Animal Care & Protective Services

12/31/2024

Just a reminder that we're open with adjusted hours today and tomorrow and that all adoption fees are waived! ❤️

12/30/2024

Happy (almost) New Year! ACPS will have adjusted hours tomorrow and Wednesday due to the holiday:

Tuesday 12/31/24 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Wednesday 1/1/25 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

All adoptions will be FREE on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. If you feel like giving, you are more than welcome to bring a donation for the Bo's Hope pantry or a monetary donation for our nonprofit partner, Friends of Jacksonville Animals, Inc. ❤️

Adoptable Bishop in his fanciest hat for tax! 🎩

12/29/2024

Snuggles ✔️
Snoozin' ✔️
Visits to Santa ✔️

Thank you to everyone who fostered one of our shelter pets for Silent Night! You gave them a calm, peaceful, quiet holiday and we are very grateful. ❤️

12/28/2024

Huge (slightly belated) thank you to our adopters and fosters this ! Spot, Acorn, Superman, Buster, Bravo, Brick, Nova, Cagney, Jubilee, and Brandi—and dozens more—spent this past week in homes, bonding with new families and joining in on new routines, instead of at the shelter. We're so grateful to be part of a community of animal lovers, Duval ❤️

12/27/2024

Every so often, a pet's name perfectly matches their personality. Spot for a speckled dog, Whiskers for a cat with very long, dignified whiskers... you get the idea. This week's is another example: Lucky. 🍀

Before: Lucky arrived to ACPS scared and with a wound on his face. Good Samaritans found him as a stray in their neighborhood and realized that he needed immediate medical care. It's a good thing that they did, too—they reached out to our officers who responded right away and discovered that Lucky had some shrapnel in his snout from a bullet. 😢

During: Lucky spent his time at ACPS eating lots of treats and snuggling up to his volunteer friends. Our vet, as well as a veterinarian with an outside clinic, were able to give him the specialized care that he needed and he recovered quickly. Amazingly, he only had to spend a few weeks at the shelter before being able to go home.

After: Lucky is absolutely spoiled by his new family, and they have been kind enough to keep us updated on how he's doing! You'd never know that he once was so lost and injured. This pup made it out of a tough situation with the help of a compassionate community and the hard work of our team (and, okay, just a little bit of luck, too). 😉

12/26/2024

Happy Hanukkah from one of our rescued-from-a-bridge pups, Hannah! We hope everyone is able to spend this holiday season with the people (and pets) that they love a latke 😜

12/26/2024

Happy Kwanzaa to all those who celebrate! We wish you a week full of joy and quality time with your loved ones (both two- and four-legged, of course). 🐶💕

Today marks the beginning of the 7-day festival of Kwanzaa. To those celebrating, we wish joy and happiness to you and yours.

12/25/2024

POV: your family woke you up way too early on Christmas morning 🥴

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from team ACPS and (only slightly grumpy) pup Clip! We hope you're able to spend the holiday season relaxing with your loved ones. ❤️

12/24/2024

107!! 👏❤️💚

The folks who came out to our first ever Rudolph Romp walked ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN DOGS this morning! These walks were amazing for both relaxing and for enrichment, full of new sniffs to sniff and lots of photo ops and treats. The entire shelter will be sleeping more restfully tonight—not just these 107 dogs, but all of their neighbors too. THANK YOU to everyone in the community who spent the morning loving on our pups!

✨ Another GIANT thank you to our Behavior staff for organizing our Rudolph Romp and to our volunteers for keeping things running smoothly! ✨

Happy holidays, Duval! Keep an eye out for even more photos, and we’ll see you at the next romp 😉

12/24/2024

What’s the opposite of unrequited love?! Atari and his new Rudolph Romp bestie Kat can tell you. ❤️

Thank you so much to everyone who came out for our first ever Rudolph Romp! This was the absolute best start our day and our whole population of dogs are sleeping better tonight because of the exercise, new friends, and great sniffies that they got. Many more photos to come! 💚❤️

12/23/2024

✨ Now hiring ✨ for 5 shelter medicine roles!

You might remember that a few months ago, the city expanded our budget to allow us to hire for critically important additional positions. We're now searching for 4 new full-time veterinary technicians as well as a full-time veterinarian to join our team!

Take a look at the positions on the city's website here: https://buff.ly/49Uz5yo to see if one feels like a good fit. Our shelter couldn't function without our medical staff and we (and the pets) are so excited to be able to provide our team with additional support. Send in those applications—we can't wait to meet you. 🌟

12/23/2024

ACPS Alum Jordy stopped by the beach to tell Santa (and you all) our hours for the next two days:

Tuesday 12/24: 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Wednesday 12/25: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

We'll be open for Silent Night fosters, adoptions, and to care for our pets!

📸 Michelle Sapit Photography

12/22/2024

For so many shelter pets across the city, Silent Night is an opportunity for a few days of peace, quiet, rest, and being spoiled.

Please stop by the shelter if you'd like to foster for the upcoming holiday week—you can help us make heartwarming videos like this one become a reality for hundreds of dogs. ❤️

12/22/2024

Big thank you to two of our Stroll Mates walking groups from this past week, Bank of America and VyStar Credit Union! Between these two crews, we got over 80 dogs out for slow, relaxed sniffy walks. That's 80 dogs that had significantly lower stress levels that day—and that also means that those dogs' neighbors were less stressed as well in a quieter, calmer kennel run.

If you're part of a company, team, or group who is interested in doing a group walk with us, please reach out! We'd love to have you 💖

12/21/2024

Calling all people with cat allergies!! 🤧

Here at ACPS, we're big fans of both dogs and cats, AND we're firm believers that there's really nothing cuter than interspecies friendships. I mean, if you've ever seen a big dog cuddled up on a couch with a tiny kitten, then you totally get what we're saying.

But we also know there's folks out there for whom sharing a home with a cat would be itchy, eye watery, and wheezy, so we put together a little list of dogs who don't want to live with them, either! 🤒 Bento, Mancha, and Cobra Bubbles say ~thanks but no thanks~ to feline friends, preferring to appreciate viral cat cuteness through a phone screen instead.

What better way to resist the sneezy temptation to take home a kitten than by having a "No Felines Allowed" canine in the family?! Ask about these three sweet pups today, and check out the comments for more info. They can't wait to meet you (unless you're a cat reading this, in which case, that does not apply). ❤️

12/20/2024

Not every recipe calls for rinsing pasta in cold water, but our Fettucini definitely needs regular baths to help her skin heal 🥺

This shy, sweet lady is good for her baths with medicated shampoo (though we’re still working on getting in and out of the tub gracefully 🤪) but what would really help her skin heal is getting out of the shelter to shake some stress off and relax.

Interested in fostering her for Silent Night or longer term? Curious about adoption? Ask about her at 2020 Forest St.!

12/20/2024

Fuzzy Wuzzy, Willow, and Stomp put on their best model poses this morning to impress their future families—did it work??

12/19/2024

Oodles of (tiny) doodles, indeed! Remember our large intake from a few weeks back of adorable curlicue pups? Our friends at The Jacksonville Humane Society are joining us in a community effort to help the rest of that crew.

Our goal for these pups, who are used to being in a home, is to limit the amount of time they have to spend in a shelter before finding a family. So we're partnering with JHS for a unique event TOMORROW, Friday December 20. About 40 small "oodle"-ish pups, from puppies to seniors, will be available for waived-fee adoption! All pups have been spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and groomed.

📍 The Jacksonville Humane Society, 8464 Beach Blvd
⏰ 12/20 from 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

And of course, ACPS will be open our normal hours at 2020 Forest St. tomorrow! 💗