The Animal Response Group works to transport evacuated animals to a holding facility, have veterinarians address their immediate medical needs, care for them during the disaster incident, and return them to their proper owners. We wish to coordinate with your agency to facilitate our efforts as well as those of your agency.

Proper interaction of all disaster-response agencies active during an incident saves time, effort, and sanity while enabling us to each accomplish our goals, whether it be care of evacuees, mitigation of the disaster itself, or protection of public health.

Our training programs, as well as our interactions with other agencies, stress cooperation and coordination without confrontation. Our leaders are urged to decide on the immediate goal and to seek the most efficient resolution of any given problem. This is especially true when a problem's nature involves more than one agency.

During an incident, there will always be a designated ARG Incident Commander or Deputy Incident Commander working at our command post. Please feel free to seek our advice regarding any problems involving animals, including but not limited to refusal of animal owners to evacuate, stranded animals, evacuees who wish to retain daily contact with their animals, disabled persons paired with service animals, or people wishing to enter a co-shelter or side-by-side shelter situation with their animal(s).

While we have our own early-warning system of monitoring scanner activities, we expect to be notified by OES, CDF, Red Cross, CDFA CARES, or any other appropriate agency as soon as possible if an ARG response may be required.

We are organized based on the Incident Command System and are compatible with both SEMS and NIMS. Our volunteers are trained and certified Disaster Service Workers. We deploy only upon appropriate invitation by OES or the lead agency in a disaster incident. We are a First Responder agency.