A Letter to Jacksonville on 904 Day

Three years ago this month, I came to Jacksonville to lead Animal Care & Protective Services. At the time, I was still learning the city, learning the shelter, learning the people and trying to understand what ACPS could become.

Now, three years later, Jacksonville feels like home.

With September 4 being 904 Day, I have been thinking a lot about that journey. Not just my own, but the one this shelter has been on with me.

Animal sheltering has a way of keeping you focused on whatever is happening right now. There is always another animal coming through the door, another call from the community, another kennel that needs to be cleaned, another medical case, another dog who needs time outside, another family looking for help. You can spend so much time trying to solve today's problems that you rarely stop long enough to look back.

Recently, I did.

I pulled our Shelter Animals Count reports from the last three years and started comparing where ACPS was when I arrived with where we are today. I expected to see progress. I did not fully appreciate just how much the scale of our work had changed until I saw the numbers sitting next to each other.

During 2023-24, ACPS took in 6,039 animals. Over the most recent 12 months, we took in 8,646. That means 2,607 more animals came through our doors in a single year than they did three years ago, a 43% increase.

I think that number is important because it tells a much bigger story than how many kennels we filled.

ACPS is not simply a place where people come to adopt dogs and cats. We are Jacksonville's municipal animal services agency, and a big part of what we do happens long before an animal is ever available for adoption.

Our Animal Services Officers respond to dogs running loose through neighborhoods. They investigate bite cases, cruelty and neglect. They deal with dangerous-dog situations, injured animals and calls from residents who need someone to respond when an animal-related situation has become a safety concern.

Three years ago, ACPS took in 4,043 animals reported as stray or at large. Over the most recent year, that number grew to 5,637.

Those animals are not just numbers on an intake report. Sometimes they are dogs running in traffic. Sometimes they are animals wandering neighborhoods without an owner in sight. Sometimes they are connected to a bite, an investigation or a situation where someone in the community is asking us for help.

So when I look at the fact that ACPS is taking in 43% more animals, I do not see that only as additional pressure on the shelter. I also see thousands more situations where the City was able to intervene, bring an animal into a safe environment and address something happening in our community.

Then I looked at what happened to those animals after they arrived.

That part made me especially proud.

During my first year here, ACPS completed 3,203 adoptions. Over the most recent year, we completed 5,829. That is an 82% increase.

Our total live outcomes grew from 4,656 to 7,340, nearly 58%. Dog adoptions increased from 1,555 to 3,101, and cat adoptions increased from 1,648 to 2,728.

I keep going back to those two numbers.

Intake increased 43%, while adoptions increased 82%.

That says a lot about what has changed here.

The dog numbers are probably the ones that hit me the hardest because dogs continue to be one of our greatest challenges.

During 2023-24, ACPS took in 2,757 dogs. This past year, we took in 4,245. That is nearly 1,500 additional dogs coming into the shelter in a year.

At the same time, dog adoptions nearly doubled and our dog save rate increased from 82.81% to 89.39%.

And there was one number I found myself staring at for a while.

During my first year here, 422 dogs were euthanized at ACPS. Over the most recent year, that number was 377.

We are now taking in nearly 1,500 more dogs each year, but fewer dogs are being euthanized.

When you work in this field, it is hard to read that as a statistic and move on.

I think about the dogs I have personally met. I think about the ones I have taken out of their kennels, the ones I have watched slowly begin to trust people, and the ones who looked completely different once they got away from the noise of the shelter.

I think about our employees who refused to give up on a difficult dog. Our medical team that treated an animal through weeks of recovery. A volunteer who kept coming back for the same dog. A foster who said yes when we were running out of options. An Adoption Counselor who took the time to talk with someone and realized there was a match sitting three kennels away from the animal they originally came to see.

Those are the things behind that number.

The growth of our foster program tells a similar story.

On September 1, 2023, ACPS had 235 animals in foster homes. On September 1 of this year, there were 772. Our point-in-time foster population has more than tripled.

I do not think we could do what we are doing today without our foster families.

They have essentially extended the shelter into homes all over Jacksonville.

Instead of spending every night in a kennel, hundreds of animals are sleeping on couches, learning household routines, recovering from surgery, growing up outside the shelter or simply getting a chance to decompress.

And they come back to us with information we could never get from watching an animal through a kennel door.

They tell us that the nervous dog loves children. That the dog who barely moved in the shelter suddenly wants to follow someone from room to room. That a cat prefers a quiet house. That a puppy finally slept through the night. That a dog who looked completely overwhelmed here is house-trained and perfectly content to spend an afternoon beside someone on the couch.

Those details matter. They help us understand the animal, and they help the next family understand them too.

Our overall save rate has also improved each year, from 84.57% to 85.81% and now 86.90%.

I am proud of that progress, but I am not interested in pretending that everything is where I want it to be.

It is not.

We are full. Some days we are beyond full. Intake continues to rise. There are animals we lose that stay with us. There are things we still need to improve, resources we still need and programs we need to continue building.

I hope three years from now I can look back at today's numbers and feel the same way I do now. Proud of how far we came, but also surprised by how much further we were able to go.

What gives me confidence is knowing how these results actually happened.

There is no single person at ACPS who can take credit for them, and there is no single department responsible for an animal making it home.

An Animal Services Officer may be the first person to encounter a dog and bring them to safety. Someone in our Pet Resource Center helps get that animal into our system. Our Medical team examines them, treats injuries, performs surgery and makes sure they are healthy enough for what comes next.

Animal Care is there every day feeding, cleaning and watching for the small changes that tell us how an animal is doing. Enrichment staff and volunteers help dogs get out of kennels and give animals something positive in a stressful environment.

Our Foster team works to get animals into homes and supports the families willing to take them. Our Volunteer team brings people into the shelter and gives them the tools to help. Social Media gives an animal an audience far beyond the people walking our hallways. Humane Education introduces people to responsible pet ownership and animal welfare before they may ever need our services. Our Events team brings ACPS into communities across Jacksonville.

Our Adoption Counselors are often there at the end of that journey, sitting with someone, answering questions, listening to what they are looking for and helping them find the animal who fits their life.

Admin and Accounting keep an operation this large working behind the scenes. Leadership spends a lot of time removing obstacles and solving problems that were not on anyone's calendar that morning.

Every piece matters.

Most animals who leave ACPS successfully do so because a lot of people made a lot of good decisions along the way.

And our responsibility does not stop with the animals inside the shelter.

I also think about the people who need us.

The resident whose dog disappeared and is desperately checking every place they can think of.

The family going through a financial crisis who loves their pet and does not want to give them up.

The person who found an injured dog along the side of the road.

The neighbor worried about a loose dog.

The victim of a bite.

The person who sees something that looks like cruelty and wants someone to investigate.

The family who walks through our doors looking for a pet and leaves with someone who will be part of their lives for years.

Animal services sits at the intersection of animal welfare, public safety and community support. Sometimes our job is enforcement. Sometimes it is education. Sometimes it is medical care. Sometimes it is helping someone keep the animal they already love. Other times it is helping an animal start completely over.

That is one reason I believe so strongly that a good animal services department makes a city better.

And that brings me back to 904 Day.

My three-year anniversary may have been what made me sit down and look through all of this, but I do not see these numbers as mine.

I see our employees.

I see volunteers who walk into this shelter on their own time because they care.

I see foster families rearranging their homes for an animal they may only know for a few weeks.

I see rescue partners answering calls when we need another option.

I see Jacksonville residents sharing posts, donating supplies, showing up at events and telling friends about a dog or cat who needs a home.

I see adopters who walked into ACPS having no idea which animal they would meet and walked out with a new member of their family.

Three years ago, I was new to this city.

Today, I care deeply about it, and I care deeply about what ACPS means to it.

Jacksonville has shown me over and over that when people here care about something, they will show up for it. They have shown up for this shelter and for these animals more times than I can count.

That is what I am celebrating this 904 Day.

Not an anniversary on a calendar, and not a collection of percentages.

I am celebrating a city, a team and a community that have helped ACPS serve thousands more animals while continuing to find better ways to get them home.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us, and I would not tell you otherwise. But after three years of seeing what the people inside this shelter and throughout Jacksonville are capable of, I feel very hopeful about where we go from here.

Thank you, Jacksonville, for giving me a home three years ago.

And thank you for helping us give so many animals one too.