San Luis Obispo County Animal Services

Literally the worst phone service ever. I’m on hold for minute 20 while writing this review. Also very rude in person when I went. The city needs to either hire more staff or more effective staff.

The SLO Cty An. Shelter does not get the praise that Woods
does. Largely because the Shelter has more intake of pets than Woods, less volunteers, and limited funds.
The Shelter does a very good service with what they have to work with.
I have volunteered at both Woods and the SLO Cty Shelter.
If you want to make a REAL difference where needed, ADOPT from the Shelter, or lend a hand as a volunteer. You can make a difference!

ok, lets just use key words. RUDE. INEFFECTIVE, NOT ANIMAL LOVERS, SLOW TO RESPOND, and did i mention RUDE??? this whole department needs to be re done. ALL of the workers should be fired, a new «MANAGER» should be in place, and they should start over. The SHARED my confidential information with others. ILLEGAL.

I called Animal Services to arrange for someone to pick up a cat that had been struck by a car & was flopping around trying to get up. Unfortunately, I mentioned the fact that although she had been around the townhome community for some time, she did not belong to anyone. I was informed that because the cat had been here more than 5 days, the county wouldn’t come without charging $ 80-​$ 100. Apparently, a cat is considered «owned» if it hangs around for more than 5 days. I am sorry I wasted my time making the phone call, while she suffered. The folks at Atascadero Pet center took care of her immediately and without charge. Those folks are awesome. If I could leave zero stars, I would.

We just adopted our first cat today! We initially looked on craigslist and were thinking of getting a kitten but decided an adult cat would fit in better with our family/​other animals. With it being a «shelter» we did not expect anything glamorous or we would have gone to a pet store. There wasn’t someone sitting and just waiting for people to come in. Every volunteer was working their butts off doing paperwork, bringing dogs in, taking them out to exercise, doing vaccinations and microchiping, etc. I was really impressed since they weren’t getting paid for any of it. With that said we didn’t expect someone to wait on us and follow us around while we asked a million questions. We did our own research and with the information they provided on the outside of the cages all we needed someone for was a one on one. Then it was either yes or no. Most of them were strays so their history on the animal was as good of a guess as mine. Like I said it’s not a pet shop so anyone expecting it to be emaculate, your at the wrong place. It’s not as clean as other shelters I have seen but then again I’m sure if thy raised their prices they would have the extra money to clean the place up. It’s definitely more affordable. In the end it’s about the animal finding a good home and you finding the perfect pet. They have so many animals to tend to so I think its important to do your own research. Their time is valuable and the animals depend on them. They have bad days too and like someone said, over worked and under paid if paid at all. Overall it was a good 1^st time experience and everyone there thanked us for making an adoption. I think some reviews are overally exaggerated but you also have to go in there with a positive attitude. It’s the animal that suffers in the end if you decide not to adopt there cause of its cleanliness or custome service.

I found an abandoned rabbit and could not keep it myself. Tried finding it a home online however had no success at first so I took it to the animal shelter. There was a fat older man at the counter. I explained my situation to him and he just looked at me like I was an idiot for bringing a rabbit in for them to find it a home. He was being very rude and not helpful. Tossed some papers in front of me to fill out so I could legally hand it to him. Luckily a nice woman came by and ended up telling me there was a family in the shelter looking to bring a rabbit home and they had a young daughter there. They brought the family out and luckily fell in love with her so they took her home. I asked the fat rude man what I should do about the paper work since the family was just going to take her and not pay for anything he said he didn’t care, didn’t want to be apart of it and told the family if they were going to keep the rabbit to leave already.
if you don’t like animals or don’t care about their safety, well being, or care about finding them a home, then get a different job. I’ve also never seen a shelter that has such a lock down on the facility where you have to ask them to let you in. Absolutely felt like a prison. One of the worse shelters I’ve been to.

I adopted my dog from SLO County Animal Services. The volunteer spent hours with me. She asked a ton of questions so that she would get a good picture of what kind of dog would fit best into my lifestyle. She was very patient and nonjudgemental when I would say I didn’t think a certain dog was for me. She also thought of things I hadn’t– for example, since I planned to take my new dog to the beach, I might think about a dog with a short coat. When she found out that I didn’t buy in to the nonsense that is spread about pit bulls, her face lit up and she took me straight to a kennel that held a frightened pit bull mix who was the perfect dog for me. Please make this your first stop if you are looking to adopt a dog or cat. I found my best friend there.

Please please please adopt a rescue animal! There are so many furry friends that would love a home like yours! Minus one star because it’s not as clean as Woods Humane and the smell made me gag a little but what can you do, they have a LOT of animals to take care of. The adoption fees are very reasonable and it includes spay/​neuter and a FREE vet visit.

First off to make your search easier, you can check out
and it has a list of animals they currently have so when you go in person you at least have some idea of what which animal has already caught your eye.
My roommates and I last year adopted a cat from here. They had so many! Some of their stories were very heart breaking, but alas, at least they were getting a second chance here. We had originally looked at Woods, but figured those animals there must be pretty happy seeing that they are so well taken care of in their wonderful facility and since many of them were younger kittens and cats, we figured they had a better chance of getting adopted. We opted for SLO county’s cats because they were older and probably had a higher likelihood if getting put down to make room for incoming cats.
We adopted a 4 year old cat named Velvet. She had been sitting in her cell for 3 months waiting for a forever home, she was the longest resident they had at the time. Like many of her other black cat friends, black cats are the least adopted because of silly superstition that they bring bad luck. Ever since bringing her home she’s has been a great cat. Our exchange at the shelter went very smoothly. No complaints. The adoption fee was quite cheap, $ 30 since we adopted a cat that was over 3 years old. Adoption comes with a free vet visit (if used in time) and a coupon book (for Petco, Farm Supply Co, Tails, and a few others).
Took off a star because, well, it’s weird to give a county animal shelter 5 stars. It’s concrete everywhere, can’t say the environment is very welcoming. but that is no real fault of their own. Their purpose is to function effectively not run a pet inn.

The county shelter has a hard job. They have to take in animals without homes, help families get reunited with lost pets, attempt to find homes for those without families, and euthanize animals when out of space. I respect the difficult service they provide and am not rating them down because they must humanely euthanize animals.
Rather, I am giving them one star because my experience is that their organization is run terribly. I had hoped to adopt a cat from them, and the times I came to visit their cats at the shelter I found the staff to be short-​tempered with me and unhelpful. I know they’re overworked and not paid, but if they treat potential adopters like that I feel like people will be dissuaded from adopting from the shelter.
When I finally did find the kitten I wanted to adopt I had a very frustrating experience. The kitten was going to be adopted by another family, but when they found out he had a heart murmur they decided not to adopt him. I decided to adopt him instead and called the shelter so that I could pay the adoption fee and formally fill out the paperwork. I kept getting the go-​around from them, as they said he was no longer «in the system» due to the other people almost adopting him. They would have to put him formally back in the system in order for me to adopt him. Well, guess what? They never put him back in the system, and I was never formally able to adopt him.
Although this may sound like a good deal, this meant I wasn’t able to get critical information about my new kitten, including his birthday and shot history. This means I had to re-​start his short series (since I didn’t know which shots he’d had, if any), and getting those extra shots ultimately cost more than the small fee I would have paid to adopt him.
It was a very frustrating experience, although I’m glad I now have a great cat. I’d still suggest adopting an animal in need from a shelter or rescue, but don’t expect your adoption to go smoothly if you adopt from SLO County’s shelter! If I adopted again in this area I would adopt from AFAR or Woods Humane Society instead.