The Elk Grove Animal Shelter has been assisting pets for more than five years, focusing on providing care and humanely giving sheltered animals a sense of hospitality. 

After the Elk Grove City Council approved the building of an animal shelter in 2016, construction for the $18 million shelter officially began in 2018. With help from Elk Grove city employees and the Elk Grove Police Department, a new animal shelter, and even an Animal Services Branch of the city government, was created. 

Its website, https://www.elkgrovecity.org/animal-services/adoptions, showcases several animals currently at the shelter and any fees people need to know about before adopting.

Koreena Walsh, the shelter’s animal services volunteer and events coordinator, said there are lots of programs to be excited about.

“Doggy Day Out is our field trip foster program, and we originally initiated it back in 2019,” Walsh said. “Construction was a little behind, so we had animals in our care a few months before the shelter could open (physically).”

Walsh said a fostering program helped get things started.

“We couldn’t have volunteers yet, so we recruited foster parents who would drive up to our construction site, let us put a dog in their care, and spend a few hours providing them with love and enrichment,” she said. “We decided to maintain the program even after we were able to open our volunteer opportunities, and it has proved to be one of our most successful community programs.”

After experimenting with the program several times, Walsh said she is proud the program helps with matching animals to new families.

“It gives shelter dogs the opportunity to explore new environments, which is so important for their mental and physical health, and it often helps us learn more about their personalities in the ‘real world’ so we can better ‘matchmake’ them with potential new families,” Walsh said. “We also very much rely on our more traditional foster families who bring shelter pets into their home for longer periods of time, and for some foster parents, it’s a few weeks and for others it may be several months.” 

Even for people who aren’t able to adopt, she said there are multiple ways to help these animals, especially during the holiday season.

“If folks aren’t able to adopt, at any point, but especially in this holiday season, we would love for them to consider fostering a pet, whether it’s even just for a weekend or over a holiday,” Walsh said.

She said another way to help the shelter is to donate.

“Donations are always appreciated,” Walsh said. “Donations of both physical items to use at the shelter, such as toys, towels, blankets and treats are fantastic.”

When animals are taken to the shelter, the shelter makes it a priority to provide the best possible care.

“If someone must make the difficult decision to not keep their pet, animal shelters would usually be there as a safety net to keep the pet from being turned loose on the street,” she said. “Unfortunately in recent years most animal shelters have been so full they can’t open their doors to surrender, but we do our best to offer support and other resources to help prevent pets from ending up on the street.”

Ashley Elamrani, a shelter senior customer service specialist, said he shelter’s programs are designed to help spread awareness of the needs of sheltered animals. 

“Throughout the holidays, all year round, we do fostering, we have Doggy Day Out programs, but through the holidays, we do a big push for people to keep the animals in their home during the holidays,” she said. “Even if they’re not adopting, they can do fostering over Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s.”

The giving tree, in the shelter’s lobby, is another way where people are able to help out sheltered animals throughout the holidays.

“Our sponsorship tree that’s in the lobby is where you can see pictures of the animals, you can sponsor their adoption fees, in which their adopter doesn’t have to pay it, or you can pick out different toys for them,” Elamrani said. “A lot of people like to get animals as gifts for the holidays, so we also sell gift certificates so that you don’t buy a gift for somebody that they might not be expecting. Instead, they can come and pick out their own animal.”

In addition, she said she highly recommends adopting an animal over buying for multiple reasons.

“(Sheltered animals) are already here and needing a home, as opposed to new animals being born that are unaltered, not fixed, and then they create more animals,” Elamrani said. “Those animals, a lot of times, will end up in an animal shelter.”

Elamrani said another reason to adopt is because of the amount of information and evaluations adopters can gain from the shelter.

“We do fostering and adopting, because we can get information from people and convey that to an adopter,” she said. “Shelter animals generally are pretty sturdy. They go through evaluations, they are already medically checked, so as opposed to buying an animal online, where you might not get all the information, we’re able to do our own evaluations and give them a vet check.” 

Lastly, the cost of adopting and buying strongly varies.

“If you get an animal online, they’re already vaccinated, already licensed, and then you also get some follow up care and behavior help, so they’re gonna come with a whole bunch of things that would typically cost about $1,000 from the start,” she said. “Our adoption fee at most is $150, so it’s a good place to start.”

For those thinking of adopting an animal, Elamrani said the process is simple. 

“When someone comes in, they’re welcome to just look around, you don’t have to sign up or have an appointment,” she said. “If you’re interested in any of the animals, you just ask the front desk to meet with them, and one of our animal care staff will take them out for you, they’ll go over any information we have about owning a pet, and then you come up to the front desk if you decide you want to take them home. We register the microchip to you, so it’s not as much of an application, it’s just like a questionnaire, so we have all your information, and then you take them home.”

June Kashiwada has been volunteering at the shelter since it was first opened and especially appreciates the value of the fostering program.

“If the public would like to foster some of the animals and take them home … there’s always staff here every single day of the week, and volunteers even on holidays, so a lot of our dogs went home to people for four or five days, and then our cats, too,” Kashiwada said. “We had cats go out for four or five days.”

As a cat volunteer, Kashiwada said there are lots of different elements that make up her duties.

“I feed them twice a day when their kennels get empty because they’ve been adopted, we clean the kennels, help staff, meet with the people, introduce them to the cats, answer any questions that they have, and then help with the adoption, if they decide to adopt,” she said.

Cooper Pouley, another volunteer who has been working at the shelter for about a year, said he strongly recommends taking time to volunteer for your community.

“Volunteering builds towards getting into college because of community service hours and gaining experience,” he said.

Throughout the holiday season, more people come in looking for animals as gifts, giving the animals communication time.

“There are more people coming in for animals for Christmas presents, so it brings more attraction and more people,” Pouley said. “It gives the animals more communication time with people, so they can build and develop into house animals.”

When people donate, the donations go to the adopters or their animals.

“(The shelter) can give you items for your adopted animal,” Pouley said. “We have a donation table, and they give you stuff from that donation table. Sometimes it’s bowls, food, or toys, but they give you items to help you get started.”

Carly Saletnik, who is looking to adopt a sheltered dog, is one of many who signed up for the Doggy Day Out program.

“I had to fill out an application to foster dogs,” Saletnik said. “I wanted to see if she was in my home environment and see how she did outside of the shelter, and she did really well.”

After her experience with Doggy Day Out, she recommends it to others looking to help sheltered dogs in any way possible.

“When the weather’s nice, you could take a doggy out for a walk, a hike, and just give them a break from the shelter because it’s a really high-stress environment,” Saletnik said. “You can just tell when a dog is scared, in a loud room surrounded by other dogs, so you might as well get them out of here once in a while.”

Saletnik said she is proud to help sheltered and fostered animals in any way possible and hopes to spread more awareness about adopting from a shelter.

“Sheltered and foster animals are overlooked, and most of the time, people look for trendy or cool dogs,” she said. “We don’t know what happened to put an animal in shelter care, so I think it’s very important to take a look at all of your options since all animals deserve love.”