Some of the Many Faces of the Cats and Dogs You Helped Find Homes For in 2008. New Movie. View now Meet Dale Featured Dog (949) 240-1735   NEWS Updates: 2009 State of CARE Read more Matt Gaffney Letter Read more Register article on loss of lease Read more Council Votes To Terminate Lease Agreement With CARE: Read more Spring CARE Quarterly Newsletter Available Online Read more (ADOBE PDF) Spring CARE Times E-Newsletter Available Online   Read more Orange County Animal Care Center program assists with spay and neutering of Contracted Cities pets. Read more PM CATTERY VOLUNTEER NEEDED CALL CARE ASAP AT 949-240-1735 To Volunteer:  email CARE Volunteers An Easy Way To Help Today Register Your Ralph's Club Card to Have A Portion of Your Purchase Donated To Help The Homeless and Abandoned Cats and Dogs.  Please don't litter. We're proof that very early spay/neuter is important and works. It will also be good for your pet's health. To volunteer  email CARE Volunteers Adoption Days  every Saturday Noon to 4 PETsMART San Juan Capistrano Map to PetsMart Read Recent Editions CARE Quarterly Downloadable Adobe PDF format 2009 .... .... .... Spring 2008 Winter Fall Summer Spring 2007 Winter Fall Summer Spring 2006 Winter Fall Summer Spring CARE Times Electronic Newsletter HTML format CARE TIMES Spring 2009 Serg success tale, Featured dog - Dale, Featured cat - Cheetos; Purebred Tonkinese pair, Micro-chips for dogs and cats, Emergency Disaster Preparedness CARE TIMES Winter 2008 CARe SHOW update, HOGS for DOGS Poker Run Update,  Meet the miniature black panthers, 10 year old Dyland teams up with CARE microchip program to reunite Aldo with his family. CARE TIMES Fall 2008 CARE Appoints new Executive Director, Meet Puppy Kona, cats Maureen and Hannah featured with Volunteer Connie on PetLifeRadio.com CARE TIMES Spring 2008 CARE Helps Drive E-Factor Near Cities With Pro-Humane Shelters, Nat'l Adoption Day Celebration, Mariah, Kona, Fergie & Ace CARE TIMES Winter 2007 Garfie, Liz (3 legged cat), Kona, Mollie puppies

June is National Adopt a Shelter Cat Month Meet Diesel Featured Cat Visit at SJC Petsmart Map to PetsMart Fires, Earthquakes, Flooding, and Extreme Santa Ana Winds Could Happen Any Time of the Year. Are You and Your Pet Prepared?  Disaster Preparedness For Pets  UAN Emergency Animal Rescue Learn How 10 Year Old Dylan and the CARE Program for Microchip helps Aldo the cat reunite with family Your Gifts Are Leveraged Through The Work of Volunteers When Given To Local Charitable Animal Rescue Groups. More Than Eight Years of Services to the Community. More Than 1,150 Cats and Dogs Helped to Find Homes. Together, with your help, CARE rescued and adopted over 165 cats and dogs in 2007. CARE counts on your gifts to help meet the needs of our mission by taking care of and placing the adoptable San Juan Capistrano cats that go to OC, CA Shelter and many of the San Juan Capistrano dogs that the shelter can not place. These goals are only met through the gifts of many volunteer hours combined with your generous tax deductible donations. We appreciate your donations to help the dogs and cats of CARE. Some items we need include: $25 Provides an adjustable heating pad to warm an ill small adult dog or cat or litter of the tiniest kittens. $35 Litter for one litter of kittens $125 Average acquisition costs to CARE for one dog or cat from the OC Shelter  $150 A tonga cage to foster an adult cat $250 or $25/month Litter for a foster home caring for a rotating pair of two adult cats up to ten cats in a year $500 Sponsor a dog or cat kennel in your family or pet's name $5,000 Sponsor a dog exercise yard in your family or businesses name $50,000 Sponsor the planned Vet animal check in and check up clinic in your family or businesses name For more opportunities, Please call CARE 949-240-1735 email info@capoanimalrescue.com Checks made payable to: CARE PO Box 1089 San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693

Learn More About Capistrano Animal Rescue Effort CARE.

  Dog and Cat Care  
   Dog and Cat Housing Today
  It Takes A Village to Handle Large Problems 
  Things You Can Do
  Visiting the Dogs and Cats Today
  Our Plans For The Future
  Capistrano Animal Rescue Effort's Beginnings

Dog and Cat Care 

As each cat or dog arrives into the programs of CARE,  all necessary veterinary care is provided by CARE.  All animals are checked by one or more of the Veterinarians helping CARE with a hands on check up including internal parasites, fleas, and ear mites.  Each is given treatments and immunizations should they be required.  Cats and kittens are checked for both feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukemia. Dogs and puppies are checked for heart-worm, and all animals are treated accordingly.  Many of our pets come with AVID microchips installed to assist in identification should a disaster strike and they become separated from their new homes. To reduce the pet overpopulation problems, all dogs and cats are spayed/neutered prior to placement into their new permanent homes. 

Dog and Cat Housing Today

Today all of our dogs and cats are placed with CARE foster families, if one is available.  Foster families are CARE volunteers who generously open their homes to animals in need.  The cats and dogs are provided with a caring, nurturing atmosphere to facilitate their well-being.  While in foster care, we gain an understanding of the pets' needs and their personality traits and share this information with potential adopters.  Foster homes work with adoption coordinators to match the pet with suitable permanent families.  All supplies such as food, dishes, and collars are provided to the foster family by CARE. CARE needs additional foster homes that can provide homes for medium to large size dogs.  Please see the volunteer page.

It Takes A Village to Handle Large Problems 

Getting arms around the pet overpopulation, high euthanasia and pet retention problems requires a multifaceted approach. This is not an easy problem. One group cannot solve it on their own. CARE realized this early in their formation and began building the important partnership relations with others in the animal care world. Vets are the original rescue groups. Both the City of San Juan Capistrano and the Orange County Shelter have become solid partners with CARE. The Orange County Animal Care Center (OCACC) continues to build on their partnership with CARE  and other rescue groups to increase adoption rates, while making additional changes to double their rate of returning pets to owners. Businesses in town, including PetsMart, PetCo, Starbucks, Ralph's and Family Toyota sponsor adoption day events at their locations. These and other businesses and organizations help with grants, donations and in-kind donations to help with fund raising. 

Things You Can Do To Help With This Mission 

You are a critical partner in the success in helping meet the needs of these animals. Even with the help from our partners above, the homeless and abandoned dogs and cats  need to have much more additional help from you, the general community. Please know that this works only with your support as Members, Volunteers, Foster Families, and through your generous donations and support of fund raising events. Without your participation, community rescue efforts cannot succeed.  

Visiting the Dogs and Cats Today

CARE appreciates the generous use of the San Juan Capistrano PetsMart wonderful in store pet adoption facility. There, the public can visit CARE cats seven days a week. Each Saturday, CARE volunteers are on hand from noon to 4PM to answer questions about the cats. Additionally, dogs in our care can usually be seen during the Saturday adoption events. Call CARE to check on dogs scheduled to visit. Additionally, Ortega Animal Care Center has graciously provided several deluxe suites adjacent to their lobby where cats can be seen daily. From time to time, they may also provide a suite for a CARE dog that can be seen 7 days a week. You are encouraged to visit the available pets on the adopt a cat, adopt a kitten, adopt a dog and adopt a puppy pages of this web site.

Our Plans For a Future Dog And Cat Adoption Center  

CARE plans to build a Humane Adoption Center in San Juan Capistrano. The County of Orange continues to provide Animal Control for the City, yet the animals would be transported to the Adoption Center. Much of the groundwork is in place. With your help, we celebrated our Ground Breaking Ceremony in September 2003.  In the second half of 2004, long time CARE supporters, Dennis Gage of Concorde Development and Myron Sukut and family, founders of Sukut Construction, took on the heavy task of excavating and compacting the top eight feet of soil. The Adoption Center is ready to begin the very early stages of construction. Your help is needed. The rate of progress on the building, depends heavily on the donations of material, labor and skills from our local and extended community. Fundraising efforts are vitally important as we tackle the task of building while still helping the animals. 

Capistrano Animal Rescue Effort's Beginnings

As the result of continued attempts to trap and exterminate one of San Juan Capistrano’s oldest feral cat colonies, the Capistrano Animal Rescue Effort was born.  In April 1999, after more than 15 cats living in a colony on Spring Street were killed, a successful attempt was made by Marsha Schwartze and local South Orange County Veterinarian Dr. Joe Cortese to spay and neuter the remaining (8) adult feral cats and return them to their home in the wild. In addition, approximately 33 stray kittens were rescued, tamed and adopted out as pets.

At that time and unfortunately even today hundreds of San Juan Capistrano residents believe that the City of San Juan Capistrano already contracts for humane animal services with San Clemente and Dana Point or Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel. It is when they try to take a lost, injured or stray animal to one of these humane shelters that they find out this is not the case. They are turned away because they live in San Juan Capistrano.  The truth is that San Juan Capistrano has contracted with the County of Orange for animal services since 1941.  Many residents believe that the outdated and overcrowded facility of the Orange County Animal Care Center located in the City of Orange does not serve the current needs of this community. CARE was founded on the believe that the time had now come to make the long overdue change in our City's future animal services plan.

If you agree and want to help improve the lives of the abandoned and homeless dogs and cats of San Juan Capistrano, review this web site to find many ways in which each of you can help today.