Officials at the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter have seen a consistent trend of dogs and cats being given up by their owners since 2022, and this year is on track to surpass past years.
“About 60% of the requests for surrender are because folks are moving, or their new housing isn’t allowing pets, or they can’t afford vet care,” said Jennifer Stinett, the general manager of the Coastal Animal Services Authority, better known as CASA, which provides animal care for Dana Point and San Clemente.
“Another increase we’ve seen, especially this year, is unwanted litters of puppies and kittens,” Stinett said. “So, you have both people who have unaltered animals or who can’t afford to get their adult animals altered, and they’re having these accidental litters or unaltered animals where people couldn’t afford neutering or spaying costs.”
In 2019, the number of animals relinquished to CASA was 100. Once COVID hit and people were spending more time at home, shelters, including San Clemente and others, saw fewer animals being given up. In 2020, 85 animals were relinquished; in 2021, only 70 were given up.
But in 2022, when people returned to their offices or got new jobs and work schedules changed, the San Clemente shelter relinquishments jumped 87%, with 131 animals dropped off. It went down a little the next two years, but was still higher than pre-COVID: 110 in 2023 and 106 in 2024.
And this year, Stinett said, numbers are trending up again, with owner surrenders estimated to track up 40% from last year.
With the increase, Stinett said, the shelter’s adoptions over recent years have stayed within 5%, so there hasn’t been much help in getting the animals out.
“The cost of vet care is a big barrier for folks right now that we’re trying to find a solution for, at least for our local community,” she said, adding that at least 50% of the animals the shelter takes in are not spayed or neutered. “I think most of that has to do with cost. Vet prices in general have gone up between 30% and 50% since COVID.”
What Stinett and other shelters in Southern California are seeing mirrors recent studies that show pet parents — whether in high-income households or not — are declining necessary veterinary care and recommended treatments, including vaccinations, because of the cost.
For example, a study by PetSmart Charities and Gallup conducted from November 2024 to January found that 52% of pet parents in the U.S. declined recommended veterinary care or skipped a visit to the veterinarian in the last year, even when their pet needed care.
The study found that 37% visited the veterinarian but did not follow through with the recommended care, and 15% skipped going to the vet even when they recognized their animal needed care. Additionally, it found that only 41% of those who took their pet to the vet actually followed the recommended treatment.
The cost of veterinary care is a near-daily discussion at Scott Weldy’s Serrano Animal & Bird Hospital in Lake Forest, where he said his clients are often looking to lower their costs. He gets calls from people shopping for prices they’ve been quoted at other veterinary facilities, he said.
“People talk about it every day,” he said, adding that if he discovers a health concern, especially if it’s not life-threatening, pet parents often ask if they can treat the problem in stages rather than going full-bore ahead on major diagnostics, labwork or even surgery.
One way he’s been able to help save some costs, Weldy said, is by advising people with animals that require a simple, less complicated surgery, such as bladder or a foreign object problem, to stay with a general practitioner rather than going to a specialist, where the cost can often be thousands of dollars higher.
“In some cases, the cost can be twice as much,” he said, but he also cautioned that pet parents should do their research in who they go to because “you often get what you pay for.”
Weldy is among a list of local animal hospitals that help the San Clemente Shelter — which presently has 70 dogs, rabbits and cats and kittens — by providing free basic health exams within a week of adopting a new animal and also offering discounted spay and neuter services. Each hospital has different agreements with the shelter on what discounted services they provide. Stinett said the shelter spreads the need for medical care among the partner vets to avoid burdening just one or two hospitals.
Stinett said she recognizes that while vet costs are trending higher, veterinarians are also having their costs increased.
“We buy medical supplies, we buy vaccinations and do labwork on our animals here,” Stinett said. “We’re just buying supplies, and all those have gone up. The vets have to buy the same supplies we do, and we know the cost to run their businesses is rising as well.”
Tiffany Thompson, who also helps the San Clemente shelter and runs Mission Park Pet Hospital in Mission Viejo, said she tries to do her best to work around costs for her clients when she can.
“There are a number of us that are willing to work with people and figure out a way to treat them,” she said.
“There are different levels of care that will eventually have the same outcome,” she added, giving the example of a bone break that is well-aligned. “You can do the gold standard major surgery, or you can do meds and a splint and confine them for a few months, and sometimes you get the same outcome. There are different things you can do on a different timeline, but it doesn’t mean it’s your only option.”
The price in that comparison, she said, could be $10,000 for an orthopedic surgery vs. $3,000 for casting and splinting it every couple of weeks.
Thompson also added that the corporate pressure of veterinary medicine to earn a dollar also puts pressure on some veterinarians to hit a quota that “might change the way (they) approach a case.”
Over the next month, Stinett said, the shelter is doing its best to help the animals now in-house find their forever homes by offering no-fee adoptions, thanks to an anonymous donor, Stinett said.
With that, starting on Dec. 1, anyone adopting a dog, cat, or rabbit can do so absolutely free until Jan. 4.
“Our shelter and other shelters in the area have programs for people in need of pet food,” Stinett also said. “If they can’t afford to feed their pets this month, and it’s a barrier to them keeping their pet, we would rather supply them with donated food than have them relinquish their pet. We would rather help them out and try and keep that pet at home.”