Adoption FAQs

Contact the Animal Adoption Center to adopt a friend.  Call ahead to see what animals we may have.
Once you found a pet you are interested in, there is an application process. Complete the application and leave a $20 application fee and contact the shelter the following business day. Once the application is approved, it may take about a week before the pet can go home. We send all of our cats and dogs to the vet to get checked out before they leave the shelter. The adoption fee for cats is $80 and for dogs is $100. With the application fee that makes cats $100 total to adopt and dogs $120 total to adopt. That includes the spay/neuter, rabies vaccine, and canine/feline distemper vaccine.  Dogs are tested for heartworm, lyme, and erilchlia.

We post our available pets on Petfinder.com

Dogs are $120 to adopt and cats are $100

No, you can live anywhere. You can live out of state and adopt from us if you’d like. Just keep in mind the pets don’t leave the same day. There is a 24-hour application period and if the animal needs to be spayed or neutered, they will need that done before they can leave the shelter.

We take in stray animals found in the City of Manassas. We do encourage you to try to find the owners first. Try to walk the dog or other type of pet around the neighborhood, check social media, take it to be scanned for a microchip and contact the shelters to see if the owners have already placed a lost report. We do not take in stray cats. There are no leash laws for cats so they are allowed to roam free. If you do find a stray cat. You can take it to be scanned for a microchip and contact the shelter to see if someone is looking for it. The best thing to do is leave it alone and do not feed it. Hopefully, it will go home.

Yes, you can surrender a pet here if you live in the City of Manassas. If it is a pet that you got from another facility, please contact them first to make sure they don’t want it back. Try everything you can to find a home for your pet before you bring it to the shelter. We are not a no kill shelter so you do have to sign a form that says you understand there is a possibility that the pet could be euthanized. This is why the shelter should be your very last option. We recommend that you reach out to rescues and try to rehome the pet on your own.

We only provide vet care for the pets in the shelter. If you are looking for vet care for your pet there are several in northern Virginia. You can find more information here.

We take in all different types of pets at the animal shelter. We mostly take in dogs and cats, but we also get in small animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, rats, hamsters, and birds. We also take in some reptiles. We do not take in any livestock. We are not equipped to give them the care they need.

Pets at the Animal Shelter mostly come in as strays or surrendered by their owners. We do also get pets in from other shelters if they need assistance.

We don’t have a set time that we keep pets at the shelter. There is a holding period for strays. If a pet is found without any identification (collar, harness, microchip, or anything around its neck, such as a necklace or even a string) then the shelter has to hold the animal for 5 days before evaluating it to allow time for the owner to come forward. If the pet is found WITH any identification, the shelter has to hold them for 10 days. After that holding period, the pet is evaluated to determine whether or not it is adoptable or not.

We do our best to place all of our pets in great homes, but sometimes we get pets that are not adoptable. Whether they are aggressive, old, sick, or just not doing well in the shelter. We do reach out to rescues first but unfortunately, we do have to humanely euthanize unadoptable pets.

We do euthanize at this shelter. We try our best not to if we can help it. Some pets come into the shelter, released by their owner for euthanasia because of old age.  Some come in because they are aggressive and may hurt someone.  We do this as a service to the residents of the City of Manassas. If a pet in the shelter is having trouble being adopted or we are running low on cage space, we try to exhaust all of our options before we euthanize. The City uses social media outreach and other rescues to help relocate the pet.