Animal Services

Lodi Animal Services offers the community many valuable programs and services. We manage field response, shelter operations, and administration of the animal shelter. Our mission is to protect and advocate for animals in need through sheltering, education, adoption, spay/neuter and by building partnerships with our community.

Field Response

Animal Service Officers (ASOs) answer thousands of calls each year from people reporting or needing help with stray, injured, lost, dead, nuisance, or dangerous animals. The ASOs prioritize the calls and respond to the location where they do their best to resolve the various situations that occur each day.

ASOs conduct the following field services:

  • Enforce all animal control laws and investigate all reports of animal abuse
  • File bite reports and quarantine suspect animals
  • Follow-up on citizen complaints
  • Patrol the city on a daily basis
  • Pick up stray animals
  • Rescue animals in distress
  • Respond to animal-related emergencies
  • Transport injured or sick stray animals to receive emergency vet care (day or night)

Shelter Operations

More than twelve hundred animals are brought to the Lodi Animal Shelter each year. The kennel staff, Animal Service Officers and dedicated volunteers work together to create an orderly and caring environment to best serve both the animals and the community.

Trained shelter personnel conduct the following services:

  • Adopt out stray, unwanted, and abandoned animals
  • Humanely euthanize animals the shelter deems unadoptable
  • Maintain records on all shelter animals
  • Provide adoption and behavior counseling
  • Provide basic health screening for all animals including a preventive disease control program
  • Provide the following for all shelter animals:
    • A clean and comfortable environment
    • Food
    • Medical care
    • Shelter
    • Water
  • Provide information and education on pet owner/guardian responsibility and care
  • Vaccinate domestic shelter animals against diseases

Administrative Services

Animal Services Officers, with the assistance of volunteers, perform a wide range of integral duties, including:

  • Handling community and press inquiries
  • Implementing specialized Shelter programs
  • Overseeing all financing, budgets, and databases
  • Publicizing and promoting shelter animals
  • Recruiting, training, and coordinating volunteers
  • Selling dog and cat licenses

Disaster Response

The Lodi Animal Shelter is currently looking for volunteers in the event of a disaster to assist with our services. To become a Disaster Response Volunteer, complete the application (PDF) and turn it into the Lodi Animal Shelter.