Escambia County Animal Shelter — Local services in Brent

I have met the new(ish) director twice, and I am here to tell you - Mr. Robinson cares about these animals. The staff are there because they care. Here's where I think people make assumptions (unintentionally) that the ECAS staff is unhelpful or not cordial. They are limited by the laws and rules and safety guidelines that are in place. Of course they want to take in every animal that is brought in. Of course they want to help low income people who cannot afford spays and neuters and vaccines. They really want these animals to find good homes. They work in an environment that is constantly testing their emotional stress, and seeing horrific cruelty that you can't un-see. They see people who come to the desk angry about things out of their control. Their heart strings are tugged more than you can possibly imagine. People get guarded when they are exposed to emotionally challenging situations day after day. In medicine, we call it "vicarious trauma," or "compassion fatigue." When people have a knee-jerk reaction and say things like, "Don't bring your animal there, it's a kill shelter!" they don't know the pains that this staff goes through to save one after another after another. I promise you, NOBODY has fun or wants to euthanize an animal. Are they just another cold, government building that goes through the motions without any heart? NO. Euthanasia is the sad effect of irresponsible humans. When we keeping breeding animals, or don't contain them humanely and securely, and don't socialize them when young, all of these factors contribute to euthanasia. Basically, people are irresponsible or even cruel, and when suffering springs from that, someone has to mop up after us. Someone has to put to sleep an aggressive dog wounded in a fight, or a cat hit by a car that doesn't have a chance of recovery. Kitten season or puppy season comes, they get dumped and someone has to make the hard decisions about making more room so they can get adopted. Please don't refer to it as a "kill shelter." Nobody there gets up in the morning with the thought that they want to go kill animals. They do everything in their power to avoid that. They need your support so people understand, this is not a bad place. The Director is a true expert on animal care and he is working hard - really hard- to make the shelter better. But he has to go through all the fiery hoops of county legislatures and zoning and costs. I'm not a relative or an employee. I'm not getting anything for this review. I'm a healthcare provider studying forensics and dog bites to children is the focus of my research. I've also worked for the ASPCA, and been behind-the-scenes of shelters. Please withhold your judgment of how this shelter operates and how you perceive the staff. Animal Control Officers work for a pittance to keep you out of harm's way of a roaming animal, and animals out of harm's way from a human. Yes, government is a challenge to make changes. You might not be able to get a stop-light built where you want it, but ECAS is one gov't entity where you can make changes for the better, fast. Come to the table with your complaints, but don't just leave them there. Bring solutions. Look for opportunities to share and donate not just money but services and supplies. I promise you, we are really lucky to have Director Robinson here. I could not be more impressed with him and his staff and how they are trying so hard in a thankless job to save animals...

Animal control was VERY VERY RUDE to me, she ended up hanging up on me after I told her I would just bring the dog I found up to the shelter. She said "they won't take her, they're full. We will come get the dog in a couple of hours." Well, I didn't have a couple of hours because I was at work and that's where I became aquatinted with this sweet dog. We have a shop cat and she was NOT having that sweet dog inside. I couldn't let her roam and be hit right off of Mobile Hwy either. So, I loaded good girl up and headed to Fairfield's animal shelter. The shelter there scanned her and contacted her owners while being VERY, VERY POLITE and when the original owner told him she had rehomed the pup, he let her off the phone so she could try to contact the new owners. He took this sweet girl into the back for the stray hold until they could get her back home. The difference between Animal Control and the Escambia County Animal Shelter is like night and day!!!! I will forever donate to, adopt from and refer people to Escambia County Animal Shelter as they VERY CLEARLY CARE A LOT about the animals they care for!!! They have wonderful people skills and greet you with a smile! Animal Control....the "officers" need a LOT of help on their attitudes....guess wearing that shiny badge makes the women feel superior to the rest of the female population? Or do they treat men that way too??? Just save yourself a LOT of hassle and go directly to Escambia County Animal Shelter to do your adopting, notifications about bringing in strays, scanning for chips, donating pet supplies and all that jazz. Avoid Animal Control, save yourself a massive headache!!! A condescending BIG HEADED woman (the lead...sheriff of animal control, took over the call and was polite last time I had to speak to them) is a deputy with a hard on for being ugly to people trying to help animals. Maybe she forgot her meds or was on her mensies, who knows ....but there is absolutely NO SENSE in treating people that way!!! You make the entirety of Animal Control look TERRIBLE!!! Thank you Escambia County Animal Shelter for all that you do for these animals, for being kind to the public, for being respectful towards others, for being a great team that goes above and beyond with the animals and people alike!!! You guys are doing GREAT WORK there and I hope you are proud of yourselves because your community...

My experience with our animal shelter was the worst experience I have ever had in my life. My poor orange shorthair tabby was taken to the animal shelter on 1/10/2019 by a neighbor of mine on my street not two houses away. To be clear at this point I have no idea that he's at the shelter but had gone down there to see anyway. While I was there a young man had taken my wife and I into see all the cats that had arrive on the 10th. My cat was not there on the 14th, so we thought. Well at this point we decide all we could do is leave a flyer so they could contact us. At this time no one tells us about the cat that had gotten away from them and gotten into the attic that being a red short haired tabby.The cats while in the care of the animal shelter was being fed on its third day there and manage to escape from its cage and then managed to climb this pole that's padded with this black like insulation. Apparently this was not the first time a cat had done this. Well to make a short story longer I went to the animal shelter after someone had sent me a Link to a post of my cat there at the shelter, so if you could imagine my surprise that there he was ' I had found my cat '. So with all my excitement I get there only fine all of this out, this was on the 18th, that he had gotten out and so on. Today is the 26th of January and my cat has still not been trapped as they put it from it's location in the attic. In fact the story changed again today. This experience has shown me the lack of communication between the personnel there and the lack of fixing a simple problem that would have avoided all this. Today I check there database and now my cat PetID #A290286 was remove just like that like he was never there. Today's date is the...