The newest San Diego County Animal Shelter is under construction in Santee and is expected to offer a better experience for animals and people when it opens around the summer of 2026.
“It’ll be a quite the upgrade for the animals,” County Department of Animal Services Director Vaughn Maurice said about the $37 million project that broke ground in December on the northwest corner of Magnolia Avenue and Riverview Parkway.
The county operates two animal shelters, one in Carlsbad off of Palomar Airport Road and one in Bonita at 5821 Sweetwater Road.
The 70-year-old Bonita shelter is at the end of its lifespan, Maurice said, and repairing it would cost about as much as building a new one.
The county already owned land about 14 miles north, near Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility in Santee, which Maurice said made picking a new site easy.
Once the Santee shelter is open, the county will close the Bonita shelter and sell the property, he said.
Maurice predicts the new 23,000-square-foot Santee shelter will be more comfortable than the Bonita shelter for the animals, staff and the public.
“It really has more of that old-fashioned shelter feel to it,” he said of the existing facility. It has chain-link fencing and no climate control.
“They get really hot when it gets hot and cold when it gets cold,” he said about animals in the shelter. “We want their experience to be as pleasant as possible.”
A better shelter environment can have a lasting effect on animals, Maurice said.
“By having a much nicer climate and a much nicer area for animals, they actually do much better when they get adopted,” he said. “They don’t develop that many behavior issues. They’re much more calm.”
The Santee shelter will have room for about 100 dogs and 75 cats. County shelters usually are near capacity.
The new shelter will be more centrally located for county residents and offer the same services as the other two, but in a modernized facility with an expanded public space, an open courtyard and livestock area and activity yards.
The Santee shelter will be about the same size as the Bonita one, but it will have less space for dogs.
“So we’re actually going to have to rely on the community to develop our foster program a little bit more to be able to make up the difference,” he said. “Fortunately, we’ve been having pretty good success getting foster families. We’re always looking for people that are into short-term commitments.”
The number of animals at the county’s shelters can fluctuate dramatically, sometimes reaching a low of 150 and a high of 400, he said, adding that the county cared for about 6,500 sheltered animals last year.
People can visit the shelter to adopt pets, for spay and neutering, vaccinations and other services, or to become part of the foster program.
Similar services are offered at independent, nonprofit animal shelters, and some cities have contracts with those shelters or with the county. Ironically, the cities of Carlsbad and Santee have contracts with the San Diego Humane Society rather than the county, Maurice noted.
While the shelters offer much of the same services, Maurice said the main difference is in animal control, with different shelters responding to different geographic areas.
Most of the animals in the county shelter are strays, and all shelters in San Diego County are considered no-kill, meaning they have a live-release rate of 90% or more.
