Broward County Animal Care saw pets ‘flowing out’ amid overcrowding

In 2024, animal shelters across South Florida experienced overcrowding. They were receiving too many pets and not enough of them were being adopted. Shelters across the country continue to struggle with an overflow of pets.

Broward County Animal Care was one of those shelters. The overflow of dogs made it difficult to provide them with medical treatment or rehabilitation.

During the 2025 fiscal year from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, 3,894 pets were adopted. That’s an increase of more than 160 animals compared to the previous fiscal year.

Last year brought sweeping changes and improvements to BCAC.

Doug Brightwell, the animal shelter’s director, said he and his team focused on improving their internal services, which help facilitate their return-to-owner programs and rescue partnerships. Those are the two main avenues other than adoption for the animals to leave the facility.

They increased their return-to-owner rate of lost pets. That rate went up to more than 17% for dogs, with 568 pets being reunited with their owners.

READ MORE: Broward County’s animal shelter remains overflowing with cats, dogs

“ You’ve gotta get the animals flowing out as they’re flowing in, or you just stagnate,” Brightwell said. “Our dogs were staying with us over a month and now they’re staying with us on average about 20 and a half days, which is a significant reduction.”

When WLRN last spoke to BCAC in June 2024, the site was sheltering a dog for almost two years. It is now living in Ohio.

Constant community support is an important part of the shelter’s success. Adoption rates have gone up, and more volunteers fostering pets for a few days, doing hands-on work and participating in the Broward Buddies program.

“ It’s the day-out program for dogs, where you can come in and take a dog out just for the day to spend time with it, help it get more socialized, give it a break from the shelter for the day,” Brightwell said.

The strides made in 2025 haven’t fully eliminated the challenges that BCAC faces in 2026. Even though the staffers have seen more community engagement and adoptions, they still face being overcapacity day to day, especially with dogs.

“We try to work with folks who have found strays … and provide resources before they come in so they don’t have to bring those animals in,” Brightwell said. “Because if we’re full and we’re over capacity, we can’t provide the assistance for those dogs trying to come in.”

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner WLRN Public Media.

This story was originally published January 9, 2026 at 5:40 PM.