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Sarah Javier, CEO of Animal Protective Association of Missouri, said her staff found layers of feces in kennels, dogs that hadn’t been walked in weeks, a lack of vaccinations, and some animals so aggressive, likely from months of isolation, staff had no options but to euthanize them.

“To be very direct, we have inherited a mess,� Javier wrote in an email Thursday to the Post-Dispatch.

Residents, county workers and animal advocates have for years accused the county of poor conditions, understaffing, overpopulation and more. Javier’s note, her first public comments on the issue, lend credence to reams of testimony against the county shelter. When the nonprofit’s staff reported to work Monday after months of planning for the five-year, $15.8 million contract, they found the markings of turmoil, Javier said.

County Executive Sam Page wasn’t aware of the specific conditions the APA found at the shelter, a spokesman said Thursday, but the years of problems there were the reason he sought an outside operator.

“We knew we needed someone to take over these operations,� said spokesman Doug Moore.

County staff worked “extremely hard� to get the building ready for the APA, said Christopher Ave, spokesman for the public health department, which oversees animal control.

“That included one of our co-directors literally doing laundry and supervising cleaning in the building in the days leading up to the handover,� Ave wrote in an email. “Now that the APA is on site, we trust that it will make the best management decisions possible concerning the animal population.�

But the shelter’s problems extended beyond cleanliness.

The organization has euthanized a number of dogs because they were clearly too dangerous for adoption, Javier said. The APA didn’t say how many.

“The tough decision to euthanize these particular pets should have been made long ago, but it wasn’t,� Javier said. “Instead they were kept in what equates to solitary confinement with limited interactions in order to further deteriorate and suffer. This is a failing on County’s part and one that we were left to address.�

The health department was aware the shelter had become a warehouse for unadoptable dogs, interim public health co-Director Kate Donaldson said late this summer. The county often ends up with the worst cases, whereas private shelters may pick and choose which animals they accept. The county started identifying and euthanizing dangerous dogs in August. Between then and the APA takeover, the county euthanized 17 dogs because they were aggressive, according to Ave.

But some of the dogs still living that were labeled aggressive weren’t aggressive at all, Javier said, though they were stressed by the shelter’s condition. Cleaning the kennels and walking dogs has already improved some behavior issues, she said.

“In the three days that we have been operating, we have noticed stress levels dropping and dogs exhibiting less frustrated behaviors,� Javier said.

New staffers will evaluate the dogs labeled aggressive again after the animals have had a chance to decompress.

The APA has completed roughly 4,800 adoptions at its Brentwood flagship location this year, Javier said. The county shelter has adopted 427.

Since opening to the public Tuesday, six animals have been adopted. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 153 animals in the organization’s care — 141 in the shelter and 12 in foster care. Fifty-six of them are up for adoption. The remaining either have not been evaluated, are undergoing medical treatment, are in quarantine because they bit someone or are strays waiting to be picked up by their families. On the last day the county ran the shelter, there were 163 dogs in their care.

To get the county shelter running well, the APA needs help, Javier said.

“We need foster volunteers, shelter volunteers and adopters. We need people to spread the word. We need support,� Javier said. “We welcome anyone who is wanting to make a difference.�

Shelter controversies

The 2017 firing of the shelter’s former director set off a series of controversies.

The county earned praise for achieving no-kill status — which limits euthanasia to 10% of the population — at the shelter under former Director Beth Vesco-Mock, but then-County Executive Steve Stenger fired her just months later over complaints about her management and shelter conditions.

In 2019, County Council members ordered an audit of operations, which revealed the shelter had fudged kill rates, kept animals longer than necessary and couldn’t control infectious disease because of overcrowding. That same year, volunteers sued the county, alleging they were banned from the shelter for criticizing its conditions. That lawsuit is ongoing.

In 2020, Webster Groves resident Erin Bulfin sued the county in federal court, claiming shelter staff wrongfully euthanized her dog, Daisy, after the dog bit Bulfin’s daughter. Bulfin said her husband brought the dog to the shelter for quarantine as their veterinarian suggested, but claimed he never gave permission to the county to euthanize Daisy.

A judge dismissed that case in November, ruling that Bulfin’s husband gave permission to the shelter to euthanize Daisy when he signed paperwork handing over rights to the county.

Other issues remain unresolved.

St. Louis County’s public health department destroyed roughly 20,000 pounds of paper records in early October without proper permission after cockroaches and mice infested the documents, even though lawsuits where the documents might be relevant are ongoing. In another ongoing lawsuit, an animal rescue advocate claims staff violated open records laws when they destroyed the records.

But on Thursday, an APA banner stretched across the building advertising adoptions. Inside, cats snoozed in their cages and dogs barked and wiggled as staff walked by.