LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Long Beach Animal Care Services shelter is over critical capacity, forcing the shelter to make the difficult decision to consider euthanasia for some dogs.

Shelter director Staycee Dains says in her tenure, she’s never seen this kind of overcrowding.

“We have 99 dog kennels and 120 dogs," she said.

Under Dains’ leadership, the Long Beach shelter transitioned to a no-kill shelter. It’s an ethos Dains feels strongly about, which made the decision to consider euthanasia even more difficult.

“Behind each of these dogs is a person who failed them,” said Dains. “And so that’s what was really hard about that decision. I felt like another person that was failing them. I did not get into this work to purposefully fail the community, including our animals, and I consider animals part of our community.”

But Dains finds herself between a rock and a hard place. Legally obligated to take in any dog brought to the shelter, adoptions are not keeping pace to open up kennels. There are dogs, mostly large, in makeshift kennels lining hallways, offices and occupying cat kennels.

Otherwise adoptable dogs that just need a little more time, or a little more training, or a unique family fit, are now on the red list. Dogs like Panda, a small pit bull terrier mix with black and white markings.  

“Panda has been here for 382 days,” Dains says, clearly pained thinking about it. “She was an owner surrender. I want to find her a home with all my heart.”

Complicating matters further is the arrival of kitten season, where entire litters of neonatal kittens arrive by the day and require even more bandwidth from shelter staff and foster families. Dains would love to see most of her large dogs adopted, or fostered, before kitten season reaches its peak.

Community outreach coordinator, Megan Ignacio, says that housing insecurity and the housing shortage play a huge part in why this is happening now.

“I see a lot of social media comments and the thing I see most is housing,” Ignacio said. “People are struggling economically, they’re struggling because of cost, and housing and so forth. So, this isn’t just a dog issue, this is a community issue.”

To help boost adoptions, the shelter has set a goal to find 60 homes for 60 big dogs and is waiving adoption fees for the remainder of March. Dains is also appealing to the public to consider fostering, if adoption is not a possibility.

As of the writing of this article, Dains has not had to start euthanizing from her list, but she says she needs the public’s help to continue. Most of all, she is appealing to the public to keep an open mind about adoptions.

“See who you’re really interested in, beyond what they look like, beyond how old they are,” Dains said. “Come here, take them on a walk. Make a connection. And I think if people can keep doing that, we will stay away from having to make that ultimate decision.”