San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter — Local services in San Marcos

I’ve adopted 3 amazing dogs from this location and each time has been simple and quick. My boyfriend owns 1 dog and I have my amazing 3. Luckily this shelter allows you to do meet and greets to ensure all the dogs get along. There’s pros and cons here, some more understandable than others. When you walk in you’re greeted nicely by most staff. Only one staff member has been an issue on my end. It seems as though if you’re a big adopter you’ll be ridiculed for it by this one Asian staff member. While adopting my 3rd dog I was told by my boyfriend that she openly felt some type of way about me adopting yet another dog because I had already adopted 2 others. Most of the animals are very skinny and have been in the shelter for over 100 days. It seems that this shelter puts on a persona online to bring people in but once you’re there, it’s very sad to see these animals. My latest dog came into the shelter with puppies from what I know and it seems that they didn’t even bother cleaning her underneath where the babies came out.. instead they stitched her up and put her right back in a cage. Under this you’ll see all the dogs ive adopted, both of my pitbulls were severely underweight and malnourished but you’ll see now that they’re looking better than ever even after only having my newly adopted pit for a single day. I will give credits to one of my favorite staff there though, she’s the sweetest and when she saw my dogs she recognized them right away and said hello. Curly blonde, (I’m not sure what your name was) you have my heart, I can see how much you care for the animals and you’re appreciated for your hardwork 💙 overall come here if you are for sure adopting, window shopping is probably not the best due to the little help that this shelter gets which means it won’t be so clean and you will have to work with your new cat or dog to keep them healthy and thriving. I recommend this shelter to everyone no matter what because 90% of the staff have the ambition for these dogs that u would hope any shelter staff would have. No matter what “some” of the staff say when u adopt, don’t let them get to you. No staff member should ever shame someone for adopting another dog.

Below is pictures of 3 babies I’ve adopted with their original names as well💙

Huckleberry Finn - Kilo Captain Crunch - Lady Frankenstein Sarah O...

i know that people work at shelters because they are pet people and not people persons but the lack of interpersonal skills is just outrageous here.

I brought an a stray which was obviously a long dumped former pet into the shelter last year. I spent time gaining this animals trust so I could bring him here where he could hopefully have been helped. They did take him, but not without exceeding condescension and judgement from staff towards me. I felt unwelcome and in the wrong for trying to do the right thing.

The poor guy clearly had a localized infection and was malnourished, and his chances of being hit by a car in the area he was found was high. It’s also possible he was chipped and someone had been looking for him for a long time! Did I not do the right thing? I think about this often and tear up wondering this as it seems the lady at the counter didn’t think so.

I truly hope there was a good outcome for him but I doubt it now given how negative and unapproachable staff was. If I were in the financial position to keep the animal I would have, but that doesn’t change the fact that strays in the community are the responsibility of our locally funded shelters!

He deserved help. And it isn’t the place of the shelter staff to insist that it’s my responsibility or that I had something to do with it. I’m just flabbergasted at the unkindnesses truthfully. Being rude does not help the animals find homes.

Apparently if it were up to the woman at the counter, unfortunate homeless pets would remain on the street? Or with people who can’t care for them.

A woman came in while I was there with a basket of kittens and also received cruel treatment from the same woman. “Why didn’t you fix the mother?” She demanded. We can’t take them. She was just as judge mental to this woman and wouldn’t allow her even a few seconds to explain herself.

I would love to help this shelter promote but from what I can tell they are unresponsive to their social media and hostile to visitors. They need new staff. I understand this line of work can be exhausting, depressing, and painful to participate in, for that reason, those who cannot handle it with grace need to move on...

I know they're worked ragged and overflowing with dogs... and I know our whole system for dealing with strays is awful and stressful for everyone involved, so I am taking tat into consideration upon writing this review. The staff at SMRAS clearly care about animals or they wouldn't be working where they do. That being said, I brought in two strays I found "in county" one of whom was well-fed/cared for but limping, the other- a puppy- was clearly dying of mange. It was a Saturday and their intake people were gone (why don't shelters have WEEKEND STAFF??? If it's a funding issue, can we funnel some of the trillions we spend on needless wars into animal shelters?? And old folks homes, too, while we're at it!!!) I live on a ranch without adequate fencing and without a bathtub, at the moment, where there would have been no way to begin mange treatment and no way to quarantine the sick puppy so all the ranch dogs didn't also get mange. The puppy already had secondary infections... she was clearly an emergency... but they still turned me away and said they might be able to help on Monday but that I'd have to figure out east to do with the dogs for the weekend. They also told me that now that the dogs were in my possession, they were basically my dogs and if I just dropped them off where I found them or something like that, I could be prosecuted if anyone saw me and reported it. I sat in their parking lot for well over an hour trying to figure out what to do and without a solid plan, I drove away in tears to figure out how to care for these dogs. My Mom told me she asked a woman from another shelter "so, what are you supposed to do when you come upon an animal in need on the weekend- just keep driving because no one will help you?" The lady said as sad as she was to say it, that was...