Escambia County Animal Regulation & Control

As Escambia County Animal Regulation and Control, we are the focus for most of the animal issues arising in Escambia County. We provide animal control services to all residents of Escambia County including, under and interlocal agreement, the City of Pensacola. In addition, we provide animal control services to the City of Gulf Breeze, also under an interlocal agreement.

Most of the situations we handle involve dogs and cats – but we often assist others including the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission or the Wildlife Sanctuary of Northwest Florida with wildlife matters or the Sheriff’s Livestock Officer with livestock problems.

We have animal control officers providing Animal Control services Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and we have an on-call duty officer taking emergency calls from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. weekdays and 24 hours on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. Fire/Rescue dispatchers handle our incoming emergency line phone calls from 5:15 p.m. to 6:45 a.m. weekdays and 24 hours per day on weekends and holidays. In fiscal year 2001-2002, Animal Control responded to 24,016 calls for assistance – an average of 2,001 per month.

The Escambia County Animal Shelter is located at 200 West Fairfield Drive in Pensacola, FL. The shelter has a total of 12,800 square feet (17,000 square feet if you count the outdoor portions of the 105 indoor/outdoor dog runs).

More than 1,300 visitors per month visit the shelter to look for their lost animal, to sign out a cat trap or to look for an animal to adopt. We impounded 17,942 animals (an average of 1,495 per month) during the past year with 1,523 (8.5%) of that number being wildlife that we relocate when possible to do so. 4,846 (29.5% of the non-wildlife animals) taken into the shelter were animals whose owners who were giving up ownership of their animals. We identified the owners on 1,274 (11.0%) of the others, and returned their animal to them. We adopted out 2,295 animals, raising the monthly pet adoption average from 92 per month in 1995 to an average 191 per month in fiscal year 2001-2002.

The average number of animals being held at the shelter (and being fed and cleaned up after and otherwise generally cared for) in the last two years has ranged from a low of 166 in January 2001 to a high of 251 in June 2001, with an average of 201 being housed on any given day. We also keep the roads clean of dead animals – picking up an average of 150-160 roadkills per month.

We have 26 total employees – including a director, five persons in the office, seven in kennel operations, and 13 in various aspects of field operations.

Our purpose is to protect the health and safety of both the citizens and animals of Escambia County. Named “Outstanding Agency of the Year” for the State of Florida by the Florida Animal Control Association (FACA), in November 1999. We are one of the only County agencies that is actively and aggressively trying to put ourselves out of business. As we resolve each situation, we try to include the education and encouragement that will keep the problem from recurring at the same site. We also administer a low-cost spay/neuter program for people with very low income.

Our telephone number for routine animal control/animal shelter matters is 595-3075. The Animal control Emergency number is 595-3080.