Danbury Animal Welfare Society Review

A little chaotic at times but everyone here has the same core values of placing great dogs with awesome families. Would recommend.

The only reason this place is getting 5 stars is so people will see the comment.

This place is absolutely terrible. First off, they walk around eating food while there are dogs out with people attempting to talk with the employees. Half of the staff have no idea or control over the dogs. They allow dogs to jump all over people and act like it never happened, they don't say sorry or anything at all. They show dogs they claim to be training however they let a person in a outside fenced area with a dog trained to only be "dog friendly" and went after the person they let in. This place is not okay and I was severely unimpressed.

Wonderful place to find your best friend forever! Very friendly, caring and knowledgeable people who are there for the animals. There is a positive energy that you notice as soon as you walk in.
We just adopted second amazing doggy from there! Our experience was very enjoyable! I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a pet.

Spay and Nice people, Inexpensive spay and neutering, whats not to like.

I am a current employee at DAWS, I have loved my job since day one, I am so grateful to see the cats and dogs get adopted into homes with loving and caring families, I work in both the kennel and the cattery. I am blessed to work with wonderful co-workers! Thank you to everyone who supports DAWS <3

Low cost spay clinic for a cat 200$, are they kidding? I been an animal rescuer for over 20 years from my pocket and low cost clinic to spay/neuter wont go over 125$ vaccines, nail trim, revolution included lol....my private vet and many around also charge between 95-175$ per cat package. BS dont go there. MY RESPONSE TO THE NONSENSICAL ANSWER, TODAY I CALLED AND SHE CLEARLY SAID 200 WITH VACCINES BECAUSE THEY WILL CHARGE 25$ PER VACCINE EXTRA, MORE THAN A PRIVATE VET......AND I THINK SHE MIGHT DONT UNDERSTAND NEUTER A MALE USUALLY CHEAPER THAN SPAY A FEMALE ON A PRIVATE VET OTHER THAN THAT ALL ALL ALL LOW COST CLINICS IN CT PACKAGES ARE THE SAME PRICE FOR MALE OR FEMALE NOT OVER 125$ AND INCLUDE VACCINES REQUIRED BY LAW...A RABIES VACCINES DONT COST OVER 10-15 $ ON MY VET AND THIS PLACE WILL EXTRA CHARGE 25$ PER VACCINE NOT INCLUDED WITH SPAY/NEUTER THE CREATURE...AND AGAIN ALL THE OTHER LOW COST CLINICS WILL ALSO INCLUDE NAIL TRIM, REVOLUTION NOT ONLY THE VACCINES WITH THE 125$ PACKAGE

Great people and a large selection of well cared for adoptable pets, I plan on returning to adopt 2 cats!!

Great selection of cats needing homes. All are well taken care of with great veterinary care as well.

My wife started looking to adopt a dog . She looked online and found a dog she was interested in at Danbury Aninmal shelter . The family went to see Abby at there adoption event . We visited Abby 2 times and decided we wanted to adopt her . The volunteers and staff are great . They do not just give you a dog . They are looking for the pet to have a Forever home . It is process they want to make sure the pet is the right fit .
We adopted Abby on the third visit and she went home with us . Abby is a great addition to our family. It has been over a month and she is adapting pretty well to our family

Great Dogs, And Cats To Adopt. I Have Adopted 2 Dogs From DAWS, This Is Little Ziggy, Part Beagle Part Rat Terrier, Aka Jack Russell. DAWS is Always in Need Of Food(unopened) For Dogs And Cats. Blankets, Towels, Cash, Or Volunteers.

Best place to adopt a dog. Fair price. Volunteers treat all dogs like their own

I tried volunteering there before and the place is very unorganized. I don t have a good feeling a out this place. I won t go back.

Good service. Trained staff who give these animals lots of love , attention and devotion. They give their spare time and dedicate themselves to these animals daily with out a second thought ! Great job Danbury !

They can't be all too concerned with the animals. They have one dog that barks almost the entire length of the day. Just barks, barks, and barks.., and barks and barks. Please someone adopt that dog. Clearly they don't care one bit.

I have to say first that I adopted a happy and healthy kitten at DAWS who I love so I don t regret coming to this shelter.
However, the adoption process was a hassle and there was consistently very poor communication from the workers. I applied to adopt my kitten, was approved, and for almost 2 weeks was going back and forth waiting for a response as to when I could bring him home. The hours they are open are very unusual and they do not answer the phone number listed on their website.
After a week of hearing nothing from DAWS we thought the adoption just wasn t meant to be and we gave up trying to reach out. Luckily they did contact us eventually, but if you live in the area I would recommend the New Milford animal welfare because I have adopted from them as well and had a more positive experience.

Got my awesome puppy doggy King..friendly heplfull staff doin work that makes a difference

I needed to spay my dog Leah , so after a long research I choose DAWS . I highly recommend them. The staff is very caring and professional. Today is the 6th day since and Leah is doing great. Thank you , I appreciate everyone's hard work !!!

I love it because the staf always take good care of the animals we love .

We just had to say good buy to our dog last week and I wanted to go to a local shelter and offer to volunteer and look at their dogs for adoption. We called on Sunday and asked for hours and were told to come next day 6pm-8pm. And I m writing this review after we just left the shelter with a feeling I we were discriminated. We arrived at 7pm on Monday, the website and the hours on the welcome sign says Monday to Friday 6pm-8pm. As we walked in ( there were about 5 people including adopters insinde )we were told that they are actually closed. We smiled and said oh ok, we didn t know because the hours said they are open and we called yesterday . The women volunteer was kind and offered us to look at the book with dogs. But the other women who was working with the adopters said that they are closed on Monday and Tuesday and we shouldn t be there and there is not way it says that it s open ( it s days and hours listed in the welcome sign by the road, we doubled checked as we left). When we looked at the book a volunteer offered us to look at cats and puppies before we go but a second woman screamed at us that in order to look at them in person you must have an appointment ... and right after that she said that all the animals are adopted anyway and we should leave. We were very confused and left. There was no argument , we just were kicked out before we even introduced outselves or said anything. As we got into the car we felt like it was a discrimination for unknown reason. We will never come back.

Great people doing wonderful work. Keep up the good job of finding forever homes for animals with no other hope

Clean Facility, Wonderful & Compassionate Staff, Friendly Dog's & Cat's ... In Need of LOVEING Homes..!!

I kind of agree to one of the comments bellow about the discrimination against the disabled. I volunteered there for 5 years. Till summer of 2015 the new head director who didn't even know me said that I was touching the sick cats and that the cats made a noise whiled I hold them and kicked me out saying no one was equipped to watch me. For one thing I never did that and how would she know what I was doing if she wasn't even there. The word equipped sounded fishy to me. Like that was her way of saying I don't want anyone with a disability to volunteer here. So if you happen to have a disability I wouldn't suggest this place to volunteer.

It is a great place to go. I highly reccomend a cat.

We got our sweet dog at DAWS we are very happy with him. I will say they do a great job at marketing, but it seems like overkill at times. Would be nice if they supported more local dog walkers/sitters and businesses on their social media pages, and followed up with DAWS alum more.

The ABSOLUTE LOVE OF OUR LIFE'S WE'RE ADOPTED FROM HERE!!! XXOO

My daughter adopted a black cat there about 3 yrs ago and now my other daughter will be getting a dog. This is the best place to do so. The staff is great and volunteers are great too.

DAWS is great! Karen was super helpful and communicated with me through the entire process. She listened to what sized pup we were looking for and reached out as soon as she had a match for us. We adopted my 2 childhood dogs through them, and now finally my own. Sadie (or as she was known at DAWS- Boots) has settled in nicely and we love her so very much! Big thank you to everyone at DAWS for what you do

I will never work with these people again. My family and I have donated to the society as well as the walk for animals every year. I loved what DAWS did for the community, but when it came to the low cost spay and neuter clinic, it seemed like they didn t care much. At the shelter when we went to retrieve the animals after surgery, we were greeted by a vet tech, who had NOT completed our animals surgery, and she was extremely rude. When I got my cat home, she seemed to have some respiratory issues. I figured it was due to the surgery she had and let a day pass before I called DAWS, of course with no answer, so I left a message on the voicemail. I left my name and my number and explained that my cat did NOT sound like this when I dropped her off. There was nothing about the surgery times on the paperwork we received which is also troublesome. It has now been a week, and I have not heard anything back from the shelter. I m completely disgusted with DAWS.
EDIT: Just found out the cattery is closed down due to Upper Respiratory issues!!! I wonder if DAWS will reach out to me now.

We adopted our family cat from Daws a few years ago (her name at the time was Temptress although we did rename her since) and it s one of the best decisions we ve ever made. When my wife and I (and small baby) came in to see the cats, one of the volunteers greeted us and asked us what we were looking for in our future cat. This wonderful volunteer then picked out the perfect cat for us and we are so grateful. Upon visiting the shelter you can really see that the volunteers genuinely care about not only the animals that they take care of, but also the families that come in to adopt. Our cat is the perfect match for us, and it s all because the volunteer that day took her time to understand our needs as a family and truly knew the individual personalities of the animals she so lovingly cared for. If I could give more than 5 stars I would! When it comes time to give our cat a furry little sibling we ll definitely be returning to adopt from daws again! :)

I volunteer here with the cat room. They are very thorough with their applications for adoption. Great place to adopt a cat or dog.

Fantastic place to adopt your furever pet! Everyone here was great and they genuinely care about the animals in their care. Thank you for all that you do and for our precious boy rhat qe just adopted.

Very disappointing experience with Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS). If you are using Petfinder to search for your next dog / furry family member, you should avoid this organization. After confirmation from Petfinder that our specific interest in a particular dog had been communicated to DAWS....it was advised that we check directly with the facility. Numerous phone calls over two weeks and confirmations led to a scheduled roadtrip... and a very excited family...only to be matched by a huge disappointment last minute that the specific dog was no longer available. These things happen but DAWS was particularly questionable in terms of how they go about dealing with and communicating with adopting families. If you are set on a particular breed and type of dog that you have found on their website, assume that it is a potential lure to get you to come in. They will make no attempt to let you know that your first choice is already gone. Adopting a new dog is a lifetime commitment and places like this make it an emotionally negative experience.

Jan, 2021 - Update to my prior post: After being told by DAWS last minute that a dog I applied for (Baxter) had been adopted.... he suddenly re-appeared again under Petfinder. I checked the DAWS website directly and yes, Baxter, has again been listed as available for adoption but more interestingly there is a solicitation for sponsorship. I have screen copied the DAWS solicitation for sponsorship. I have not received further communication from DAWS to explain whether he was returned and newly available for adoption. If this is a solicitation for a dog that is no longer in their care, I would guess this verges on fraudulent activity. If anyone has information on this dogs existence, please feel free to comment. I welcome comments and look forward to hearing from DAWS directly to explain the situation with Baxter. As Bill Jasper sits on the Board of Directors, I am happy to communicate directly the perceived practices of your organization.

I ve never been there but I ve heard good stuff about there so I m rating it a 4 and how hard is it to adopt a dog

Thank you for Oliver . He is the sweetest dog ever. We are in love

I had a terrible experience with this shelter! Last week our neighbors house caught on fire. The firefighters my husband was one of the firefighters got both of the cats out of the house but they ended up running away after they escaped the house. My husband and I found one of their cats under our front porch. Unfortunately we haven t found the other cat yet. The owners of the house got in contact with this shelter and asked them to help find their cat. This shelter set traps all over the property trying to find this poor cat. But instead of trying to help the cats, they were trapping other people s cats and taking them straight to the shelter knowing that they are taking someone s cats. They trapped in total 4 cats. My cat is an indoor/outdoor cat and she has been missing for a couple days. I came in contact with a woman named Leslie from Daws. I sent her a picture of my cat and she said she had it. She then said to me I know it is a strong belief that cats are happier outside but it's equivalent to letting your toddler outside, their brain is the size of a walnut . This is the exact text message that was sent to me! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? My husband went and got our cat this morning. The woman at the shelter told him that we had to fill out a adoption application!!!! When you stole our cat!?!!?!?! These people take others peoples cats and try to make money off them! WHAT KIND OF BUSNIESS ARE THESE PEOPLE RUNNING!!!!!

The volunteer we were with was very caring and knowledgeable

They work very hard to give both pets and companions a good life.

Awesome Experience!!! My wife and I were looking for a cat and found the sweetest kitty at DAWGS. The staff was amazing, super friendly and great to work with. The facility is just fantastic. Each cat has a very roomy area to be in, not like what you might see elsewhere. All of the cats seemed very happy and were very well cared for. It's very easy to see how much the folks here love the animals, and it was a wonderful experience getting our Izzy.

Beware of this company, they discriminate against the disable. They tell me because our cat shots were late I was unfit to adopt another cat. Yet a crazy lady with all her arms scratch and bleeding is one to say, if I am fit or not? Seem unfair And bias.

My experience adopting my cat from the Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS) couldn't have been better. Their website is easy to navigate, and has lots of pictures and info on each animal. I called and left a voicemail question on the weekend and I got a call back that evening. The volunteer staff was welcoming, supportive, and very helpfull. They take the process of matching pets and people very seriously. I had to fill out a multi-page application, and include references. They called both my references and spent a good deal of time on the phone with them, then called me for a follow up interview.

Once we got the go ahead to adopt, they had the vet who visits the society a few times a week, double check our cat. The vet found something that worried them a little, and had tests run to make sure our cat was in good health.

All of this held up the process of us getting our cat, but it was all done in the name of making sure the animal in their charge was in good condition, and would be put in good hands. Hard to find fault with that. A few days after the adoption, our pet counselor even got back in touch by email, just to see how things were going with our new cat.

I found the staff, friendly, informative and committed. I can't recommend DAWS highly enough.

I didn't visit the animal shelter. I was doing gardening at the bethel place across the street

We brought a feral cat in to be spayed and they were able to tame it and put it up for adoption. A miracle!

As a past dog rescue fosterer I find it very irresponsible of the daws volunteers to draw a one sided over opinionated conclusion about a possible adoptor. I also must say that the approach taken on the phone when called to discuss the situation was met with rude and disrespectful aggression by volunteers of the staff. I find it very disheartening that these individuals would only accept 1 side of a story to make they're conclusion instead of hearing the entire story. Therefore I must also say that it is not in the best interest of forever home givers to utilize this organization.

Shame on you DAWS to sell our stolen family cat Warren. My son and daughter crying for him. You lied to us. You said that is not our cat even if we showed pictures of him.
You lied mandatory:shots, neutred, microchip, collar etc.We want you fired from this position because you are the enemy of the animals you just want to make money.
End you people who are looking for pets you should stay awey from this place I mean you can read other people overwiu how many owner's cat they trapped.
You can never know who's cat are you buying. Like us four example the whole family is heartbroken because of this .
DAWS is the last place what I would recommend to go ....there is plenty of cat's outh there find one who it isn't anyone loved missed pet.

Please donate or adopt at DAWS. Or you can just go to visit and say hello to everyone. Knowledgeable and friendly staff will be pleased you stopped by, so will the cats and dogs!

Wow... I call twice and someone picks up the phone and hangs up. This was happened twice just now! Don t wana answer the phones ? Then get a different freakin job !!! There are plenty of other people who will care to take the positions of those who don t want to communicate with others when it s important matters. Absolutely disgusting and disrespectful!!! Absolute trashy and Unclassy

Great Organization, Just adopted the newest member of the Family. Meet Cosmo

Yes people, if your cat is found outside, it's up for the taking. Could be a hawk or coyote getting it, for God's sake. The W is for welfare and they really care and know each cat's personality and needs. I recommend this society.

The nicest people by far!!! We adopted our little boy today and we couldn't be happier!!! Thank you Karen and staff for our new baby!!! We love him so much!

Very helpful and caring. Found two wonderful cats. Wonderful people.

Such caring wonderful workers there!! They care about their animals that need homes, and do their best to match you with the right one.

Lots of animals to choose from and they are very thorough. And make sure that not only are you good for the animals the animals will also be compatible any animal she may have in the house.

I called them to make an appointment for spaying, rabies and distemperment- which we did make. They charged me $25 to make it. On the phone they ask me how old my kitten was and I told them. (10 weeks) when I dropped my kitten off I also filled out paperwork with her age. They took her in at 8:30 in the morning. Around 2pm while I was at work I got a call saying they didn t give her rabies or spay her because of her AGE. Which I told them TWICE. They only gave her distemperment and an exam they decided to do without asking, charged me $30 for that and didn t even refund me the $25 dollars to make the appointment when the whole point was the get her spayed. Lack of communication and waste of my time. What was she doing there all day? Sitting in a room alone?

Can t speak for the facility itself but had a very poor customer service experience with an employee called Karen recently. Completed an application and received a few pictures of pups that they may or may not be receiving for adoption. About 2 weeks later received a very unpleasant message telling us they will be cancelling our application as they had not heard back from us. I replied saying that I was sorry we had not given clear feedback as it was not clear to me from her email that this was what was being requested. I told her to go ahead and cancel my application as she had threatened and that we would find a pup somewhere else. That should have been the end of it but then I receive another even more offensive email from her telling me that we should stay away from adopting a pet because we re clearly not fit to adopt. OMG....who is this woman!! I just break off contact at that point and a little later receive another email half apologizing for the behavior but still blaming me for the miscommunication. We ve since found a pup who is now in a stable loving home. Thanks to Karen s unacceptable behavior it sadly was not one of the little guys at DAWS. Regardless of your organization purpose, if it has contact with the public, customer service is paramount. This employee sadly made what should have been a very happy and positive experience a personal and quite abusive attack on the character of a prospective customer and their fitness....having never even met us...to own a pet. Very disappointed.

Very nice place saw two cute small dogs who really love having attention by jumping up and licking me and I would pet them too. I just love animals especially dogs are my favorite ones.

My family and I had an amazing experience here. They have a variety of cats to chose from, and they all were very sweet! The staff is very friendly as well.

I was informed that This place had a dog named Ellie that they are hiding from the owner. The owner was homeless but can now care for their dog and has a home. DAW If you have Ellie why are you not giving her back to her family? I was also informed that one of your employees took Ellie home and had to bring her back because that Employees children frightened the pup. Do the right thing DAW.

Great place..
They have lots of dogs and cats who need loving homes. Good staff..I love any business that treats animals well...

Very nice organized shelter with covid-19 practicing. Staff were kind and caring. Will keep checking their site to find my furrever friend.

A bit disorganized but they seem to actually care which makes up for it.

We rescued a puppy! They were wonderful people! Even met the foster parents

Clean facilities from what we could see. They don't let you into the kennel areas unfortunately. But the animals seem happy and well cared for. The volunteers are super nice and helpful.