Director resigns
Emily Wood leaves the Broward County animal shelter three years after taking the role
Emily Wood, director of Broward County’s animal shelter, is quitting her $165,000-a-year job three years after assuming leadership of a shelter that takes in around 8,600 dogs and cats a year.
Wood, who was hired in January 2021, submitted her resignation on Wednesday.
“I will be taking another offer of employment,” she wrote. “I have enjoyed serving Broward County and hope that I have lifted up the reputation of the organization.”
Wood’s last day as director of the county’s Animal Care and Adoption Center will be March 22, said Leonard “Lenny” Vialpando, who oversees the Animal Care Division.
The county plans to conduct a nationwide search to find a new director for the shelter, Vialpando said.
Wood, who could not be reached for comment, was expected to bring long-awaited change to a shelter mired in controversy.
But within months of taking the reins, Wood outraged critics with a three-day wait policy on stray dogs that forced police departments and good Samaritans to either find homes for the animals or leave them on the streets. The only dogs granted immediate entry to the shelter were the sick, injured or dangerous.
Broward’s shelter took in more than 13,000 cats and dogs in 2020, before Wood came aboard.
Those numbers have since plummeted, partly due to the new shelter philosophy that urges good Samaritans to leave lost and stray animals where they’ve found them so the pets can be found by owners or perhaps taken in by a new family.
“A shelter is not a home,” Wood said in a recent interview. “If we can help an animal stay in their home or find a new home without coming here, it’s better for the animal and the families involved and it’s less of a tax burden for the taxpayer.”