Humane Society of Sonoma County - Santa Rosa — Local services in Sebastopol

Amazingly helpful and generous. The Sonoma County Humane Society gave my service dog Honey Girl all her shots and everything she needed to move into housing. We were 2 weeks into August 2022. As of August 1st of that same year, we had been living in my 2013 Turquoise Toyota Prius C with under 100,000 miles.

We had been pushed out of our beautiful, 2 bedroom 1 bath home with 3 separate entrances including a wrap-around deck, washer and dryer hook-up with a retrofitted used dryer for the propane where we resided from January 2020 as tenants in good standing until August 2022 by the new home owner and Property Management Manager at Russian River Realty at the time.

I was down to my last $30 and they didn't want me to be without food and gas so they only charged me $10 for all of Honey's immunizations and an exam.

Little did we know that just one week later, I would be in for a rude awakening. On August 21st 2022, around sunrise, as I was leaving my safe space on the river where I slept at nightfall in my Prius, on my way to the Safeway Starbucks, I would go unconscious at the wheel going around a bend at about 43 miles an hour with no breaking, about midway from the Summer Bridge to Safeway for my morning coffee.

I would come to when the air bag deployed. My wrist, bent at a very awkward angle, was obviously broken. Honey Girl was startled but unharmed. She joined me in the ambulance to be transported to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital where I would learn that my sternum had also been broken, and an EEG with the Neurologist (where I briefly went unconscious again during the test) would confirm I had a seizure disorder (on top of all my other physical, mental, and emotional disabilities) my license was suspended by the DMV for 6 months.

However, I was so traumatized and still in shock and did not schedule a review and clearance by the neuro doc until I got to the 7 or 8 months mark; I finally got up the courage to renew my license online almost a year after the accident. I had absolutely no desire to drive: I was freaking terrified.

I had no recollection of going around that bend. The speed limit was 40 mph, my last memory was checking the speedometer to make sure I was going the speed limit as it was posted on the sign on the side of the road. I was going 43 mph around the bend with absolutely no braking; all the while crashing into the side of a parked white Toyota Tacoma into yet another white Toyota Tacoma and, indeed, yes, you guessed it, another white Toyota Tacoma, all belonging to one individual.

It came to my attention shortly after the impact, as the owner exited his home and was visibly emotionally distraught and disturbed by what he saw outside his door. You see, the first white Toyota Tacoma was given to him by his Dad as he had recently passed away.

Prayers for all...

If I didn't know more about the Sonoma Humane Society, I would probably give it 5 stars. I volunteered here for over a year, and when I first walked in, I was impressed by what a beautiful building it is. It is a gorgeous space with employees who genuinely care about the animals. They do medical and personality evaluations on the animals before they go out onto the floor. They are a no-kill shelter (with a few exceptions -- naturally if the animal is suffering and unable to be helped, but also based on judgment calls by a few key individuals). They have a huge corps of volunteers (hundreds) who visit cats, walk dogs multiple times a day, and generally help keep the place running. The huge number of volunteers is good for keeping animals socialized and the place running, but also probably also discourages the shelter from hiring more staff (especially in areas where they might consider a hired employee, such as answering the phones). They also pay their staff surprisingly low wages, which results in extensive turnover and loss of some really good employees. (As a side note, they have an incredible vet who drives down to Mexico and collects incredible dogs who would otherwise be euthanized. They often also collect animals from other high-kill shelters and bring them here to adopt them out, when they have space. Adopting from here opens space for animals like those to be brought in -- it happened all the time!)

One more (both good and bad) thing to consider is that this shelter takes in animals that are higher risk. Lots of people walk into these doors, so they can afford to take animals that are older or a little more active that other shelters would just put down. I love that about this shelter. However, related to this, they are somewhat strict in the youngest family members allowed to adopt. I never saw a dog adoption allowed to a family with a child much younger than 6 years old. I found this surprising, because many new parents are looking to complete their families with a family pet and this greatly reduces the number of adoptions they do every year.

Bottom line: This is a lovely, clean shelter. You can visit cats fairly easily and dogs if you're interested in potentially adopting. It's a lovely bright space. Animals are well cared for. If you have young children (under 6) you might want to look elsewhere. If your children are slightly older, there will probably be limited options (unless their policies change). If you're looking to REALLY help an animal in need, this shelter has incredible options. They are doing good work -- but they still have...

Really frustrated. Brought my dog in to be cremated and it's been over a month. No call, and I've called numerous times, left messages, waiting for a call back from someone finally trying to help me, but they've checked and my dogs remains are not there. It is really worrying, already so hard to have him gone for this long. But then to be left wondering if he will ever even return home is all I can think about at this point. I have a worrying feeling about all of this. I've brought other animals of mine to be cremated through them before and it can take a whole but I was told 3 weeks, and it's been more than 5. That leaves a family to worry about their beloved being properly cared for at the most tragic time.... I sincerely hope the process is just taking longer than they expected, and not that he wasn't given a private cremation, as I paid for, or that something even worse has happened.

Being told they are too busy to have someone handle my call and ensure my dog didn't somehow get improperly disposed of is beyond disrespectful and lacking compassion. How would they feel if it was their pet? There has to be someone who I can speak with who can ensure that his remains are where they should be and its just taking twice as long as they had already told me it would. As it is, when I even came in to do the drop off and pay for cremation, the service wasn't the most pleasant. I was made to stand outside with the box containing my deceased pet after going in to fill out the paperwork, while they "checked to make sure they could accept drop-offs, if not i would have to bring my dog to Napa", even though I had called and asked in advance. It was humiliating and I was just standing there crying and waiting. And then the same speech, just so busy. Which I understand, everywhere is under-staffed, over-worked. But I paid $240 for my dog to be cremated in an already not so timely manner, and now I am just left in limbo. Beyond...