Big City, Bigger Heart: Jacksonville Animal Care & Protective Services
Jacksonville Animal Care & Protective Services in north Florida serves a city that has the largest land area in the continental United States.
And they do it well.
The shelter handles over 6,000 animals each year (approximately equal numbers of dogs and cats), offering free vaccines, individualized care, unlimited volunteer and foster opportunities, and an Animal Control Staff that enforces breeding and care ordinances and investigates cruelty allegations.
The shelter is supported by a municipality that provides the budget necessary to employ over 70 staff members, including 13 Animal Control Officers, and to provide full-time veterinary care. The vast building is constantly changing as they reallocate space to better support their animal population, new programs, and the public.
Serving the public and finding forever homes
Program Manager, Khristina, worked with staff to repurpose a conference room. The new ‘cat café’ (with no café but lots of cute cats) is just inside the lobby doors, and anyone can stop in to hang out with adoptable cats in the interactive space. While the shelter does place cats in the local PetSmart, this innovative space is already having its intended effect – helping cats get adopted.
The average length of stay is less than a month, with pretty much all animals going out via adoption and just a handful to rescue, primarily for medical needs. That said, thanks to the Friends of Animal Care & Protective Services, they do treat for heartworm and many specialty medical needs. The shelter’s veterinary staff handles everything else, plus offers quarterly vaccine clinics in the areas of the city most in need. Jacksonville is blessed to have many low-cost spay/neuter options for its residents.
Animals come to the shelter via Animal Control, stray turn-ins, and owner surrenders. The shelter tries to schedule owner-surrender appointments, but, depending on circumstances, will sometimes take animals immediately.
There is a separate entrance for community resources, where residents can stop in during open hours to ask for help with their pets, surrender animals, or bring in found animals. Marcy, the shelter manager, explained that they have plans to improve the area with colorful, inviting murals. She hopes they can either restructure the open lobby space or change the process to provide more privacy for people (and animals) who are experiencing a stressful time.
A shelter that innovates
What really stands out at this shelter is their willingness to innovate and try new things. Staff members were quick to point out that this attitude comes from the top. Mike, their division chief, who began work at the shelter two and a half years ago, encourages and gives them the freedom to try new ideas and programs. As Franny, the Manager of Volunteer Services, told me, “It doesn’t matter if the idea came from volunteers, fosters, staff, whoever; we’ll try it.”
Huge foster and volunteer program is the pulse of the place
The foster and volunteer program is vast, with over 200-250 animals in foster care at any time, and 325 at the shelter. ACPS could not function without the help of the invested community members who fill its building.
The volunteer program truly boomed when the shelter began its Dogs Day Out program and Facebook group. Community members can come in anytime the shelter is open and ask to take a dog out through the program. After filling out a form and getting some directions, they are given a dog and a backpack of supplies, including a list of places to take dogs, and sent on their ‘field trip.’
Some of those community members became regular volunteers, and others became fosters. They connected and communicated through a Facebook group created by a volunteer. In 2025, there were 1800 field trips!
Now, volunteers are involved in pretty much every facet of the shelter’s work. “Volunteers can do pretty much anything staff does,” Braeden told me.
Offering individualized care
Destiny is the Animal Care and Enrichment Manager. While most animals are not at the shelter for long, those that don’t fly out the door are given individual enrichment plans (hung on their kennels) to help them blossom. She finds that ‘teenage’ dogs (ages 9-18 months) often need those plans because they are still puppies, even if they look like adult dogs.
With treat buckets on every kennel, plenty of walks, and human attention, most do well, but for dogs who are not presenting well in the kennel, Destiny comes up with a plan. That includes ‘curating’ some kennel areas by placing dogs that are struggling in between calmer dogs who show well to reduce sound and stress levels.
Senior dogs are given special kennel considerations, such as carpeting and cushy blankets, and staff remove their raised bed if the dog can’t get on/off it easily. Cards on their kennels remind volunteers/staff of the special considerations they need.
Truly special program
ARC of Jacksonville, which serves people with intellectual or developmental differences, regularly participates in shelter life. While we were there, they volunteered in the laundry and dog-care area and visited the cats in the cat café. A handful of ARK clients were participating in the PAWS program (Professional Animal Workers), where they were trained in animal care so they could qualify for jobs such as working at a doggie day care, as a groomer, or at a shelter.
For a shelter as large as Jacksonville Animal Care and Protective Services, it doesn’t feel overwhelming or impersonal. The staff’s friendliness, the welcoming energy, the sheer number of volunteers and community members visiting, the bright spaces, and the positive, open attitudes of everyone we encountered make their success not surprising. But it’s the innovative, open-minded leadership and the energetic, determined staff, combined with a community engaged and enmeshed in the shelter, that are making the difference for the animals and the community in Jacksonville.
To learn more about the shelter’s work, visit: https://www.jacksonville.gov/.../animal-care-protective.../
To support them, consider shopping their Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3E15A7QL8YB32?