Humane Society of Sonoma County

The Humane Society of Sonoma County is committed to providing positive outcomes for homeless animals on their journey to adoption and ensuring that animals stay with the families who love them. Serving our community since 1931, HSSC is a donor-supported safe haven for animals. We provide shelter, medical care, behavior support and adoption services to homeless animals on their journey to happy and healthy lives.

The moment an animal comes into our care, we initiate an individualized plan aimed at making their stay the most comfortable and speediest pathway to adoption possible.

At the heart of our lifesaving efforts is our Shelter Medical Program. Whether the animal comes to us from another shelter, comes in as a stray or comes from an owner who can no longer care for them, each pet’s journey begins with a medical examination to help us set them on the path to a long, healthy life in their forever homes. We estimate that 86% of the animals we take in require medical attention beyond initial exams and routine preventative care.

Our robust foster program expands our shelter capacity and provides love, nurturing care and socialization for animals who are recovering from surgery or illness, or – in the case of kittens and puppies – growing big and strong enough for spay/neuter surgery and then adoption into loving homes. Last year, 424 kittens and 38 puppies received tender loving care through our foster program.

Not only do we prioritize animals’ physical health, we ensure that their emotional needs are also met. We emphasize an approach to exercise, enrichment and socialization that is custom-tailored to each of our guests. This not only supports their wellbeing, it enables us to get to know them and build a personality profile we can share with potential adopters to ensure the best possible matches.

And adoption is just the beginning. As a resource to our community, we offer public dog training classes and pet behavior support to help ensure the success of each adoption. Last year, 1,126 dogs attended our training classes and 1,281 puppies received a strong foundation of support through our puppy socialization classes.

We are committed to stemming the tide of homeless animals who enter our shelters each year with a robust Spay/Neuter program. In 2019, 643 dogs and 928 cats were spayed or neutered through our weekly low-cost spay/neuter clinics.

Other public programs include our Humane Education Program: 237 children participated in our summer and winter camps, and our Animal Assisted Therapy teams visited 255 school sites and 81 adult/senior sites and provided 3,640 Read-to-a-Dog sessions. Additionally, our outreach efforts and volunteer opportunities foster community engagement and sustained support for our life-saving programs.

In recent years, we have significantly increased our capacity for animal care in three ways:

· By focusing on new intake initiatives that expand our safety net. We nurture strong partnerships with other local and North Bay rescue organizations and actively support our fellow shelters by taking in animals in need of the advanced medical care and behavioral support that sets us apart. We prioritize transferring pets from local groups first, including our local municipal shelter, Sonoma County Animal Services, and Feline Rescue of Northern California. From there, we reach out to partners in surrounding counties and beyond. Since implementing this strategy in September 2018, we’ve increased the number of animals we bring in from rescue partners by 65%. These are animals who would otherwise face euthanasia due to lack of shelter space or medical resources.

· Through investment in our Healdsburg shelter (opened in 2016), where we accept strays from the city of Healdsburg and provide our north-county region sheltering and adoption services for up to 40 animals at a time. Last year, after consulting with a team from U.C. Davis on optimal utilization of our Healdsburg space, we opened a communal cat room, “Kitty City”. Our more social cats benefit from this best practice co-housing arrangement and potential adopters enjoy interacting with cats in its living room-like setting (when safe to do so). As inviting as Kitty City is, cats don’t tend to stick around long - they’re adopted almost as soon as they arrive. Since opening Kitty City in November 2019, 194 cats have been adopted from our Healdsburg shelter.

Our Healdsburg team also supports shelter medical efforts by providing basic veterinary care, exams and assessment for incoming stray animals including vaccinations, bloodwork, behavioral assessments and preventative health care. Additionally, Healdsburg’s donor-funded Special Isolation Ward allows us to treat cats and kittens with ringworm until they are cleared for adoption.

· Through Shelter Diversion, keeping pets with the families who love them. We are improving access to veterinary care for low- to no-income pet owners in our community and beyond through our Community Veterinary Clinic (CVC; opened February 2019). The CVC provides much-needed veterinary care at low- to no-cost to income-qualified pet companions so they can afford to keep their animals – rather than surrendering them to our shelter – and their pets can live pain-free, healthy, happy lives. Our twice-weekly clinic serves over 100 animals per month.

Even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and seasonal wildfire threats that now seem to last all year, we have continued to provide the supportive programs and services we have promised to our community. We reimagined, redesigned and responded to the new needs of our community with safe, reliable and consistent new versions of our clinic, adoption, foster, education, outreach and other services. Because of the pandemic and the impacts of the fires, program and fund-raising event revenues in 2020 have declined significantly, however. We diligently seek new ways to compensate for these losses, while remaining optimistic and creative in our response to every challenge we encounter. We're deeply grateful for the loving kindness our community holds for our animals - al the angels who hold them in their hearts regardless of what is happening in our world.

Specifically, what's next:
. Optimize efficiencies in staffing, processes and resource allocation to ensure all programs are running at maximum capacity.
. Where need continues to exceed program capacity - our Community Veterinary Clinic, for example - we have a strategic plan for growth based on sustained optimal program operation.