In the first 138 days of this year, 634 dogs were taken to the Denver Animal Shelter by their owners…and left there.
That’s nearly five dogs surrendered to the one shelter every day of 2025 — and the situation is only getting worse. Dog surrenders at the City of Denver’s shelter are up 237 percent compared to the same period in 2019, according to city data. That year, there were 544 surrenders total; a number 2025 surpassed weeks ago, around four months into the year.
Just five years ago, dog surrenders at the shelter were on a steady decline, reducing annually from 2018 to 2019 to 2020, before seeing a spike in 2021 during the second year of the pandemic. Since then, they’ve jumped by between 26 percent and 42 percent every year. They’re on track to do the same in 2025…