A Year with Livermore

In July 2025, we expanded our reach to serve more animals in need in our community by establishing a new partnership with the Livermore Police Department.

As the holders of the Livermore stray animal contract, East Bay SPCA is responsible for providing care and shelter for stray and abandoned animals from the City of Livermore in our Dublin shelter. The contract allows us to provide services including veterinary and behavioral care, and adoption placement for the stray dogs and cats of Livermore.

Since the contract began one year ago, more than 500 stray animals have entered our Dublin shelter from Livermore, including 16 puppies that were recently found in a Walmart parking lot. In addition to the considerable increase in the number of animals entering our Dublin campus, we also saw a noticeable increase in animals requiring behaviorally and medically complex care.

Many of these cases required deeper medical intervention, stronger behavioral support, and increased staff and volunteer resources. To support these evolving needs, we needed to make changes.

Prior to the new Livermore contract, stray animals rarely came through our Dublin location. After the initiation of the contract in July, our intake responsibilities shifted and stray animals came in on a near daily basis.

In response, we hired a Customer Care Associate to manage intake, which freed up our Animal Care Coordinators, who had previously managed the intake at this location. Animal Care Coordinators were then able to focus more on daily animal care tasks and behavioral evaluations. This shift also improved our customer service abilities, allowing better support for the community.

Dividing the intake and animal care responsibilities “helped reduce strain on the team, improved workflow efficiency, and ultimately allowed staff to provide better care for both the animals and the public we serve,” says Amber Jocelyn, Shelter Manager at our Dublin campus.

To support the increase in medically complex cases, supplies and medications maintained at our Dublin campus increased, and workflow changes were made to allow for closer coordination between staff at each location. The new role of Shelter Medicine Coordinator at our Dublin campus allowed us to conduct virtual medical rounds with our veterinarians at our Oakland campus. It also allowed us to provide more comprehensive treatment plans for a more diverse population of animals, and to dedicate support to foster care needs within the Dublin campus.

“Having a staff member specifically focused on shelter medicine has greatly improved continuity of care,” explains Jocelyn.

Through our new contract in Livermore, our ongoing contract with the city of San Leandro, and an increase in intake from partnering overcrowded shelters such as Oakland Animal Services, we are continuing to expand our reach to help the animals that need us most. We are grateful for the support of our community, whose investment allowed us to make significant changes to help serve the evolving needs of animals in our shelter.