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San Luis Valley Animal Welfare Society (Costilla County)


Visit San Luis Valley Animal Welfare Society (Costilla County) >> http://www.slvaws.org   (report broken link)
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Visit San Luis Valley Animal Welfare Society (Costilla County) >> http://www.slvaws.org
(report broken link)
Adoptable Pets in Colorado
   No Kill Verified
Submitted and reviewed by the community. Periodic check-ins to ensure the status is accurate.
last checked 07/30/25
Shelter/Sanctuary Director: Aileen Peek
76 El Rio Drive
Alamosa, CO 81101
[email protected]
719-588-5560

The San Luis Valley Animal Welfare Society is a nonprofit (501c3) with a mission to improve the well being of animals (primarily dogs & cats) in the San Luis Valley (SLV).

The SLV is the largest alpine valley in the world (larger than the size of Massachusetts). Our location is at 9,000 feet altitude in the poorest county in Colorado, Costilla County. We have active spay/neuter programs. We have rescued and found loving homes for over 11,000 homeless, often suffering dogs and cats in the past 25 years. 15 dog parks and runs keep our dogs busy during the day, weather permitting. Dogs are kept in kennels only at night. We have contracts with Costilla County and LaJara to take in stray dogs.

We are a no-kill shelter/sanctuary and the largest animal welfare facility in the SLV.

Do you need to find a loving home for your pet?

No-kill shelters do wonderful work, but as a result, are often inundated with pet surrenders. In the unfortunate scenario that you have to find a new home for your pet, please read through the rehoming solution and articles on this page before contacting the shelter.

Review Summary*

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Feral Cat TNR Program
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High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter
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Rescue Groups
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Foster Care
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Comprehensive Adoption Programs
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Pet Retention
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Medical and Behavior Programs
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Public Relations/Community Involvement
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Volunteers
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Proactive Redemptions
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A Compassionate Director
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1. Feral Cat TNR Program

Many communities are embracing Trap, Neuter, Release programs (TNR) to improve animal welfare, reduce death rates, and meet obligations to public welfare.


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2. High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter

Low cost, high volume spay/neuter will quickly lead to fewer animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives.


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3. Rescue Groups

An adoption or transfer to a rescue group frees up scarce cage and kennel space, reduces expenses for feeding, cleaning, killing, and improves a community's rate of lifesaving. In an environment of millions of dogs and cats killed in shelters annually, rare is the circumstance in which a rescue group should be denied an animal.


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4. Foster Care

Volunteer foster care is crucial to No Kill. Without it, saving lives is compromised. It is a low cost, and often no cost, way of increasing a shelter's capacity, improving public relations, increasing a shelter's public image, rehabilitating sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals, and saving lives.


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5. Comprehensive Adoption Programs

Adoptions are vital to an agency's lifesaving mission. The quantity and quality of shelter adoptions is in shelter management's hands, making lifesaving a direct function of shelter policies and practice. In fact, studies show people get their animals from shelters only 20% of the time. If shelters better promoted their animals and had adoption programs responsive to the needs of the community, including public access hours for working people, offsite adoptions, adoption incentives, and effective marketing, they could increase the number of homes available and replace killing with adoptions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, shelters can adopt their way out of killing.


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6. Pet Retention

While some of the reasons animals are surrendered to shelters are unavoidable, others can be prevented-but only if shelters are willing to work with people to help them solve their problems. Saving animals requires communities to develop innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together. And the more a community sees its shelters as a place to turn for advice and assistance, the easier this job will be.


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7. Medical and Behavior Programs

In order to meet its commitment to a lifesaving guarantee for all savable animals, shelters need to keep animals happy and healthy and keep animals moving through the system. To do this, shelters must put in place comprehensive vaccination, handling, cleaning, socialization, and care policies before animals get sick and rehabilitative efforts for those who come in sick, injured, unweaned, or traumatized.


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8. Public Relations/Community Involvement

Increasing adoptions, maximizing donations, recruiting volunteers and partnering with community agencies comes down to one thing: increasing the shelter's exposure. And that means consistent marketing and public relations. Public relations and marketing are the foundation of all a shelter's activities and their success. To do all these things well, the shelter must be in the public eye.


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9. Volunteers

Volunteers are a dedicated "army of compassion" and the backbone of a successful No Kill effort. There is never enough staff, never enough dollars to hire more staff, and always more needs than paid human resources. That is where volunteers come in and make the difference between success and failure and, for the animals, life and death.


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10. Proactive Redemptions

One of the most overlooked areas for reducing killing in animal control shelters are lost animal reclaims. Sadly, besides having pet owners fill out a lost pet report, very little effort is made in this area of shelter operations. This is unfortunate because doing so-primarily shifting from passive to a more proactive approach-has proven to have a significant impact on lifesaving and allow shelters to return a large percentage of lost animals to their families.


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11. A Compassionate Director

The final element of the No Kill equation is the most important of all, without which all other elements are thwarted-a hard working, compassionate animal control or shelter director not content to regurgitate tired cliches or hide behind the myth of "too many animals, not enough homes." Unfortunately, this one is also oftentimes the hardest one to demand and find.


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IMPORTANT: This form is only for public comments about the shelter. To contact San Luis Valley Animal Welfare Society (Costilla County), please go directly to their website (link on previous page), this form will not send your comment to them.


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Many thanks for the tremendous work you do for animals. Today I was at the Pet smart in Colorado springs and you had brought a few of your dogs there. I became smitten with a pit bull named Spice. What a beautifuland loving girl. We have 2rescue vats and have just moved here from Maryland. When its time we will certainly my give you a call or come visit. I hope someone reads this post and goes to your shelter to adopt. Thank you again for the unending compassion and work you do for those who can't speak for themselves.
posted by ChristineVercellino, on 2015-04-25 20:42:13
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