The Sacramento Animal Care Services facility on Front Street rotated dozens of animals and 30 people surrendering pets, filling out missing pet reports and retrieving their animals through the small receiving room on Tuesday. The shelter handles all of the city's animal-care issues, including cruelty investigations, quarantines and licensing, but it still need help with their own deficiencies. "We always need volunteers in all areas — clerical, socializing, feeding, adoptions, everything," said animal care services manager Penny Cistaro. The shelter currently has 175 volunteers, compared to the other three shelters in Sacramento that have over 1000. Their medical care facility and spay/

"You are super cute," said Lesley Kirrene, as she walks past bright-eyed animals waiting for homes. "Once the animals are on the adoption floor we have made a commitment to them that we will find them homes," said Kirrene, director of public relations for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The shelter is keeping its promise. Cage after cage proudly displays the blue sign reading "On hold," which means the animal is waiting to be picked up and brought home. The lucky dogs for the day were Dorris, Roscoe, Rockie, Dot, Brindle, Fred, Conan, Bob and Kasey, who wagged their tails excitedly, knowing that they were about to go home. The shelter is not considered a "no-kill"

The new county animal care and regulation center on Bradshaw Road is providing a more spacious habitat to a wide variety of animals. It houses cats, dogs, rabbits, reptiles, llamas, goats and horses and any other animal that comes through the doors. It also extends many animals' lives. For visitors to the previous county animal shelter, the words 'five days' are chilling. That is the typical amount of time animals live at a government-run animal shelter before they are euthanized. If they are deemed dangerous, diseased, or unadoptable they will be killed immediately. The new shelter allows the animals to have more time. The facility is spacious so the animals are displayed in habitats.

There is a pet overpopulation crisis right here in Sacramento. The area’s three major shelters will take in more than 37,000 animals this year alone, and there simply aren’t enough homes for all of them. But this tragedy facing our community does have a solution. Spay/neuter is the key to reducing the number of unwanted animals entering area shelters. The Sacramento SPCA responded to this critical need when we opened our new spay and neuter clinic in May 2007. Through our clinic, the only high-volume spay and neuter clinic in the region, we will alter 12,000 animals in 2008 – saving countless lives. Our clinic is at the heart of what we stand for at the Sacramento SPCA. The Sacramento S