Introduction and Background
Pets Lifeline is dedicated to enhancing the lives of animals and people in our community through education, advocacy, and hands-on animal care. Our mission is to protect and improve the lives of cats and dogs in need in Sonoma Valley through sheltering and adoption, humane education and community programs. Over the past 39 years, more than 25,000 animals have found their way through the doors of Pets Lifeline.
Our critical programs include:
Adoption Program - Each year, we find homes for over 350 lost or abandoned cats and dogs, using both media outreach and in-person events to help increase our adoption rates. While in our care, shelter dogs are walked daily and receive obedience training. Our resident cats and kittens are highly socialized by volunteers and visitors. All shelter animals receive spay/neuter services, vaccinations, microchips, deworming and flea treatment before being put up for adoption.
Intake Prevention and Community Support Programs - Small steps can make a big difference in the life of a pet, and a pet owner. We strive to help owners keep their pets when times are tough with a variety of key gap-bridging outreach programs that are easy for owners to access and with a minimum of bureaucracy. These programs are increasingly important:
Tender Loving Paws Provides up to $200/year to low-income households in Sonoma valley for veterinary care, especially helpful in emergency situations.
Spay/Neuter & Vaccination Clinics Provides important free and low-cost medical services for low-income households in the Sonoma valley on a sliding scale payment program.
Pet Food Pantry Distributes pet food free of charge to people in need of assistance and in 2023 alone, gave away 13,671 pounds of kibble (cats and dogs) and 6,946 cans of pet food.
Lost and Found - Our shelter coordinates a very active lost and found program for pet to help reunite lost animals with their owners. Daily reports and well maintained files enable shelter staff to expedite the process and make reunification swift. Further, we provide personalized ID tags for dogs and cats and offer low cost microchipping identification services to pet owners.
TNR - Our Trap/Neuter/Release Program helps to spay/neuter and maintain feral (wild) cats. The cats are released and maintained by a colony caretaker. We rent traps to people who wish to trap and fix feral cats on their property.
Humane Education Program - For 20 years we have proudly hosted our robust and popular Pets Lifeline Summer Camps, and due to popular demand, we have added Holiday Camps, after-School Programs, and our new Dog Training for Teens. Scholarships are available for camp and afterschool programs. We also conduct ongoing community education services to raise the level of public awareness about responsible pet ownership, speaking in schools and before community service organizations.
Community Mobile Veterinary Wellness Clinic - We are expanding our outreach to underserved pet owners by providing free vaccines, preventative care, and wellness checks.
