My name is Bella!

CARE Rescue is a private, non-profit, all volunteer organization. We do not have a public facility for you to visit, so the only opportunity to meet our adoptable animals is at a private appointment. We update our Adopt a Pet listing daily, so animals advertised as available are available for adoption!

Our adoption process begins with meeting the animal via appointment. We do NOT have an online application, but will offer you one after you have met the animal(s) you are interested in adopting and have determined that it is a good fit for your home. We are happy to discuss, at length, available information on our animals in person. Because we are a volunteer organization, we cannot always answer and respond to telephone calls and emails.

After the potential adopters meet an animal and complete an application, our adoption committee meets to determine which applications it has that meet our adoption criteria. Our adoption criteria is thoroughly discussed on Page 1 of the application. We reserve the right to deny an adoption to any one for any reason. Please understand that we know these animals and their needs well and our goal is to place them in the very best situation for each one individually. We do not place our animals in homes with preschool aged children and are careful with size differences in animals. A constructed fenced yard will be required for most adoptions.

We will request, and rely heavily upon, a veterinary reference. Your veterinarian can give us the information we need to determine that you are a responsible pet owner. We will check to see if your previous and/or current animals were spayed or neutered, kept up to date with vaccines, kept on monthly PRESCRIBED heart worm medication, and if you gave your animal the care your veterinarian recommended. This is the first step to our process

A home visit is required for all adoptions. Generally we require that this visit be done by one of our volunteers, so often it is difficult to place animals more than 100 miles of Richmond in any direction, although sometimes it is possible. The purpose of the home visit is to ensure that the home is safe for the animal being considered for adoption. We prefer to have all family members present for the home visit.

Most adoptions take place within 7 days. We ask that you not seek adoption just before a major life change (job change, wedding, divorce, relocation) or just before a planned vacation. Our goal is that our animals have several weeks to decompress and learn their place in their new families without additional stress.

Capital Area Rescue Effort (CARE) is a foster-based rescue in Richmond, VA. All our dogs are housed in private homes and kennels and are not available to the public except via appointment.

CARE is an organization comprised totally of volunteers who donate time, talents and energy to placing homeless and abandoned dogs in loving forever homes. Our volunteers are a diverse group of people with many different skill sets who come together to form a very successful collective. We welcome volunteers 18 years and over to help at our adoption events and lend their talents to other areas such as grant writing, publicity, fundraising, transport and the like. Please let us know if you have an interest in volunteering with CARE.