Shelter Staffing and Capacity for Care

Are Animal Shelters Staffed to Provide Proper Care?

New Research Challenges Traditional Staffing Standards and Raises Important Questions About Capacity for Care

The Canine Corner | Animal Welfare Research and Shelter Accountability | October 2026

How many employees does an animal shelter need to provide appropriate care? Is the answer determined by the number of kennels, the number of animals housed, or the actual time required to meet each animal's needs?

Research presented at the 2026 Research Forum raises significant questions about how animal shelters calculate staffing requirements and whether traditional methods adequately account for the responsibilities involved in caring for shelter animals. Two studies examined daily shelter activities, employee perceptions of workload, and the actual time required to complete routine animal care tasks.

The findings suggest that the longstanding benchmark of 15 minutes per animal per day is insufficient to account for the full range of services modern shelters must provide. The research also reinforces a fundamental principle of shelter medicine: Capacity for Care is not determined simply by how many animals a shelter can house, but by how many animals it can appropriately care for with its available resources.

For municipal officials, shelter administrators, animal welfare advocates, and taxpayers, these findings deserve attention.

The 15-Minute Standard: Is It Realistic?

For years, animal shelter staffing calculations have relied on a benchmark historically attributed to the National Animal Care and Control Association (NACA) and other animal welfare guidance. The calculation allocates approximately nine minutes for kennel cleaning and six minutes for feeding, totaling 15 minutes per animal each day. Although this benchmark provides a starting point for estimating basic husbandry responsibilities, it does not account for the complete workload involved in shelter operations.

Shelter employees perform numerous additional activities, including administering medications, monitoring animal health, maintaining records, handling animals, facilitating enrichment, processing intakes, and preparing animals for adoption. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians addressed this limitation in its 2022 Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters, explaining that traditional time estimates do not adequately account for variations in facility design, sanitation procedures, employee training, enrichment, and additional animal care. The ASV recommends measuring the actual time required to complete necessary tasks as a more appropriate method of calculating staffing requirements.

The 2026 research provides preliminary observational data that may help shelters evaluate those requirements more accurately.

Study One: What Shelter Employees Say About Their Workloads

The first study surveyed shelter employees about the activities they perform and whether they believe sufficient time is available to complete them. Researchers identified 14 tasks reported as occurring daily by at least 75% of respondents. These responsibilities fell within several categories: animal husbandry, behavior and enrichment, medical care, intake, and outcomes-related activities.

The survey revealed concerning perceptions of workload.

Approximately one-third of respondents reported insufficient time for husbandry responsibilities alone.
Even more concerning, 42% indicated that they sometimes or never had enough time to complete behavior and enrichment activities.

These findings suggest that staffing limitations may affect more than routine operational efficiency. They may influence whether animals receive necessary physical and behavioral care.

The survey also identified an association between employees' perceptions of adequate work time and their intentions to leave their positions. Employees reporting greater time adequacy demonstrated lower turnover intentions. Perceived employer support was identified as a particularly important predictor of employee retention.

Although these associations do not establish direct causation, they suggest that staffing conditions, management support, and employee retention deserve consideration together. High employee turnover can place additional burdens on remaining personnel and make consistent animal care more difficult to maintain.

Study Two: Measuring the Actual Time Required for Animal Care

The second study measured animal care activities through direct observation at six shelters. Researchers selected participating facilities to reflect differences in geography, municipal versus private operations, intake practices, urban and rural settings, and staffing levels. Participating organizations were required to house both dogs and cats, operate a physical facility, and agree to participate in the observations. Researchers recorded the time required for specific activities, including cleaning, feeding, intake processing, adoption procedures, and enrichment.

The preliminary findings provide a more detailed understanding of daily shelter workloads.

Activity Cats Dogs Basic daily care: one feeding, no medications15.7 minutes15.2 minutes
More realistic daily care: two feedings and medications18.7 minutes19.7 minutes
Intake processing: 20.85 minutes - 29.43 minutes
Adoption processing: 19.48 minutes - 24.96 minutes

The basic daily care figures were already close to or slightly above the traditional 15-minute benchmark.

When researchers considered two daily feedings and medication responsibilities, the estimated time increased to approximately 18.7 minutes for cats and 19.7 minutes for dogs. Importantly, intake and adoption processing required additional time beyond these daily care estimates.

The researchers measured intake processing from the point when an animal physically entered the facility. Previously arranged telephone calls were excluded from those measurements. Intake activities included paperwork and medical procedures.

These distinctions matter because shelters with similar animal populations may experience substantially different workloads depending on how many animals enter and leave the facility each day.

What Does This Mean for a Shelter Housing 100 Animals?

The research included a hypothetical staffing calculation for a facility housing 100 animals. Using the traditional 15-minute benchmark, routine daily care would require approximately 25 staff hours.

The researchers estimated that realistic daily care would require approximately seven additional hours.
When the example included two cat intakes, two dog intakes, two cat adoptions, and two dog adoptions, the additional workload increased by approximately 3.2 hours.
The combined estimate was 10.2 additional staff hours per day beyond the traditional staffing calculation.
That amounts to approximately 71.4 additional labor hours over a seven-day period.

For municipal shelters operating under tight budgets, this difference is substantial.

It also raises an important question: If a municipality authorizes staffing based primarily on the traditional 15-minute calculation, who performs the additional work?

This leads to other questions of:

Do employees work beyond their scheduled hours?
Are volunteers relied upon to compensate for staffing shortages?
Are some responsibilities delayed or omitted?

The studies do not answer these questions for any particular shelter. However, they demonstrate why staffing calculations should include the actual scope of animal care responsibilities. These estimates are preliminary research findings, not universally applicable staffing ratios or legally mandated minimums.

Animal Enrichment: Essential Care, Not an Optional Activity

One of the most significant findings concerns animal enrichment.

Enrichment includes activities and environmental opportunities that support animals' physical, psychological, and behavioral well-being.

For dogs, appropriate enrichment may include exercise, playgroups, walks, human interaction, and activities that encourage normal behaviors.
For cats, enrichment may include opportunities for climbing, hiding, scratching, play, and appropriate social interaction.

The Association of Shelter Veterinarians recognizes enrichment as an essential component of animal welfare.

Yet the employee survey found that 42% of respondents reported having sufficient time for behavior and enrichment activities only sometimes or never. This finding deserves particular attention. A shelter may consistently provide food, water, and sanitation while struggling to provide adequate opportunities for exercise, behavioral stimulation, and other enrichment.

The consequences can be important, especially for animals experiencing prolonged shelter stays. However, the observational study also identified a measurement limitation. Some shelters provided group enrichment through playgroups or shared outdoor activities. Consequently, measurements of individual human interaction did not always capture the full amount of enrichment an animal received.

Researchers observed considerable variation between facilities, with individual out-of-kennel enrichment activities ranging from approximately 0.2 to 70.4 minutes. One facility recorded volunteer-led out-of-kennel sessions lasting approximately 75 minutes. These differences demonstrate that measuring enrichment requires examining how activities are delivered, not simply counting individual handling sessions. Nevertheless, enrichment requires time, personnel, planning, and suitable facilities.

It must be included when determining whether a shelter has sufficient resources to care appropriately for its population.

A Concerning Finding: Some Understaffed Shelters Appeared More Efficient Because They Provided Less Care

One particularly important observation involved the relationship between staffing, task completion time, and operational practices. Researchers found that some understaffed facilities appeared to complete certain responsibilities more quickly because activities were reduced or omitted. For example, shelters that did not fully remove or relocate animals during particular cleaning procedures sometimes recorded shorter task times. This does not necessarily mean every variation in cleaning procedures was inappropriate. Cleaning requirements depend on the facility, the animal, and the circumstances.

However, the research illustrates a critical concern: Completing a task more quickly does not automatically mean a shelter is operating more effectively.

A facility may appear efficient because employees spend less time providing particular services. If reduced labor time results from necessary activities being shortened or omitted, apparent efficiency may come at the expense of animal care. This distinction is especially relevant when municipal officials evaluate employee productivity, staffing requests, and operating budgets.

The appropriate question is not simply how many kennels an employee can clean during a shift. It is whether the employee has sufficient time to complete the necessary cleaning while also meeting the animals' other care requirements.

How Kennel Design Affects Staffing Requirements

The observational research also demonstrated that the physical design of a shelter can significantly affect the time and personnel needed to perform routine work. Facilities equipped with double-compartment kennels and guillotine-style dividing doors could move animals from one compartment to another while staff cleaned. This arrangement often reduced animal handling requirements and eliminated the need for a second employee to assist with cleaning. Other facilities required employees to remove animals from kennels or obtain additional assistance while completing sanitation procedures.

Researchers distinguished between full kennel cleaning and spot cleaning.

Full cleaning involved removing or relocating animals and performing more extensive cleaning with soap and water. Spot cleaning involved limited sanitation activities, such as wiping or mopping.
Most full cleaning occurred in the morning, while spot cleaning was more common during afternoon activities.

The study included the time spent transferring animals between kennel compartments as part of the cleaning process. These findings demonstrate why the same staffing calculation may not be appropriate for facilities with different physical layouts. An older shelter with inefficient housing configurations may require more personnel time to perform the same activities than a facility designed to facilitate safe animal movement and cleaning.

Municipal decisions involving shelter construction, renovation, and capital improvements should therefore consider how facility design affects both animal welfare and staffing efficiency.

Volunteers: Valuable Support, but Not a Substitute for Staffing

The research also examined how volunteers contribute to shelter operations. Volunteer involvement was associated with increased enrichment opportunities in some participating shelters. One facility documented approximately 75-minute out-of-kennel enrichment sessions conducted entirely by volunteers. Researchers also identified laundry and dishwashing as activities particularly suitable for volunteer assistance. Assigning appropriate support duties to volunteers can allow trained shelter employees to dedicate more time to direct animal care.

However, the availability of volunteers varies, and not every activity can appropriately be delegated. Volunteer programs should be viewed as a means of expanding shelter resources, rather than a replacement for sufficient trained personnel.

Municipalities must ensure that essential animal care responsibilities can be met consistently, including during periods when volunteers are unavailable.

The Role of Shelter Management and Employee Support

The studies also raise important questions about shelter management practices. Researchers observed that directors and employees whose primary responsibilities were not direct animal care sometimes assisted with laundry, dishes, cleaning, and other tasks during periods of increased workload. This cross-role assistance helped distribute responsibilities and support daily operations without necessarily adding personnel.

The employee survey also indicated that perceived employer support was strongly associated with reduced intentions to leave employment. Effective shelter management therefore involves more than assigning tasks and preparing staffing schedules. It includes recognizing operational demands, providing appropriate support, and ensuring employees have adequate time and resources to fulfill their responsibilities.

Management practices cannot eliminate every staffing shortage. However, leadership decisions may affect how efficiently available resources are used and whether employees feel supported.

These findings warrant consideration when municipalities evaluate shelter administration and long-term employee retention.

Capacity for Care: Why Kennel Numbers Do Not Tell the Whole Story

The staffing research becomes particularly significant when examined alongside the established shelter medicine principle of Capacity for Care.

The Association of Shelter Veterinarians' 2022 Guidelines explain that every shelter has limits on the number and type of animals it can appropriately care for.

Those limits are determined by more than physical housing.

Capacity for Care includes the availability of trained personnel, veterinary services, financial resources, appropriate housing, behavioral support, material supplies, and opportunities for animals to leave the shelter through appropriate outcomes.

Consequently, the number of available kennels may exceed the number of animals an organization can humanely care for.

Consider a shelter with 60 usable kennels.

That number establishes a measure of physical housing capacity. It does not independently establish that the shelter has enough employees to provide necessary care to 60 dogs.

If staffing is sufficient for only a smaller population, the shelter's actual Capacity for Care may be below its physical kennel capacity.

The same principle applies to veterinary resources.

A facility may have sufficient housing but lack the medical staffing, isolation capacity, or external veterinary arrangements needed for animals requiring specialized treatment.

Capacity for Care must therefore be evaluated across multiple operational areas.

It is not a fixed number determined solely by building size.

Length of Stay Also Affects Capacity for Care

Another important consideration is how long animals remain in shelter custody.

Animals occupying kennels for extended periods reduce the availability of space for incoming animals.

Lengthy stays also create continuing demands for feeding, cleaning, medical care, enrichment, and behavioral support.

For some animals, prolonged confinement may increase stress or contribute to behavioral and welfare concerns.

The Association of Shelter Veterinarians emphasizes active population management, including planning for animal outcomes and evaluating individual needs throughout the shelter stay.

Effective capacity management therefore requires more than monitoring daily intake numbers.

Shelters must also examine how efficiently animals move through the system while ensuring decisions remain consistent with their medical, behavioral, and welfare needs.

Timely veterinary procedures, appropriate adoption opportunities, rescue partnerships, foster placements, and transfers may all help manage populations.

However, these arrangements require their own staffing, oversight, and resources.

A foster placement, for example, may reduce on-site kennel occupancy but does not eliminate the organization's responsibility to arrange appropriate medical care, communicate with caregivers, maintain records, and coordinate outcomes.

Capacity for Care Must Not Become an Excuse to Disregard Municipal Responsibilities

Capacity for Care is a recognized animal welfare standard intended to prevent organizations from housing more animals than they can appropriately care for.

However, it should not be confused with a municipality's legal responsibilities.

In New Jersey, municipalities have statutory animal control and impoundment obligations, including those established under N.J.S.A. 4:19-15.16. Animal facilities are also subject to applicable provisions of N.J.A.C. 8:23A.

A municipality's inability to accommodate additional animals within an existing facility does not automatically eliminate its statutory responsibilities.

When staffing limitations, housing shortages, or veterinary resource deficiencies affect shelter operations, municipal officials must evaluate the circumstances and determine lawful ways to meet their obligations.

Depending on the situation, solutions may involve additional staffing, veterinary arrangements, authorized outside facilities, properly managed foster placements, or partnerships with other organizations.

Not every alternative will be suitable or legally permissible for every animal.

Nevertheless, Capacity for Care should encourage proactive planning and corrective action, rather than serve as an unsupported explanation for failing to address animals requiring municipal intervention.

The determination must also distinguish between a shelter's legal intake obligations and situations involving animals for which the municipality has discretion or different legal responsibilities.

What Municipal Officials Should Be Reviewing

The combined research and shelter medicine guidance suggest that municipal officials should evaluate several factors when determining whether a shelter is adequately staffed and operating within its Capacity for Care.

These include actual animal populations, daily staffing assignments, employee qualifications, intake and adoption activity, veterinary responsibilities, enrichment practices, housing configurations, and the length of time animals remain in custody.

Municipal oversight should also examine whether required services are consistently performed.

A shelter may report adequate staffing because scheduled employees complete their assigned shifts.

But if necessary animal care activities are routinely delayed, shortened, or omitted, the staffing calculation may not accurately reflect the work that needs to be done.

Similarly, a shelter may have vacant kennels yet lack sufficient trained personnel or medical resources to appropriately care for additional animals.

These distinctions are critical when evaluating shelter budgets, management performance, and service contracts.

Questions Every Municipality Should Be Able to Answer

The research raises several questions that local governing bodies, health departments, and shelter administrators should consider.

How is the shelter's actual Capacity for Care determined, and how frequently is it reassessed?
Are staffing calculations based on actual observations of daily care activities or traditional estimates limited primarily to feeding and cleaning?
Do staffing schedules allow sufficient time for medical care, exercise, enrichment, sanitation, intake processing, and adoption responsibilities?
What happens when shelter populations increase, employees are absent, or animals require additional medical or behavioral attention?
Are necessary activities being completed consistently, and how does management document that care?
Have kennel design, equipment limitations, and facility conditions been considered in determining staffing requirements?
Are volunteers supplementing an adequate workforce, or is the shelter dependent on them to complete essential responsibilities?
How are length of stay, foster placements, transfer opportunities, and outside veterinary resources incorporated into capacity planning?
What corrective measures are available when the shelter's animal population or operational demands exceed its ability to provide appropriate care?

These questions should be part of routine municipal oversight, not inquiries raised only after an animal welfare concern develops.

Important Limitations of the 2026 Research

Although the findings are significant, the observational study remains preliminary.

At the time of the Research Forum presentation, researchers had collected direct observation data from six shelters and were continuing to recruit participating facilities.

The research documents identified several limitations and unanswered questions.

Staff members knew they were being observed, which may have influenced their behavior. Researchers suggested that the pressure of observation might have accelerated some activities while explanations provided to observers may have slowed others.

There was also substantial variation between facilities in cleaning procedures, kennel design, enrichment activities, and staffing practices.

The study did not determine whether state-mandated exercise or enrichment requirements explained differences in out-of-kennel activity.

Although cleaning data distinguished between morning and afternoon activities, the researchers had not completed a statistical analysis of those differences.

The study also did not specifically evaluate very large shelters processing approximately 10,000 animals annually.

Researchers indicated plans to continue collecting data and pursue peer-reviewed publication.

Therefore, the findings should be understood as preliminary evidence that can inform staffing evaluations, not definitive proof that a particular facility is understaffed.

Why This Research Matters

The 2026 Research Forum findings and the Association of Shelter Veterinarians' established Capacity for Care framework address the same fundamental issue from complementary perspectives.

The research examines how much time shelter care actually requires.

Capacity for Care examines whether an organization possesses the resources necessary to provide that care consistently.

Together, they offer an important foundation for evaluating shelter operations.

An accurate assessment cannot rely solely on physical kennel capacity, approved staffing positions, or the number of employees scheduled to work.

It must consider actual workloads, the care being delivered, the needs of the animals, and whether sufficient resources are available to meet those needs.

The research also demonstrates why apparent operational efficiency should be evaluated carefully.

A shelter that completes tasks quickly may be well organized and appropriately equipped.

Alternatively, shorter completion times may reflect activities that have been reduced or omitted.

Without evaluating care quality alongside operational performance, those distinctions can be overlooked.

The Bottom Line

Animal shelters exist to protect the animals entrusted to their care.

Providing food, water, and clean housing is fundamental, but these responsibilities represent only part of appropriate shelter care.

Animals also require veterinary attention, behavioral support, enrichment, monitoring, and management decisions that promote their welfare.

The 2026 research raises legitimate questions about whether traditional staffing benchmarks adequately account for those responsibilities.

It also reinforces the importance of treating Capacity for Care as an operational and animal welfare standard rather than simply a kennel count.

Municipalities must recognize that having physical space for an animal is not the same as having the resources necessary to provide appropriate care.

When staffing, medical resources, or operational practices are insufficient, those limitations should be identified, documented, and addressed.

The measure of a shelter's capacity is not how many animals it can contain. It is how many animals it can properly care for.

And the measure of effective shelter management is not simply whether daily tasks are completed, but whether the animals receive the care they need.

Research and Professional References

Research Forum 2026 — Shelter Tasks Survey and Research Summary. User-provided research documents identifying daily shelter tasks, employee workload perceptions, enrichment limitations, and turnover-related findings.
Research Forum 2026 — Time on Tasks Observational Study and Discussion Summary. User-provided research documents describing preliminary observations across six shelters, task-duration measurements, operational variability, volunteers, and research limitations.
Association of Shelter Veterinarians. The Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters, Second Edition (2022). Particularly Section 2, Population Management and Capacity for Care. https://doi.org/10.56771/ASVguidelines.2022
Association of Shelter Veterinarians. Highlights of the Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters. https://www.sheltervet.org/highlights-of-the-guidelines

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