Friends of The Alameda Animal Shelter — Local services in Alameda

Found a dog Sunday morning in Alameda, He was extremely skinny, malnourished, starving, loosing hair, and had bumps and holes on his body. Poor baby. So I brought him here and they are going to take care of him.

So here's the story. Around 5am I was doing Lyft and while dropping someone off I spotted this dog and noticed he was digging around to find food, I took a mental note of where I was and said I'm going to turn off my Lyft and once I drop off this passenger I'm going to come back and see if I see him. So I did just that, after about 1p minutes of driving around I found him, he was still trying very very hard to find food. I pulled over and tested the waters to see what kind of dog he is, meaning agresive, scared, angry, etc. At the beginning he was super scared , but I could tell he wasn't angry. Finally he trusted me and let me pet him. I then realized we came quit far so I ran and got my car, and then pulled it closer to where he was and tried to put him in my car. It took a while to put him in my car but eventually I got him, like literally took a hour lol. Anyway I then started looking up shelters. No one was open at 6 am.. so I had to take him home, but since I don't have food or water and he didn't have a collar we went to a few gas stations to get dog food. After trying 2 and them only having dog treats, we went to the Dollar tree. They didn't open until 8am so we walked around until they did. I purchased a dog bowl, food and treats. Anyway from here we went to the only shelter that was open which was by my house in Walnut Creek, we took the drive and they told me that since I didn't find him in pleasant Hill, I'd have to take him to the shelter in Alameda where I found him. So back to Alameda we went, took the drive and we finally made it. When we did he stopped at the water he drank for soooo long, made me feel bad because I guess I didn't give him enough while I had him. :( Anyway we go inside, I fill out paperwork and they needed to know exactly where I found him, provided the information and they took him to get him checked out. They were very nice and even gave me info to follow up and check in on him, I definitely will. *They did tell me that the lumps seem like tumors, and he may have cancer, they also said you can tell he's older and that's normal for older dogs.

Update: spoke to the shelter this morning, they said he's deaf :( makes a...

The review is not for the entire establishment. But primarily to the director of this establishment who treated me with utter disrespect when I brought an animal for care. He acted extremely hateful and immature, in an extremely unprofessional manner to someone who did nothing wrong to deserve such treatment, when I just asked for a permission and instructions because he is the director trying to do things right when I wanted to volunteer to walk a dog- only because I wanted to be useful while I had to wait until it was my turn to be seen. He was clearly having a bad day and hated that my question "bugged" him and loudly exclaimed "why I was bugging him if I already asked other staff members". Thanks to his position of power in the establishment, he felt entitled to kick me out of the building for calling out his attitude towards me disrespectful and immature when he had no right to treat the public like this and he had no right to deny service to the animal I brought in. The staff at the reception was a witness and she was shocked. Everyone else was so nice and accomodating, but this man was one the worst people I had to encounter in a long time. Please be careful with this man who I have witnessed in more than one occasion act hateful and vengeful towards people even though he may seem to love animals. I also observed dogs display obvious signs of discomfort and unease in his presence. If possible, talk with other members of staff. People should not bring in their personal emotional issues to their work place,especially when they are in a position of power.

Also, please note-this shelter is not a nokill shelter. They have decided to put down trainable dogs without consulting with the care staff who knew more about their behavior. They make no effort or use any budget to train the dogs to make them more adoptable. One would expect more from a wealthy Bay Area shelter than just keeping them alive in very small and isolated units with no time to learn to socialize properly. The amount of non recycled trash they generate everyday is also embarrasing. This is not an environmentaly conscious place, even though they do obviously care for the animals. It is fair to say this shelter is friends to the animals but not friends to the...

This review stems from an incident about a year ago, around September of 2019. I will preface this by saying that I am not a veterinarian. I did grow up in a household who fostered very young kittens and am familiar with their care and diseases that come. I adopted a kitten from this shelter. When she was old enough I took her back to the shelter to get spayed. The told me she had ring worm and recommend that they keep her at the shelter for a month. I assured the veterinarian that I had taken care of kittens with ringworm before, she was the only pet in the house, I lived alone, and that I wasn't concerned with contracting it as I have dealt with it before. Frustrated, they returned my kitten back to me who I proceeded took home and examine. There was zero hair loss on her legs or around her face. A little confused I took her to a local veterinarian who found no signs of ringworm. Confused I took her back home and was just happy that I had a healthy cat. A few weeks later the cat had a swollen stomach, a quick trip to the hospital revealed her to have FIP, and I put down immediately. The only place that she could have gotten the virus was at the shelter. The fact that they have a veterinarian on payroll who lied about ringworm I...