Dog TLC Program

The Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter provides 24-hour animal rescue and is Santa Cruz County’s only full service, open-admission animal shelter.  SCCAS has two locations where people can find and recover lost pets and adopt new animal companions. These shelters are tangible evidence of Santa Cruz County’s commitment to animal welfare. They are supported by numerous volunteers and foster care families who provide thousands of hours of assistance to SCCAS staff. We rescue and assure temporary shelter, veterinary and humane care for approximately 5,000 stray, unwanted, abandoned, mistreated, neglected and injured animals every year.

Our Dog TLC program is dedicated to helping us take care of our dog population! There are two "tiers" in our program, with Tier 1 working with easier to handle dogs and Tier 2 working with more high energy dogs.

Training includes a Dog TLC Class and a Tier 1 one on one mentoring session.  Once a volunteer has  20 hours of consistent volunteering Tier 1 volunteers can do a shadowing session and then mentoring session to become Tier 2 volunteers.

To take adoptable dogs to events and on outings we have our SPOTT (Shelter Pets Out On The Town) program- Tier 1 and Tier 2 volunteers can participate after attending a SPOTT training.