Barbara Rochelle didn’t want to say goodbye. She stood outside the Alachua County Animal Shelter, holding Elsa’s leash a little too tightly, her other hand stroking the six-month-old blue pit-shepherd mix’s fur. Elsa was nervous, shaking and whining. She didn’t understand why she was here.
“She knows she’s in a place that she doesn’t recognize… and this is not easy for me either,” Barbara said.
Elsa was her niece’s dog. When her niece passed away unexpectedly, Barbara tried to care for Elsa herself, but it wasn’t possible. With nowhere else to turn, she made the painful decision to surrender her. She hesitated before asking a difficult question:
“I don’t think it’s a kill shelter, do you?”
For two years, Alachua County’s animal shelter has been exceeding capacity, housing more dogs than it was designed to hold. With space running out, the staff does everything they can to avoid euthanasia, but the reality is stark—when kennels are full, the options become limited.
The shelter was built with 105 kennels for dogs. On most days, it holds over 170.
“We’ve been over capacity for years,” said Julie Johnson, director of Alachua County Animal Resources. “It’s just not sustainable.”
The problem started after the pandemic. During COVID-19 lockdowns, adoption rates surged as people sought companionship. But when life returned to normal, things changed.
“Sadly, once the pandemic ended and people returned to work, they realized they no longer had time for those animals,” Johnson said. “They couldn’t care for them.”
Spay and neuter programs were also disrupted during pandemic shutdowns, leading to an increase in stray and unwanted litters of puppies.
“We lost a lot of headway with spaying and neutering,” Johnson said. “That really affected a lot of things… People started—unfortunately—breeding these animals, and so it’s just more unwanted litters in the community.”
With no room left in kennels, other animal shelters, like the Humane Society of North Central Florida, have turned to foster families as its last safety net.
Over 200 animals are currently under the care of The Humane Society here in Alachua County, but fewer than 50 of them are physically housed at the facility. The rest are in foster homes.
“It’s because we have this large foster base,” said Jordyn Chiodo, development coordinator at the Humane Society. “These animals can be in a home, get experience in a home life, because a lot of them have never been in a good home.”
Foster families temporarily take in animals, easing the shelter’s burden. But even with this system, the facility still operates beyond its limits, which causes some people to take matters into their own hands.
One resident, Yuri Eugeno, described finding a pregnant dog just three weeks away from giving birth. The dog’s owner, a homeless person, kept her in a makeshift campsite in the woods, alongside several other dogs tied to trees. The owner is looking for a foster family.
When asked about cases like this, Johnson urged people to not handle it alone.
“I would ask them to please reach out to the shelter for resources first.”
But space remains a challenge. Intake is only possible when adoptions or fosters free up room.
“We try to take in what we get out,” Johnson said. “But that’s just a fine balance. It only takes one special case—a cruelty case, an aggressive dog, a medical emergency—and suddenly, we’re beyond full again.”
Alachua County’s animal shelter hasn’t had a capacity upgrade in decades. Soon, that will change when it moves to the University of Florida.
“We are looking at building a new shelter now,” Johnson said. “We’re just waiting to hear where exactly we’re going to go and what we’re going to do.”
The new shelter would allow them to take in even more animals– Johnson hopes for around 200 kennels, but even that won’t be enough.
“You can’t humanely manage animals in that large capacity,” she said. “Even if we had 1,000 kennels, they would fill up in no time.”
For the Humane Society shelter staff and animal advocates, the long-term solution is clear.
“Spay and neuter is the biggest thing that will achieve our mission of ending overpopulation,” Chiodo said. “Because if there’s less reproduction… there’s less overpopulation.”
For now, dogs like Elsa remain in limbo— waiting for space, waiting for someone to come get them, waiting for a forever home.