Oakland Animal Services

If your pet went missing they likely are here. I found my cat here and was well taken care of! Staff was very helpful on sorting things out and getting my cat back home, glad to have an organization like OAS here!

Lovely place and excellent service. We went to adopt a pet.staff was very supportive, they guided us which dog we should get, and we ended up with a beautiful white husky/shepard dog. They gave us all the information and resources that's needed for pet. With all that they provided after care, too, if we had any questions.
Totally recommend place.amazing experience.

Wonderful people to work with. Got two cats from them, everything was perfect and easy to do.

Glad to hear they have not euthanized for space since 2019! The dogs we saw were happy and healthy, and the cages were generally clean, stocked, and warm.

I am so disappointed in the lack of humanity shown by the young lady answering the phone at this agency and the person or persons that failed to call me before putting my cat down.
I was contacted by the agency on Sunday evening that my cat Blue was found and immediately called and was met with a recording saying phones to the public were closed at that time.
I then called again Monday morning and was met with the same message. This is after getting an email and text.
I then call after 11am as instructed by the recording and was met with the same.
Tuesday I was able to leave a message after receiving the same text and email. Yet, still no answer or return of phone call.
8am Wednesday I receive a call stating that they were returning my call.
Upon letting the gentleman know the nature of my call, he had to call me back to tell me that they’d put my cat down.
The young lady that I finally talked to was exceptionally condescending and was only concerned with her fellow employees not being blamed for the death of my cat.
She read the notes that were left by her team and part of it read that I was called.
In the future, it may be best to leave a message. They nor anyone else should ever be so busy, distracted or numb to others needs that it becomes unimportant to leave a message concerning a family member. Even it’s the family pet. Especially, if they are planing to put that family member to sleep.
There was such a lack of empathy shown to me and my situation that I hope they find someone else to answer the phones and convey sensitive information.

As that may just be that officers job; She was dealing with a Man who lost a friend.

We tried to foster a dog at the shelter. First of all the woman told me she picked out dogs for ME, even though she’s never met me. She denied to show me one of the dogs I was interested in because she thought the dog was too shy for me. Again just met me 1 minute ago. We finally met a dog after 30 minutes of nonsense conversation. The dog was great. Our dog met the dog and they did great together. The woman from the shelter said my dog wasn’t playful enough so it wasn’t a good match. No wonder Oakland has over 100 dogs.

This is a picture of a very rude employee at this Oakland animal services. If you see this employee working at this facility, I suggest you try as best as possible to not be helped by her. I asked to speak to a supervisor or a manager but there's was none in the building. Hopefully by these pictures the supervisor and owner of this facility can recognize this rude employee and watch her very carefully. Ignorant and uneducated employees like her, should be corrected and trained properly on how to treat customers. Everybody seemed stressed here so be careful as well. LETS MAKE OAKLAND A BETTER PLACE. ️

My first visit to your facility today to drop off a dog that jumped in her van earlier today and I must say that I was truly impressed with what I saw with regards to how many volunteers you have. Even walking through your front entrance gave me a warm friendly feeling and somehow I knew your fur babies were being treated well. Thank you for all you do. I live in Contra Costa county and only wish I could say the same with animal services out here.

They're okay for the most part, but there's always room for improvement. This past year has been amazingly stressful yet satisfying as well. Thank you Ms Martha, Ms Tammy, All the Doctors and Support Staff, and Volunteers at Oakland Animal Services. They need better/friendlier staff at the reception area though to help people when they come in. The above mentioned Staff has helped me get 11 Stray/Feral cats Spayed and Neutered. A total of 16 in all for free? It was awhile coming and very stressful at first though, I won't lie, if you read my previous post. But they came through for me in the end. They even found forever homes for 6 kittens that were born on or near my front porch, after I fostered them for 8 weeks. They provided me a loaner Trap to catch the Ferals I feed, that are weary of people, so that they may be fixed and bought back to our neighborhood to prevent procreation, making more homeless cats. Sure wish I hadn't returned the trap so soon tho, got two more cats that need to be spayed/nuetered, and one had 4 new kittens. Now Animal Services is back to not returning phone calls, here I go again!

Wen't there with my family. Staff and volunteers were great. We'll go back there agaian hopefully 2nd time around we get to adopt a dog.

They charged me twice (late fee) for something I already paid for. They should have a better system in place.

We adopted a great lovable dog popcorn, friendly staff. Great process. We drove from Manteca to Oakland because of the staff

I’ve been trying to call because my neighbors have roosters and I can’t sleep. You guys never answer your hours of operation are NOT accessible for everyone and I try to call today and you don’t work holidays. Why do we even pay yalll? I’m so sick of y’all. I work holidays so you should also! I hate lazy people

Rude staff who do not follow adoption protocol listed on their site.
Note that they won't even consider your application when you've spent time completing it if they have walk-ins later that day. Better show up in person early/on time so they don't give it to someone else. Otherwise, don't even bother.

I saw a puppy go up for adoption as ~7: 15am this morning. I completed the application and submitted it by 9am. With only ~2 hours of an adoption window, I decided to go visit the shelter in hopes no one applied before me so that I can bring her home. By the time I got to the shelter at ~1pm, I caught a glimpse of the puppy heading home with her new family. I asked the staff if the family had put in an application before I did and they said that they didn't even look at the applications that were put in for her and just let the family adopt her since they were there. I even had a copy of the signed adoption papers with me ready to go.

Their website offers two ways of adoption: 1.walk-in adoptions and 2.online process. Nowhere on their website did it state that open adoption hours took precedence over those who submitted an application online. Even the shelter staff told me they were a "parallel process".

The website clearly states that "we review adoption questionnaires in the order in which we receive them. " So why was this dog adopted out without my application being considered? The shelter staff/the volunteers had 3 hours before the open adoption time to check emails for applications. If it was within an hour, I would've understood. But what is the point of having people waste their time filling out and submitting applications if they're not going to follow their policy?

Within those 3 hours, none of the staff members had the courtesy to try contacting me when the website states that "We contact one potential adopter for a dog at a time. If things do not work out, or if we do not hear back, we move on to the next potential adopter. " Clearly this was not the case as no one reached out until past 5pm (via email), informing me the dog had been adopted, and no one ever tried calling my phone.
I understand that they "cannot hold the dog indefinitely" yet they did not hold her at all. ". In-person meet must be scheduled in a reasonable timeframe (e.g. Within 1-2 days) " - The fact that I was able to make it to the shelter within 4 hours, from the time I submitted the application to when I got to the shelter (30+ miles away), considering the in-person adoption wasn't even open until 12pm, seemed highly reasonable to me. Many adoption agencies and shelters I've encountered in the past will have a note for animals being viewed that they are in the process of being adopted and are therefore on "hold".

Another concern is that when I asked for the person responsible for running the shelter, nobody really knew. Out of the 7-10 shelter staff (employees and volunteers) I spoke with, only two people were able to provide me with the name and contact info. Although it is not posted on the website, is it not even public knowledge for your employees? I've volunteered at a local shelter before and, I knew the name of the person running our facility on day one.

In addition to all of this, one of the employees was extremely rude. I asked to either talk with whomever ran the shelter or for just their information and she replied that she doesn't deal with adoptions and would find someone who did. She came out 10 minutes later and told me they were all busy, so I asked her for just the information again. She looked at me and then walked off, while saying something under her breath. The older lady working the front desk was nice enough to pull me aside to give me your information.

From my encounter with the staff, only Andy, another volunteer, and one of the pup's foster mom were truly pleasant to deal with, so kudos to them.

Wonderful staff and volunteers. Great animals too. Nice place doesn’t feel like a traditional shelter.

Hmmm things do happen and YOU one-star reviewers your words are truth. They're overwhelmed, limited staff, and extremely low funding. WHY don't cha VOLUNTEER to HELP OUT. I did so for 25+years until I could not longer do so. And I still donate food for the animals. SHOW MORE
COMPASSION & HUMANITY.

I wouldn’t recommend this place to my worst enemy the Assistant Director, Ben Winkleblack was horrible to me. He interrogated me for at least 10 minutes and when I expressed my concern he said no I’m not a cop but I have privileges to arrest and detain like one? I found my dog posted on the website and he said after 6 days the dog belongs to the shelter if not claimed ️ so he wouldn’t give me my dog back and the shelter allowed my dog to be adopted by a total stranger. Srsly just avoid and if you have the misfortune of having your dog found here then ‍️

I went in to adopt a dog with my family and the first woman I spoke to was so off putting. She basically refused to let us even look at a dog, I had to insist. She was rushing us and said "well that dog isn't a puppy so why do you want to see a young dog, we are busy. The two volunteers who brought the dog out were very nice (the two stars are for them). They also recommended one of the dogs the first lady said wasn't a good match. We own a house and have dog experience (former foster mom).