Our Policies and approach to animal welfare

 

For 37 years, Pets Lifeline in Sonoma has been a private nonprofit that provides shelter and adoption for lost and abandoned animals.

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Our mission is to protect and improve the lives of cats and dogs in need in Sonoma Valley through sheltering, adoption, humane education, and community programs.

 

We do this through a broad range of programs and services that help local people, and their companion animals live the healthiest and happiest lives possible. One of our core values is to be as transparent as possible to our local community of volunteers, adopters, donors and partner organizations. So, by sharing our policies, the laws that govern us as a shelter, and most importantly, our values and approach to animal welfare, we want everyone to understand how we’re guided day to day in our operations as a shelter.

We are part of a network of animal welfare organizations across the county, state, and country. We collaborate to provide the best combined resources and animal care for all our communities. The details of how we do that, and the outcomes of our work are answered on the following pages.

 

If you have any questions, please do reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.   Contact us at info@petslifeline.org

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How are we governed?

We are a privately owned and operated shelter.  We’re licensed by Sonoma County Animal Services who are the municipally operated animal shelter for the whole county of Sonoma. As part of our licensing, we are formally inspected every year and have to comply with strict reporting criteria in order to retain our licensed status. All animal welfare organizations across the state of California are licensed and inspected in this way to ensure high standards of care. You can read the Sonoma county regulations here: https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Health/Animal-Services/Animal-Regulation-Ordinances/

 

On top of this we have very clearly stated policies that are approved by our board of directors. We review these policies on a regular basis to make sure we are holding ourselves to the highest standards possible.

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