San Bernardino Animal Services details distemper outbreak, staffing shortfalls and kennel expansion

San Bernardino Animal Services Director Chris Watson updated the Animal Services Commission at a recent meeting on a distemper outbreak, staffing shortages and progress on a modular kennel expansion.

Watson said the department used five per-diem veterinarians between April 1 and July 2 to address a surgical backlog and completed 330 surgeries on campus during that interval. "One of our per-diem vets is able to get through about 30 surgeries per day," Watson said, and the city is pursuing additional per-diem veterinary assistance while recruiting for a permanent staff veterinarian.

The department reported role-specific staffing gaps that limit operations. Watson said there are two registered veterinary technician (RVT) vacancies and two registered veterinary technician (RBT) vacancies; the shelter requires at least one RVT on site to run spay/neuter surgeries. To expand surgical capacity the city has requested HR approval to hire per-diem RBTs. Watson said the full-time animal shelter attendant classification has seen high turnover; the department has used temporary staff pools to cover basic feeding and cleaning tasks.

Watson described the distemper response: the shelter moved animals to limit spread, used SNAP screening tests as an initial screen and sent samples for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for confirmation. Watson said SNAP tests are "not a 100% accurate" and estimated they are accurate "maybe 50 to 60 percent of the…