Noozhawk’s 3rd Annual Four-Legged Friends and More section is officially here! This section features articles covering aspects such as health, comfort, training, exercise, and the overall well-being of your beloved animals.
In our mission to showcase the pet-friendly establishments in Santa Barbara County, we’ve conducted informative interviews with representatives from local businesses. This year’s Four-Legged Friends and More Guide is set to provide a comprehensive look at what these businesses have to offer, ensuring your tail will be wagging with delight.
In this interview, Noozhawk spoke with Isabelle Gullö, Executive Director & Cofounder at C.A.R.E.4Paws to learn more about their nonprofit’s mission to help pet families in need.
C.A.R.E.4Paws
Question: What is the name of your business or practice?
Answer: C.A.R.E.4Paws.
Q: What is the mission behind your business?
A: C.A.R.E.4Paws is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the mission to reduce pet overpopulation and improve pet family welfare.
Q: What types of animals does your business cater to?
A: Dogs and cats.
Q: Can you describe the services or products your business offers?
A: Since 2009, C.A.R.E.4Paws has supported pet families in need on the Central Coast, ensuring that dogs and cats stay healthy and with the people who love them.
We know that without access to care, including affordable veterinary services and pet food, many families are forced to make the difficult decision to relinquish their pets to a shelter. Without the availability of free spays/neuters, many family pets produce unwanted litters, adding to our pet overpopulation problem.
The outcome? Overburdened shelters, animal suffering and heartbroken families.
C.A.R.E.4Paws intervenes in this cycle by providing a range of resources.
Our Mobile Community Medicine & Spay/Neuter Outreach program, C.A.R.E.4Paws’ largest service component, provides low-cost and free spays/neuters, medical care and vaccine clinics for pets in two mobile units, including our one-year-old, 37-foot mobile clinic launched in August 2023. Our team is on the road four to five times per week throughout Santa Barbara County and southern San Luis Obispo (SLO) County, assisting pet families directly in the communities where they live.
Our mobile clinic program ensures that financial challenges, language barriers and lack of transportation don’t prevent dogs and cats from receiving the care that they need.
C.A.R.E.4Paws’ Companion Pet Assistance (CPA) program supports families with pet food, supplies, grooming, foster care and dog training, as resources allow. Through CPA, we co-operate several Pet Resource Centers in Santa Barbara County, where families in need can go to access free pet food and supplies and inquire about wellness services for their pets. Jointly operated with key community partners, our resources centers provide a much-needed lifeline for many pet families. For example, it’s not unlikely to see 100 pet owners waiting in line to receive pet food on Tuesdays at our center in Lompoc, which we co-operate with Santa Barbara County Animal Services and Companion Animal Placement & Assistance.
Our Safe Haven program supports pet families exposed to domestic violence by providing temporary foster care or boarding for pets. We launched Safe Haven in 2020 in partnership with Domestic Violence Solutions for Santa Barbara County as we realized that so many domestic violence survivors either stay in an abusive relationship because of a beloved family pet, or they are forced to leave their pets behind, which leads to more suffering for the animals. Our program allows survivors to seek safety from abuse without having to fear for the well-being of their four-legged family members.
We also offer innovative humane education through Paws Up For Pets, showing youth how to be great pet caretakers and promoting kindness to all living beings from an early age.
Q: How long have you been in this industry?
A: 15 years.
Q: What makes your business or practice unique?
A: C.A.R.E.4Paws is the only animal organization on the Central Coast that works directly in the community to provide critical wellness services to the pet families that need it the most. For example, we know that having access to veterinary care improves the lives of pets and their people. Yet, for so many, gaining that access is difficult unless pet wellness services are brought directly to a family’s neighborhood. This is exactly what our Mobile Community Medicine & Spay/Neuter Outreach program does in Santa Barbara and SLO counties.
Since 2019, we have increased the number of mobile pet wellness services provided annually by 150%. In 2023 alone, we assisted 17,500 dogs and cats with services such as vaccines, flea treatment, spays/neuters, medical exams, bloodwork, mass removals, dental care, and treatment of skin, ear and eye problems. We will exceed that number in 2024.
Overall, C.A.R.E.4Paws keeps evolving to make sure we’re meeting the community’s needs. For instance, when the pandemic started, we began distributing several tons of pet food weekly, compared to two tons distributed total in a typical pre-pandemic year. Between the start of the pandemic through the summer of 2024, we have provided more than 4 million free pet meals.
With the dramatic increase in the number of pet families experiencing homelessness since the pandemic, we partnered with Street Dog Coalition in 2023 to provide free veterinary care for dogs and cats of the unhoused. In March 2024, we formed a partnership with Good Samaritan Shelter and DignityMoves, through which C.A.R.E.4Paws provides veterinary care and other services for pet families that reside in three transitional housing complexes—La Posada in Santa Barbara and Hope Village in Santa Maria were launched by DignityMoves this spring, while Bridge House in Lompoc has existed for years.
The fact that C.A.R.E.4Paws collaborates with so many other nonprofits and agencies—human- or pet-family related—also makes us unique. We rely heavily on partnerships to expand our reach into communities that lack access to care.
The human-animal bond is so powerful, and we want to do all that we can to help preserve that bond. Thanks to C.A.R.E.4Paws’ boots-on-the-ground approach, we have a steady presence in the community, assisting pet families right where they live.
Q: What training, education and experience do you and your staff have? Do you hold any professional certifications?
A: We have a highly trained veterinary team that runs our Mobile Community Medicine & Spay/Neuter Outreach operations, including a veterinarian who’s worked in the field for more than 40 years. Overall, having operated C.A.R.E.4Paws for 15 years, our team has gained tremendous experience in the animal welfare industry and when it comes to working with pet families in need. Still, we are adamant about always evolving our practices and protocols to better serve the community, and we encourage and pay for continued education for our staff.
Q: What is your level of expertise regarding pet health and behavior?
A: Our team has worked in the community since 2009 to help thousands of animals with a variety of services, including vaccine clinics, spaying and neutering, medical care, distribution of pet food, behavioral training and general support that keeps pet families strong and together through life’s challenges.
Q: How do you manage behavioral problems?
A: As part of our Companion Pet Assistance program, we offer free or low-cost dog behavioral training for low-income pet families to make sure dogs don’t end up in a shelter due to behavioral issues that owners cannot manage on their own.
Q: Are you currently accepting new clients?
A: C.A.R.E.4Paws is always here for pet families in need and continuously assist community members through all of our programs. Through our Mobile Community Medicine & Spay/Neuter Outreach program, we host regular walk-in Pet Wellness Clinics that are open to anyone in need of assistance of vaccines, flea treatment and other basic pet care. When it comes to spays/neuters and medical care, which are reserved for families in need and by appointment, we get dozens of calls and emails every day so our schedule fills up fast. Still, we try our best to get pets booked as quickly as possible.
Our Pet Resource Centers are always open for those needing assistance with pet food and supplies. It’s important to note that C.A.R.E.4Paws isn’t designed to be someone’s regular or permanent veterinarian or pet-care provider. Our goal is to support pet families going through a tough time. With that said, we do know that tough times can last for years and we absolutely do not want an animal to suffer if we can help the pet family through one of our programs.
Q: Can you name a few common reasons animals end up in your shelter?
A: Many pets end up homeless due to lack of resources to provide proper pet care, because of behavioral issues that are hard to manage, or due to pet overpopulation, issues that C.A.R.E.4Paws addresses with our free and low-cost services. Lack of pet-friendly housing is another, huge problem that contributes to animals ending up in shelters. After COVID, we’ve also seen an influx of animals from other counties, and some of these animals are being relinquished to our shelters.
Sometimes pet families need help temporarily as they are going through a transition, whether it’s hospitalization, a move or rehab, for example. C.A.R.E.4Paws tries to assist whenever possible, but we need more funding and foster families to be able to help on a greater scale. It is too large of an issue for one organization to tackle, especially as we don’t have a space to house animals. Our community as a whole needs to work together to come up with solutions that keep more pets out of shelters and with the people who love them.
Q: How do you help make your client feel at ease leaving their pet in your care?
A: We have a very kind and compassionate staff and volunteer team, and that goes a long way when it comes to making clients feel comfortable leaving their pets with us. It’s also important to let people know what to expect through the process and from the services they receive.
Q: Are you a nonprofit? Do you accept donations?
A: C.A.R.E.4Paws is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and we do accept donations.
Q: How do you keep the public informed about your business or service(s)?
A: We have an informative website and very active Facebook and Instagram pages. We also partner with dozens of other agencies and local business that help spread the word to those in need. For special events, we place ads, post flyers and send press releases to the media.
Q: What is the typical cost of your service(s) or product(s)? Do you offer any payment plans or discounts?
A: Our mobile clinic services are offered at very low-cost for low-income pet families. We also provide free clinic services for those who cannot afford to pay anything. Services through our other programs (care4paws.org/programs) are typically offered for free.
Q: What are your hours of operation?
A: Since we don’t have a brick-and-mortar facility with regular opening hours, our organization operates a bit differently. In terms of our mobile clinic services, our mobile units are in service four to five times per week throughout Santa Barbara County and three times a month in San Luis Obispo County. Our clinic schedule is listed at care4paws.org/events/category/pet-wellness-clinics.
Pet families in need of help with clinic services can contact us through our clinic services page (care4paws.org/clinicservices). Community members with inquiries about other pet-care can email info@care4paws.org or call 805-968-2273.
Q: What is one fun fact about your business?
A: Our founders are all former shelter volunteers, but C.A.R.E.4Paws is not a shelter or rescue group. We are here to prevent animals from ending up homeless by providing critical resources to pet families in need in the community. Our goal is to keep pets healthy and with the people who love them.
Q: Is there anything you would like to tell our readers that was not mentioned above?
A: In January 2024, a key partner in SLO County and the Santa Maria Valley, Animals in Need Fund (AINF), was absorbed under C.A.R.E.4Paws’ community umbrella, giving us increased access to the pet families AINF traditionally served and helping us build relationships with the individuals, businesses and veterinary practices that have supported AINF over the years.
Also new in 2024, we have a four-year funding commitment from PetSmart Charities to improve access to veterinary care in Oceano. The grant allows us to provide free services to the pets of Oceano residents, who have chronically been without access to veterinary care of any kind. This long-term commitment also allows us to provide free pet food through our partnership with SLO Food Bank and to begin to examine ways to offer deeply discounted prices to low-income community members in neighboring towns.
Click here to learn more about C.A.R.E.4Paws or check out their YouTube Channel!