PawSafe Animal Rescue Ellington, Connecticut

This is such a great rescue! I highly recommend! I just got my second dog from them and she is such a love. I went to the vet and she was very impressed with her health record and vaccinations. She said it isn't always like that with some rescues. I also love the way they operate, since I think it saves more dogs. They transport up a many dogs from a partner rescue in the South each month or so. After vet visits etc, they have an event to adopt them all out. Adopters are pre-approved and it is a fast process (unlike other places who want to contact everyone you know). You then go for the event and it is first come first serve. The won't hold a dog when you apply but I like this because this also helps get more dogs rescued. You can spend as much time as you need getting to know all the dogs and then your dog in the moment. The volunteers are also very committed and helpful. I like that you don't have to go to a foster home and feel a lot of pressure. You can meet a bunch of dogs and then fall in love and take one home if you want. They are well cared for and they are doing great work getting so many dogs rescued.

my family adopted my dog from here on august 18, 2018 in brewster, ny. she now lives with us in yonkers(also in ny)! sandy(formerly yoko) is the best dog someone could ask for and i can’t imagine life without her. she is very tolerant and sweet, although she can be demanding at times! some people claim to have received puppies with problems, but we have had no issues with her! we adopted her at 6 months and she’ll be 4 on february 2! fun fact: when we got her she was listed as a lab mix, but we recently did a dna test and found out that she has no lab in her at all! her breed mix according to wisdom panel is included in the pics! we are surprised she doesn’t have greyhound in her! hoping to reunite with sandy’s sisters(i remember one was named cupcake)! thank you for giving us a great dog!

PawSafe in Ellington CT is fabulous! It is run by a very caring group of people who really are invested in the welfare and care of the dogs. The kennels are so clean, and you cannot find a better place. We adopted Lucy who we now call Ellie- 3 month old lab, collie whatever mix and she is wonderful, sweet, and literally so smart and already housebroken! I highly recommend!

Great experience adopting a new puppy! Easy application process, respond quickly to questions and working with Samantha was pleasant with her easy going manner.

Great shelter. We just adopted our second rescue from them.

Such an amazing rescue, well organized, clean, you can tell the people really care about what they are doing.

I absolutely love PawSafe. We got our pup back in September and the adoption process was so smooth. Staff was very helpful and I love the Facebook alumni group. We are so happy to have adopted Tucker from them.

Had a really great experience getting our new family dog from PawSafe animal rescue. All animals seen were really well cared for and the staff is super friendly. Also want to note that response times with communications has been fantastic!

We adopted Doctor Strange from them. He is an excellent puppy. Like all puppies requires training and time. Came to us knowing the sit command. Their fosters are awesome.

I had a wonderful experience with PawSafe. We brought home our puppy about 1 week after making contact with them. The process was fast and efficient. I would recommend anyone who is looking to get a new furry friend look into them.

Great place! please know that this is a first come first serve with the dogs. the earlier you go, you can pre-adopt the dog. the dogs come and go very fast, so please have a good timing when your going to adopt, the staff are very friendly although i had a lot of questions and asked daily about their rescue (sorry Diane) anyways, please consider adopting to this place!

I had an appointment to see a specific pup from 10-10:20 and when i arrived at 10:10 they gave my pup away ... I traveled very far and left my home early cannot control traffic ANYWAY the lady felt as though the new owner was a perfect match .. I felt as though her comment was VERY biased... how does she know in 10 mins and the pup was returned from another awesome family ... umh sounds like she needs to re-evaluate her views ... NEVERTHELESS she did not honor MY TIME and of course a quick pawn to get out of something when you know you are WRONG is “I’m’ sorry” .... if she was soooo sorry she would had done the right thing and gave me my time with my PUP ! The website time was 10-10:20am .... she ignored my time slot! FOR THAT she gets a -1

Wonderful experience with the staff.

We adopted an adult momma dog from pawsafe in 2017, and we love her so much. I have other family members and friends who have since adopted puppies from them too. They are very professional, and clearly care about the animals.

Our new addition cosmo is doing amazing

We adopted a perfect little girl and had no problems very happy with Pawsafe

Horrible, they have to run there place better, looked at puppy online and they have you put in application to tell you all slots are booked, waste of your time

My family adopted a beautiful little pup from Pawsafe, she's gentle, playful and very social. I read the reviews here before going to the shelter and I did not experience any of the negatives. The volunteers genuinely seem to care about the dogs, they were very easy to work with. Getting an appointment is difficult, there's no denying that, but compared to other shelters at least there is a straightforward system. During our search I filled out about two dozen applications and most shelters just ignored my application and didn't respond. My advice to getting an appointment is to check often and get on a waitlist. The hardest part of the process is getting an appointment, the actual adoption is easy and enjoyable.

I is an incredible rescue with kind hearted volunteers..you can tell they spend time with there animals and care about finding forever homes for there..very happy..

Very friendly staff and puppies were adorable and healthy.

This place is the best and the staff really care. Don't be fooled by these negative reviews these other people just want to be the only people to pick out there perfect cute puppy And don't want to put in any work to care for them or train them. Do you have to wait in a long line for it to be your turn? yes sometimes serious life commitments take some sacrifice on your part.

I'll sum it up before telling you my experience... All in all - lesson here is know the signs... -Uneducated volunteers -No opportunity to actually get to know the dog you are considering - Lack of concern for overall well-being of animals (allowing aggressive dogs to continue to exhibit aggressive behavior, not knowing what aggressive behavior is, and bringing a newly spayed dog to an adoption event less than 24 hours later.) - Seemingly pull them in pump them out as fast as possible. Almost as bad as a puppy mill in my eyes. -I didn't even get to ask if there was a health guarantee If it was possible to rate without any stars, I would. Try Yappy Tails out of Enfield. They are very nice and will not allow you to take a dog home the same day unless you've already been vetted or met the dog previously. Yes I'm disappointed but this is not because upset about not getting the dog I wanted. As someone who knows a little about dogs, I do not recommend working with them. I filled out an application and contacted them regarding a dog that we were interested in. We were told the dog was not on site and in foster care until her spay and was not available for viewing. Them bringing a newly spayed dog to an adoption event next day didn't really sit well with me but I don't do rescue, this may be a common practice. Then we went to an adoption event they held at their facility to look at other available dogs. The room was filled with about 10-12 puppies in XPens and about 17 volunteers, about 2 per pen. We were not allowed to be in the pens alone with the animals and when we asked if we could, they stepped out so we could enter then stepped back inside. The puppies were more interested in the volunteers holding them and most would not put dogs down for viewing. I asked one of the volunteers if the dogs had all been heartworm tested and her response was that all the dogs had to be wormed because they were together. Thinking she misunderstood, I asked a different way and she said, yes. ALL the puppies need to be dewormed because they are together, like I said. If you are not aware, heartworm is not an intestinal issue that can be removed with deworming. It is an invasive parasite that infects the heart and bloodstream typically communicated through mosquito bites. You can only detect it with a blood test. Licensed transport rescues MUST heartworm test all dogs prior to transportation. After trying to play with a dog that was in a volunteer's lap, another dog came over and bit it in the face and twisted. When the other dog yelped, the biting dog twisted harder. When I playfully said to the biting dog, don't be mean. A volunteer sternly said to me, he's not mean that's how he plays. We started talking to one volunteer about the original dog that interested us and they said she was on site but not available to view. So we asked the head person and she said we still could not view the dog until after she was spayed and then she would be brought to an adoption event the following day and it was first come first serve. The people who adopted the dog had been camped out for 2 hours prior to arrival. They had a whole new batch of young puppies from when we viewed 3 days before and were adopting on site. I'm not sure why I had to fill out an adoption application if they were just going to adopt on site. I understand that if they had allowed people to view this dog prior to spay, I may very well have missed out on the opportunity either way and it's fair that the people who did adopt her waited for 2 hours to get her. That being said, I would not have taken off work to even try if I had met the dog initially and decided she was not right for me. I felt very much like even trying to adopt a dog from these people was off putting to them. Also, I was never contacted about an approval on my application or whether they may have had something else I was looking for. I've worked with rescues for years but have never had to actually adopt. This was the worst experience ever.

Don't let the bad reviews fool you. Paw Safe in Ellington, CT is a great shelter with so many nice and helpful workers, that are great to help you find the perfect dog for you. We adopted our absolute dream dog, and couldn't be happier!

Adopted a ten month old dog, and after bringing him to my vet it was determined that he had heart worm. In case you don’t know, the treatment for heart worm takes about 6 months and costs about 15 to 1600 for shots, meds and overnight stays for observation. Most dogs at any rescue are from the south have heart worm. At no point in his record was he tested, because if he tested positive they’d have to treat it. It has an incubation period from exposure to having them and they can’t test them until they are three to four months of age. My rescue was 10 months old and had been fostered as well. Do your research, ask about heart worm, and lucky for us he’ll be okay.

So this new process for adoption is totally frustrating...but WELL WORTH IT! If you are truly ready to adopt, get ready to refresh PawSafe's webpage many times a day (I probably did that 100x for like two week's straight) to be able to try for an appointment. Another bit of advice...be fast! After receiving your email with the link for appointments, ALWAYS have that open so you can switch over to it as soon as they post pups with available pick up dates. Even when I did this I was only able to get an appointment at the 11:20 time slot. More advice, have the mindset that everything happens for a reason and if you don't get an appointment it's because the perfect dog for you hasn't arrived yet :-). Really, it's easy to get super disappointed, but the staff there truly are doing there best. Regarding pickup...they were wonderful and welcoming. When arriving, there is a sign but I was thrown off a bit because the rescue is actually a house in a residential neighborhood. The driveway is very small, so I would advise to really stick to your arrival time being just prior to your appointment because of the lack of space. We were able to get our first choice pup, but there were 7 of the breed we wanted (an coming all the way from Maine) we were willing to take any of german shephards...afterall, there really is NO bad pup! From the time we started looking until we got our pup, I'd say it took roughly about a month because of the appointment process. That's something you can't change though, and you have to be patient. I HIGHLY recommend PawSafe! They are clean and the pups were outside together and playing happily when we arrived. I've already been in touch with our pup's foster mom to keep her updated. Best of luck with your pup search...hope my review helps you!

Amazing place!!! Clean, well organized, great people!!! Would absolutely recommend!!!

First, let me begin by saying the puppy we adopted from Pawsafe did not work out because in less than a week of having her, she became aggressive and even bit a family member. We are so sad to have to give her up but feel it is best. Our feelings about the situation have nothing to do with the review however. Pawsafe Rescue (if you can even call it a rescue) is nothing more than a puppy mill. Diane only cares about the money. When we went to an adoption event, we were asked ZERO questions, NOT ASKED to give ANY references at all. It was like these volunteers led by Diane only cared about getting their money and sending dogs home so that they could get more and repeat the cycle. She clearly does not care where the animals are going. Once we got our puppy home, we took her to our home vet. We soon found out she had a medical problem that should NOT have happened if she had been vaccinated and checked out by their vet. Nonetheless, we paid for the necessary medications to get our puppy well. Clearly whatever “vet” they are using does not properly check their animals and our poor girl was sick though she was “vaccinated.” After our puppy who was only 8 weeks old (really a puppy who is 8 weeks old should still be with their mother and litter mates) was aggressive towards family members, we contacted Diane. She told us to return the dog. Upon bringing the dog back only a week later, Diane asked ZERO questions about the dogs aggression, ZERO questions about the dogs current medical problem (which she was still taking medication for at the time of return). This already horrible moment was made worse by the cold and careless nature of Diane. If you research this “rescue” you will find HORRIFIC reviews of the same account. Our situation is NOT unique. They give dogs that are sick and aggressive. Even news stories that go back to 2017! DO YOUR RESEARCH! And please, stay far far FAR away from this horrific “rescue.” They do not care about animals, they only care about the money.

Completely unorganized changing policy’s when they want. Volunteers are very negative and almost depressing to talk to. They take puppy’s in and send them out as fast as possible with sickness and no medical guarantee if they really cared about the puppy’s them self’s then they would make sure they are healthy before letting a family take them in. It seems like all they care about is the money you spend on the “adoption fee” and how fast they can send the dogs away. And you the adopter of the puppy they don’t care about you at all negative attitudes is all I received most non profit adoption places care more about the puppy finding a good happy home where he can live his or her life out but at pawsafe Ellington they want you to adopt a dog within 5 minutes of you meeting it pushing you along like their time is the most important thing in the world those puppy’s need some actual volunteers that want to be there and that care for them. I highly doubt that they really care where these dogs go. And I know for a fact they do not care about your time at all. Very unprofessional “non-profit” organization very unhappy with my experience no one knew what the policy’s were almost like they were made up as they go.

Professional yet friendly people, all very passionate about rescuing dogs. If you find yourself covered in poop every day for little to no pay, I think you really care about the animals. :)

Well I went here recently at an event, and was overall immaculately disappointed. The staff was very unprofessional, rude, and rushing. As well as treated the job which is caring “volunteer” work horrible. Almost as if they were being forced. I urge any and all dog seekers to stay away. Me along with my companions were shocked to see just how “caring” this non profit organization is. Overall there is way better! I would never attend purchase or support pawsafe in any way. If there was a way to report the way these people who work treat people I most certainly would. Just because they are doing a “good” thing does not mean you can not follow protocols and important steps which the leaders seemed to skip and forget. Glad we decided not to from here the dogs are rumored to come out mean, sick, and improperly kept. Any dog shelter doing a good thing should have a East 5 star review sit and ask yourself why would it be under a 3.9 even. A shameful organization.