East Bay SPCA’s Hold for Home (H4H) program is for pet parents experiencing a short-term crisis creating a temporary inability to care for their pets. The goal of the program is to provide the pet owner time to focus on and work towards stabilizing the current crises and ultimately be reunited.
Our Humane Advocacy (HA) team will act as the pet’s case manager during the stay. We do require that the pet owner also has a case manager assisting them in stabilizing their situation. The pet owner's case manager must be comfortable communicating with HA weekly on the pet’s health/behavior during their stay as well as the owner’s path towards stabilization and reunion.
Program Eligibility
How to Apply
If You Expect to Be Hospitalized
If You Expect To Be Deployed
- Pet owners must be working with a Case Manager/Social Worker/Case Coordinator in some capacity related to their temporary crisis.
- Pets must be generally friendly – being shy is okay, but we cannot safely accept animals who are aggressive, have bitten before, or will not let us handle them.
- Pets must be generally healthy – we cannot accommodate any chronic medical issues requiring intensive monitoring or daily medications.
- The owner must be able to provide proof of ownership prior to intake – this could be microchip registration, adoption paperwork, veterinary records, rabies certificate, proof of licensure, screen shots of photos on phone with the date stamp showing. Any proof of ownership must be older than 30 days.
- If the pet is entering our program intact, we require them to be spayed/neutered – which we would do during their stay at no cost. This also applies to vaccines and microchipping.
- We are not a 24 hour facility and most H4H animals are housed in a kennel environment during their stay. Some H4H animals can be placed into a foster home during their stay.
- We can hold animals a maximum of 4 weeks – if the animal begins to experience any severe behavior or health decline at any point in the stay, we do require them to be picked up within 24 hours of our notification to the owner/case manager of this decline.
- If at any point the pet owner becomes unable to redeem the animal and requires the need to surrender the animal, this should be communicated with us as soon as possible to discuss potential alternate options or official surrender – in which East Bay SPCA would assess the pet for re-homing or humane euthanasia.
- We can only assist with pet owners residing within Alameda or Contra Costa Counties.
If you are not sure if you meet the above criteria or have questions about the program, please do not hesitate to contact us at 510-563-4627 or humaneadvocate@eastbayspca.org
July 2024: Our Hold for Home program is currently only accepting referrals directly from social service providers. If you are working with a client and have a referral, please email our team at ha@eastbayspca.org for more information.
If you find yourself needing medical care, you may be faced with the challenge of finding an option for your pet(s) while you are in the hospital or other treatment facility. Here are some tips for finding a temporary place for your pet:
- Ask friends, family, or neighbors for help.
- Find a reputable boarding facility near you for daily care of your pet.
- Utilize a pet-specific searchable database for options
- Consider Crowd Funding to raise funds for boarding
- Look into available grant opportunities
Look into Dogs on Deployment which offers free pet boarding and emergency financial assistance.
