Helping Paws Animal Shelter Woodstock, Illinois

Really clean facility with wonderful people to staff it. If you are looking for a new pet this is the place to go.

Very caring staff and extremely clean.

The staff was so supportive and understanding during the process. We were able to find our dog on the first visit and he came home shortly after. You can tell he was well taken care of!

Very caring people Everything was clean All the animals looked very healthy

I volunteer here and this is a very well run shelter! The staff is hard working and the animal areas are cleaned very frequently.

I have decided to volunteer at this shelter. It is one of the best I have ever seen. It is kept incredibly clean and smells good when you walk in. I haven't found that in other shelters. Even though there's a lot of work keeping the place clean, it's well worth it to get to be around all the darling animals!

Wonderful, caring, and dedicated staff. You can tell they all really care about the animals and they were very efficient and helpful through the adoption process.

Friendly people. Clean facility. Animals well cared for.

We adopted our new little family member earlier this month (we are totally in love), and everyone at Helping Paws was wonderful. They genuinely care about finding the right fit for the entire family, and want each animal to land in the place that is best for them. Safety measures are in place as well, with masking and distancing, setting up appointments to come in the see the animals; we appreciated that.

I drove to Woodstock to adopt a "puppy" $400.00 You could really see he was older then they stated I had him for a little over a month The dog knocked me off the porch putting me in the hospital for 2 days 12 stapled in my head a banged up knee I had to return him I could not control him! Their return policy is 30 days. They sure didn't care about me I didn't get a dime back They couldn't get me out of there faster. Telling me he was a puppy they could get more money for him

Fantastic staff. Adorable dogs and cats.

Our experience with Helping Paws was great! The process was relatively quick and easy and the staff was warm and welcoming. We were looking to adopt a bonded pair but none were available here so we decided on a 10 month old and 4 month old. The staff was able to give the 2 that we chose some "together" time to see if they got along prior to our adoption. That was on 9/7/2021 and we are very happy with our choices and the process. The storefront itself was clean and odor-free, as were the rest of the areas we were in. The final adoption process went seamless and we couldn't be happier! I do recommend Helping Paws if you are looking to adopt your next furry best friend.

One hour drive just to find out that the “appointment lady” was not available… The staff said they would contact me to make an appointment and never did. Somehow someone else magically successfully adopted. It’s a shame that “Helping Paws” drive us to shop instead of adopt.

Awesome people to work with!!! So thankful for their Vet Tech- she is amazing!

I adopted my puppy "POLO" from there in Dec of 2015. He is 6 yrs old now and has been my Service dog for the past 5 years. He goes everywhere with me and is ALWAYS by my side. I would be lost without him. I can't imagine not having him in my life. Thank you HELPING PAWS for giving me my BEST FRIEND, COMPANION, my SECURITY GUARD...MY RIGHT HAND MAN. I couldn't have asked for a better dog who is very loyal to me. THE BEST DOG EVER!!!! Keep up the GREAT WORK YOU DO.

Very pleased with this team. They were professional, friendly, and helpful. Concerned for and considerate of the animals they manager.

Caring people working to place pets without a home. We rescued our dog from Helping Paws and the entire experience went well.

Everyone at Helping Paws was very friendly and helpful, and the facility is clean. The adoption process does have a few steps, but this helps to ensure the animals are going to the right homes. We adopted Ezra a couple of months ago and have fallen in love. He’s an amazing boy and a great brother. I’m so grateful for rescues like Helping Paws that help these animals find their forever homes.

I have a schitzu named Marty who doesnt like strangers and is especially stressed with a visit to the vet. Because of this, It can be especially trying for both Marty and I, and I dread the visit. I found the doctor, especially, and his staff thougtful, kind and helpful with regard to Marty and his sensless paranoia, making this visit less traumatic and basically uneventful. Marty thanks you and I do too. Best vet I l've found. Thank you again. I highly recommend.

Excellent place in regards to being a center for providing care and service to dogs and cats. However, rather than displaying healthy skepticism in the adoption process they are picky to a fault. My family has owned 5+ cats and 4 dogs over the course of 20 years and rescued 5 in total. The 5 that we rescued we provided and covered the costs for care and ensured they went to good families. Despite all of this however, when Helping Paws checked our vet records it was deemed to be "not enough", which prevented us from adopting a kitten. Please donate to them, but don't try and adopt unless you are a godly pet owner as the process is muddled, arduous and unnecessarily difficult.

We adopted our sweet boy Hudson (Mickey) from Helping Paws and had such a great experience working with the team at Helping Paws. Everyone was friendly and helpful and responsive, we would highly recommend Helping Paws to anyone looking for a fur-ever friend!! ????????

I thought to whole point of an animal shelter was to find a good home for the animals, my boyfriend and I stumbled across such a friendly cat while we were in the area, and decided that we were very interested in taking her home. This shelter won’t let you adopt any animals from then unless you live within a 100 mile radius, which I find a bit problematic. When someone comes in and shows interest in giving an animal a good home, the distance of where that person lives shouldn’t matter. Definitely will not be back here.

We just adopted our sweet pup from Helping Paws, and I would recommend anyone and everyone to this shelter. The reviews that are complaining about the adoption process don't take into consideration that Donna and the rest of the staff genuinely care so much about placing their pets into the best home possible. The adoption process is the way that it is because there is no point in having an interview and doing veterinary/background checks if there is not a dog/cat you are interested in. We are so pleased with everyone and even made the drive out from Chicago to adopt from this shelter (1.5 drive)! I found this shelter while browsing on PetFinder and it turned out to be the best thing to happen to us. Welcome to your forever home Levi!

Everything started off pretty great. I would frantically search Petfinder and adoptapet websites as I was finally ready to adopt a new furry companion. There were two small dogs, one male and one female, that my mom and I were interested in meeting at this particular shelter. I emailed them and they did get back to me and were able to accommodate us for that Sunday. We're an hour away from this shelter just FYI. The facility is very nice, clean, and they seem very organized, hence the two stars I gave them. We met both dogs and loved them both but were leaning to the male since he seemed more friendly, playful. Both animals were about 1.5 years old, still needed to get fixed, and relatively new. We were then asked to fill out an application Heads up! This place basically does things backwards. You meet the animals first, get your hopes up, then you fill out the application, do the interview and they may either pick you or not. All other shelters have a more sensible and accurate process of only letting the family meet the pet once they have an APPROVED APPLICATION ON FILE and can take the pet home the same day usually. Nonetheless, Donna made it seem as if our preferred dog would in fact be allowed to be adopted by us as long as all my info checked out. She said they would call that Wednesday, so four days later. Wednesday came, no call. Of course I got anxious as I was very excited since I've never been rejected by any shelter (at this point, I had 5 approved applications at other rescues, etc) I called left a message, no call Thursday either. Finally, Friday she gives me a call and tells me that they are showing the dog to other families because they needed to learn more about him. Maybe he needed to go home with another pet, etc. Let me tell you this broke my heart. This particular pup was very friendly with my mom and I, seemed outgoing, no insecurity. The female dog I will admit would probably have benefited from another dog, or not. Point is, they never said our application was denied. The dog ended up going to a home with older couple, no other dogs. They suggested maybe I could look at another dog. I was so disappointed in their process but really wanted to rescue a dog, I decided to give them another chance. Emailed them in regards to another two small dogs that recently arrived...never heard from them. Be careful if you have kids because they could end up very sad. Also, I hate to think this but it may be this shelter is actually discriminated against my mom and I. As I said, there was nothing in our vet records, application, or interview that was an issue or rendered us disqualified. Simply decided not to let us adopt the dog. Found my new friend at ROVER RESCUE in Aurora! So much easier and smooth process.

Smooth process, start to finish!

Don't bother, we decided to adopt and made an appointment, so my entire family was required to attend, so we did. I filled all the paperwork that was given to me. We did see two dogs we were interested in. Just to be told that someone else was better suited for this. My kids where heartbroken, what is the purpose in going to these meet and greet if all it will do is upset the kids. We did fall in love with a puppy that we saw. It's an hour of my life I will never get back. They say adopt from a shelter. I dont think so. I do think that the shelter Weeds the adopting family by how they look, not on what they can provide for the pup. I decided to buy my dog from a pet store, instead of being left like I and my family isn't good enough.

My wife and I went to adopt a smaller dog. We got to see 2 puppies and 2 dogs that were 2 years old. Everything seemed to go great. Then we were told we needed to have an interview with Donna. The interview seemed to go well to. My wife posted on the application that she had 2 dogs within the last 10 years and when talking to Donna she explained that her 24 year old daughter had them in Florida and that she had not had them for 2 years. She said that was fine that she still needed to access the vet records for the dogs. So my wife called the vet in Florida and got permission for the one dog but they had no records on the other one because her daughter was considered the owner and they would not release her info. The next day Donna called and said she got the info for the one dog but not the other. My wife explained that her daughter had the other dog and the records are in her name. We had told her in the interview the day before that her daughter got that dog when she was nine years old so somehow Donna had got the information crossed and said on the phone the next day when we could not get her access to that dogs records that a child can’t own a dog. My wife then said you are misunderstanding all the info. Her daughter is now 24 not nine so she is not a child. She then said that she did get things mixed up and unless she can get the info on the one dog that she would add us to a black list for all the local shelters. Really? Wow, just Wow. We did get her access for the 12 years prior to the last 2 years that her daughter has had the dog but she didn’t care about the first 12 years. She then went on to say we were good people and she really wanted to get us a dog. It’s been a month now no calls or anything. All of the dogs we saw are with new families now except one of them. She also went on to say why didn’t we go to another shelter closer to where we live. We live in Belvidere and I am from Marengo. Both of my daughters were born in Woodstock and I worked for Dura-Bar. Is it that wrong to adopt a dog from the next county. It ended up being a total waste of time and after reading other people’s posts on here I thought I should share our experience with this place and this Donna Dunk. I would stay away from here, but if you do decide to go here I hope you have better luck then we did.

We lost our very loved Golden retriever last December after 11.7 years so heartbroken. I stumbled on the Helping Paws Website. I enjoyed pictures of the dogs to the point that I would look at them every morning with my coffee! Finally we pulled the trigger made an appointment to see Daytona. Knowing they don’t do same day adoptions took the pressure off. The place was very clean and felt like a higher class adoption agency. It didn’t smell like at the vet. We saw her and instantly we knew we were a good fit! We had an interview the same day. They are very careful who they adopt to. We waited two days to get the news we were selected! (From Rockford Illinois) Responsible pet owners check this place out! I highly recommend Helping Paws! Kudos to the person that takes the pictures of the dogs!

Excellent organization, superb facility! We are very pleased with our adopted puppy!

Great place and wonderful people!