Pets & Pals Animal Shelter

Our idiot neighbor moved and left his pregnant cat behind, when she had kittens one was the «runt» and she left it on our front lawn. We took it inside cleaned it up and waited for the shelter to open, we brought the kitten in and they refused to take it saying they had too many kittens already. We asked for other options and remember they are a «no kill» shelter, the girl told us we could take it to the pound and they would put it down for us. HELLO! if I wanted the kitten to die, I would have left it on my lawn! I was very disappointed with their attitude and service.

Nice shelter and nice friendly employees. I adopted my German shepherd mix here. I love this place because it is a no kill shelter. They have big play area for the dogs and the kennels are really big.

If I could I would give this place zero stars. My family was interested in getting an addition to our family so after searching we came across this location we found a dog that we were interested in and put in a application. We received a call the next day and was pretty much integrated why we haven’t spayed our current dog and why we have not found a vet in this area of we have moved out here 2 months ago. I told the lady that we have been moving and getting situated which was pointless to her because she was more concerned in finding out why we haven’t spayed our dog. We decided to come down on Saturday and see the dog we were interested in and also see other dogs. We were rejected and told that if we didn’t spay our soon then it would be pointless In looking at dogs. Long story short save yourself some time and headaches if your interested in adopting a furry friend go through ARF in Walnut Creek they defiantly have great customer service and also don’t interrogate you.

I found this shelter by chance. I am an animal lover through and through! This shelter is amazing and they keep their animals forever if they can not find a forever home for them. I was so impressed with the love I felt from the caregivers. I didn’t want to leave. I have 4 fur babies at home and if I could I would have adopted more! If there are any Unilocalers that are looking for a fur baby to love, come here and find your pet looking for a forever family! This a great place and thank goodness!!! It is a no kill shelter! Bless them!

I looked at plenty of shelters and rescues in our area. One was so elusive that even their communication via email was horrible.
When me and my husband went to Pet Pals we found a caring staff and a beautiful facility.
At first I was taken back by the application process.
Something to remember is their first priority is the animals. They know these animals very well and know what type of home is best suited for them. Keep in mind these are rescue animals. They have already had a rough life. The staff wants the best for the animals. If you feel taken back by their process consider another place. If you can appreciate a thoughtful staff that cares about the placement of animals this is the place for you. Greatly consider what the staff has to say and the adoption will go well. I highly suggest if you have a specific animal in mind to put their name on the application. This will help as I noticed they do look at those applications first for the animal placement.
We did not name an animal and got very lucky when being chosen for our kitten.
Trust me when I saw you will not find a better rescue with a more caring staff than here. They are honest and their dedication is something to be admired.
We adopted a kitten and I was able to visit her 3 times before she was ready to go home. Everyone was patient and polite. I got as much time with her as I needed to ensure we both fit well together.
The facility is huge and all animals have large kennels. The dogs all get yard time which has water areas.
Right now we are happy with our new kitten but hope in the distant future to adopt a pup.
I want to thank the staff for their kindness and patience.

I’m so impressed with this shelter, from the beautiful facility to the extremely awesome staff. We found our furbaby but made a couple visits before adopting and each time we were greeted by friendly, knowledgeable staff and a clean facility. They have their own park so the dogs can get out of their enclosures and, well, act like a dog. I will always tell people this is a wonderful rescue facility! Thank you for all you do Pets & Pals. Our Hope (Lassen while at the rescue) is our forever furbaby.

Went there a couple of times to find a new family member. Staff was always friendly and offered helpful advice. They really take care in making sure that animals’ interest are protected. Found our newest little girl, Cajun, and couldn’t be happier. Shes a sweetheart of a companion.

Thank you Pets and Pals!!! I found my newest family member, Trystan, and he is a sweetheart!!! He is so good!!!

basically I stated i was planning on crate training and thats what killed my application. it is cruel to put a dog in a crate and then the car without giving them the opportunity to be in a crate during a non stressful time. my current dog is crate trained and loves having her «hut» to go to when she wants to sleep or be left alone. its also her safe place during storms. crate training is not bad.

I brought my cat to Pets & Pals as it is a no kill facility. After I visited him I felt very happy to see that he is in good hands. All week I worried that he is in a a small cage and to my surprise it is quite big and very clean. The personnel were all very friendly and understanding.
Thank you Pets & Pals and hope you find him a good home.

We called the shelter beforehand as we wanted to see a specific dog from their website. When we arrived, a young man showed us the dog we asked to see and others that we might be interested in.
This is the cleanest and most decent shelter I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. If they deny my application, I will be sad but I will understand. If we are going to make even a dent in the stray animal population, everyone must neuter their pets. After today’s visit, I wish we could close every city pound and make Pets and Pals in Lathrop the model for all future pet shelters.

We found our new family member at the shelter. We live over an hour away but were willing to make the trip to meet Penny. Once I saw the picture online, I knew I had to put in an application. They called me back the next morning and two hours later we were in Lathrop meeting her. The shelter looked clean. They had great areas for the dogs to run. Everyone was friendly and answered our questions. She is now a great addition to our family. Great jobs!
Thanks Pets and Pals!!!

Update since their response:
Thanks for the response,. However, the message left on my voice mail stated as follows: «your application has been denied because you failed to neuter your last dog. Disconnect.» There was no mentioning of any other factors. So we concluded the main base for the denial is the neutering issue.

We made a great addition to our family today with the help of Pets & Pals! They are real friendly and they really love animals. The little guy who’s now a part of our family is named Thor! Thanks P & P… you guys are awesome!

Let me just start by saying this place was an answer to my prayers! I cannot thank them enough for helping my husband and I find an awesome, new home for our Great Dane.
We had a wonderful Great Dane that we were looking for a new home for because we work long hours and he was not getting the attention he needed. I tried to find him a new home myself to no avail, I finally turned to Pets and Pals for help. From our very first conversation on the phone, they were very professional. They informed me they had one large pen available and I could bring him right over. We were greeted by very friendly, knowledgable staff. Our dog took to them right away which was very assuring. The fact that the nice lady that ran the place actually raised Great Danes herself was a plus, She knew everything there was to know about the breed. The do’s and dont’s, what he would need in terms of bedding, food etc… they took his pic for the website and took our information to pass on to potential adopters.
They have a very strict adoption policy which I was very impressed by. They told us their goal was not to get our dog adopted as fast as possible but to make sure they find him his «forever» home. They told us he would not go to a home where he would be alone longer than 6 hours at a time, his new owners would have to have an excellent vet record, they would have to have a secure yard with a tall fence, he would not go to a home that had not had experience with his breed before… I mean these people literally cover ALL the bases to ensure the perfect fit. What more could we ask for? When I left, I felt really old about our decision, I knew he was in good hands.
Fast forward a week… a Great Dane will be going to his new home in a few days. Pets and Pals found him a great family. I called and they filled me in with all the details. I couldn’t have asked for a better result, I am sooo happy! Not to mention, while waiting to go to his new home, our dog has been living it up and bonding with the great staff there as well as some other «doggy friends» he has met and gets to play with.
Pets and pals is a top notch, five star facility! I would recommend them to everyone! Thank you so much once again, I am forever grateful…:-)

What a beautiful facility, too bad it was such an ugly experience. I have been looking for a cattle dog to add to our family, ours is 13 and no longer can get in and out of the car or go on hikes with the family. We still love him dearly but he is now a comfort loving house dog. Online at Pet & Pals we see a beautiful 3 yr old Cattle dog, I call them, drive over immediately to meet the dog. He is amazing, exactly what our family is looking for, so where is the problem?
There shouldn’t be one. However the older Blonde lady in the office has problems, when I was filling out the application to adopt this awesome dog, none of my answers were good enough, how high is my fence, 6′ just like everyone else’s, the dog would be with me or my husband ²⁴⁄₇ we are both self employed and take our dogs to work, that should be a blessing for any adopted dog, well this wasn’t good enough of an answer, what if the dog gets out of your office? Will the dog be in your office all day? How will you keep it from getting out? (If you know this breed, it is a working dog, it would love going to the office everyday, and running errands, and going on hikes.) But NO. She asked me how could I guarantee her that the dog wouldn’t get out at my office?
So I said I would do whatever necessary to see the dog was safe. If I needed to get a kennel I would, If I needed to leash it to my desk I would, well that just opened a can of worms. «This dog has never been crated», ok so… «This dog can’t be leashed to a desk». OMG! What else can I say other than this dog would be loved, cared for, safe, and protected no matter what needs to be done. Obviously, she felt it better for the dog to remain at a shelter, without a forever home, than to be adopted by a family that would take the dog to work everyday… She is an IDIOT!!! And completely unprofessional. I have managed to keep my other dog healthy and happy for 13 years, I managed to raise children, but somehow I am not a good enough home for a shelter dog. No wonder this dog has been at the facility for 3 months. I hope it finds a nice loving home.
I will never go to this facility or recommend that anyone else does, either!
This lady should put her skills to interviewing people wanting to get married in Vegas, not pet adoption.

A slightly edited version
This place has some great dogs, but it’s really too bad that this facility is run by haughty, unprofessional staff members who keep the dogs from getting adopted into decent homes for stupid reasons.
My husband and I went to this facility twice on a search to find the perfect companion. Coming from the bay area, a lot of the local shelters only had pitbulls (which are prohibited in our apartment) or really small dogs (which we weren’t interested in). On the first visit we got to see the beautiful collection of dogs they had on the property and instantly fell in love with one medium sized dog who was surrendered by her terminally ill previous owner. The staff made it clear that she was still an active dog and that if she was to live in an apartment she would need to be exercised regularly, which of course wasn’t a problem. After looking around at some other places, my husband and i decided that we really did want that dog so we went online and filled out an application and planned to make another 2 hour trip to the shelter to meet her. We get a call as we are on our way and the girl told us that they looked over our application and had a few follow up questions. They asked the basic like «how long are you planning to leave her alone» and «how much time are you going to be able to commit to training her» etc. She seemed okay with the answers and said that her only concern was that we lived on the second floor and that the dog could jump off the balcony and seriously injure herself. To me this idiotic concern baffled me because dogs don’t just jump off balconies, but even if they did, you need opposable thumbs to get onto the balcony in our apartment. I tried to get her to explain her concern further but she just kept repeating the fact that second story balconies were dangerous. She then said that she had to discuss our application further with the rest of the staff and that I should definitely still come over and meet the dog.
Once we got there the rude receptionist told us that we had been rejected for the dog that we wanted because of the second story situation. SERIOUSLY? You tell us to make the drive only to get there and be rejected? Trying to keep a positive attitude and not waste our time arguing with the illogical we asked to look at other dogs that may fit my «situation.»
A man took us outside who showed us dog after dog starting with «this dog is great» and ending it with «but may not be good for an apartment.» My growing frustration finally made me ask him exactly which dogs he thought would be a good fit to which he responded «well actually for apartment living I’d recommend a puppy so that you can train it to live in an apartment. We actually don’t have any right now that have experience with apartments and we never really get them so…» At this point I was at my breaking point. Not only did they tell us to make the trip, reject us when we got there, show us dogs we couldn’t have, tell us that they would probably never get a dog for us, but now he was telling first time dog owners to get a puppy?! What kind of uninformed, ignorant person gives advice like that? From just basic browsing on the internet, one can conclude that 1^st time dog owners are nowhere near ready for the responsibility of a puppy. On top of that I’d think that if a full grown, trained dog would have a problem jumping off of a balcony, do they really believe that a puppy would do better?! UGH
We just left after that because seriously what was the point? We adopted another dog from San Francisco SPCA a few days later and I’m happy to announce that she has survived the dangers of living on the second floor… I guess she’s just smarter than the average dog.
Another note: This place also has a collection of «unadoptables» which is a group of dogs who have been sentenced to life in this prison for various reasons like age. One dog was 4 or 5 and was considered «unadoptable» because the dog «jumped too high.» It was so sad to think that this dog would be in this hell hole for another decade :(
If you magically do get approved by this place please go and save the poor souls from this awful place asap!

Can’t begin to describe out terrible this place has been. It is a beautiful facility, however the staff are extremely unproffessional, unhelpful, and rude. I would love to have given them zero stars. My family and I have been looking for a new dog to fill the whole left behind when our 16 year old German Shepard passed away. We found a dog with very similar resemblence and loved it. We applied immediately on Oct. 1^st. and I called the next day to make sure my application went through. My brother drove from San Jose to Lathrop to see the dog. My mother spoke to them on thursday. Today we decided to give them a call and see what the hold up was about, and if we could pick up the dog.
We were told we were missing information on past pet neutering, sent them proof, and said we were approved. We were ready to make the payment and drive to pick her up but was told she couldn’t leave the facility. We were then asked to pay to «put the dog hold to spare us the drive» (Quote from Shannon’s email, Oct. 5 2013) and pick her up tuesday. I sent a reply saying we’d pay and pick her up. The next reply stated that they dog was given to someone else who applied Oct. 2^nd and was there to pay. We called and were told they don’t have a holding policy. They said the other family was dealt as a «backroom deal» with their director Sue Mollen without the rest of the staff knowing and not showing on their system.
This entire time we called, drove to the facility, and pushed to get this dog not once has any of their staff explained their policy and process. This place has been so unprofessional and incompitent from the very beginning. Made me question what kind of facility they are running over there and the real safety of the dogs. Not letting this go, and going over the heads of Sue Mollen and Shannon and find out who runs the facility.

After driving close to 100 miles to visit Pets & Pals in search of a dog to adopt, I was somewhat floored by the hostile reception I received from the elderly lady behind the counter. She was very confrontational, not welcoming nor at all interested in finding out what type of companion pooch I was looking for. Her attitude suggested that I might have some nefarious scheme in mind, which was extremely insulting, as I was just looking for another family dog as my previous canine buddy had recently succumbed during cancer surgery.
However, dealing with the young man who showed me around the available dogs was much better, after we chatted a bit and he decided that I might really be suitable to adopt. He didn’t rush the process at all when I met a couple of the dogs, and really seemed interested in finding the right canine companion for me. He was great.
But upon returning to the office to find out more about the adoption process, I found myself dealing with this hostile woman again, who started a cross-​examination about my dog keeping philosophies. I’m no stranger to working with formerly abused shelter dogs, socializing them and treating them with love and attention until they recover their confidence and personalities. But I never got the chance to express my personal dog history given the barrage of suspicion coming from over the counter. So I gave up and left.
Ultimately, I found another suitable dog a few days later at our local SPCA, where the staff are much more appreciative of people who are willing to make the lifelong commitment needed when adopting a new family member. I hope this woman at Pets & Pals takes a serious look at her abuse of potential adopters, so the animals in her care can find good homes and not be the ultimate victims of her manner that only puts people off. There’s no excuse for this type of behavior.

This review has been hard to write. But I need to write it up and give kudos to the fine folks at this establishment. How did I happen to go there? let me tell you the story:
My wife and I had to move to a new address and we could keep our Chihuahua, Mia, but not Mojo, our Golden Retriever/​Australian Shepard. We tried everything we could to find a home for him, but to no avail. Finay, last week, I brought Mojo to Pets & Pals. They took him, even though he was over the normal age limit. The stafff was nice and promised me that Mojo would get a good home.
If I am able to get another big dog, I would go to this No-​kill Shelter and get him or her.