential adopters — a duty typically assigned to paid employees — due to staffing shortages.
Relief is on the horizon for the animals at Bonita, but that horizon keeps getting pushed back.
The county plans to shutter the 52-year-old facility once it finishes construction on a new 23,000-square-foot shelter in Santee. The county originally said it would finish the shelter by early 2026. Now, the county says the shelter will open this fall.
The reasons for the delays remain unclear.
A volunteer at the Bonita shelter, who asked KPBS not to use their name because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press, wrote in a recent letter to county leaders that animals continue to suffer as the deadlines are missed.
“The condition of Bonita shelter is atrocious,” the letter states. “Even though a new facility is under construction in Santee, the projected opening in (the fall) is too far away for the animals who will endure most of the year in substandard conditions.”
The delays come as staff and volunteers received mixed messages about the department’s future.
Days after Maurice left, Sarvis — who was interim director at the time — said in an internal email obtained by KPBS that the county was exploring consolidating its operations to one shelter in the future.
KPBS confirmed the county entered into talks with San Diego Humane Society to take over the county’s Carlsbad shelter but later pulled out of those talks.
The news that the Carlsbad shelter would remain under the county’s control still hadn’t reached the volunteer who spoke to KPBS.
“We’re still in limbo about Carlsbad,” they said. “The communications with the volunteers is not very good.”
- Is San Diego prepared for large-scale federal immigration enforcement?
- Training the next generation of immigration lawyers in the mass deportation era
- San Diego County animal shelters see changes at the top
- County supervisors used obscure events fund to solicit over $100K from influential donors since 2024
