Bay Area Dogs Found Dead at Humboldt County ‘No-Kill’ Rescue

Miranda’s Rescue’s website claims the facility is “a no-kill rescue” that “brings relief” to hundreds of animals every year. In 2007, it was recognized by the California State Assembly as the “Best Sanctuary For Abused Animals in Northern California.”

Sabrina Woods, a volunteer at the Solano County Animal Shelter, said she used to consider Miranda’s Rescue “a Disneyland of rescues.” Woods estimated that about 10 dogs a month were sent there from her shelter, and she was excited when she had the chance to drive a dog to the rescue herself last year.

But when she arrived, “something just felt off,” Woods said. The parking lot was almost empty, and she noticed several dogs on the property, including a blue-nose pit bull, who looked sick.

“ I found out that Shannon did all the training, which I thought was really weird because he’s got to be a really busy guy,” she said. “So I’m like, how does he train all of these dogs?”

The rescue also asked for high transfer fees, around $400 to $500 per dog. Woods said that in her experience, many rescues don’t charge a fee, and if they do, it’s around $100 to $200 to cover vaccinations, sterilization and microchipping. Most dogs coming from municipal shelters have already undergone those procedures.

Public tax records show that Miranda’s Rescue brought in $471,000 in revenue in 2024. Miranda’s Rescue also operates two thrift stores in Humboldt County, where people can buy used items and make donations.

Woods began doing public records requests into Miranda’s Rescue’s past and where it was getting its animals. She soon learned that another woman in Humboldt County, named Jennifer Raymond, was doing the same work. They started working together and learned that almost 2,000 dogs have been transferred there since 2023. That number does not include private shelters that don’t have a legal obligation to disclose that information, or a handful of public shelters that did not respond.

Other rescues in Humboldt County told them they often struggled to find homes for the kind of large dogs that Miranda said he could easily rehome in two to three weeks.

Raymond moved to Humboldt County in 2001 and started a one-woman spay-and-neuter operation to serve the community. She said that around 2004, she started hearing stories from clients about Miranda’s Rescue. Some people alleged that animals were being killed there. Raymond started “snooping” for more info, but was never able to find proof until last year, when the house next to Miranda’s property went up for sale.

“I bought it,” Raymond said. “I figured, I need to get closer. I need to watch what’s going on. I’d heard too many disturbing stories to be able to let this go of this.”

Raymond said right away she was struck by the high turnover at the shelter,  despite rarely seeing anyone coming to adopt animals. When Raymond noticed a large mound of dirt next to a hole on Miranda’s property, she decided to act. She and a friend went onto Miranda’s property at night and started digging.

“Sometimes there’s something that is above the law. And to me, this was above the law,” she said.

They recovered the bodies of eight dogs. Many of them had what Raymond said looked like gunshot wounds to the head, Raymond said. Many of the dogs were microchipped, and with Woods’s help, they were able to track these dogs back to shelters in Oakland, Berkeley and Palm Springs.

One of the dogs was traced back to Oakland Animal Services.

Director Joe DeVries said Oakland Animal Services has been working with Miranda’s Rescue since 2016.

Last year, it sent 205 dogs to the rescue.

“He was taking dogs that we had a hard time placing, typically our bigger dogs, and we have a lot of big dogs in Oakland,” DeVries said. For each dog that it took in, Miranda’s Rescue received a fee of around $400. “That fee, you know, was to see that he could take care of them up on this big farm that he had, and give them space and give them a chance to decompress.”

DeVries said he’d heard Miranda’s Rescue sometimes charged private shelters $1,000, or in certain cases, where a dog had a history of biting, up to $3,500.

DeVries said that Miranda was communicative, often checking in to share updates about the dogs and their adoptions. It seemed that the center had a high success rate for placing animals.

The Humboldt County sheriff contacted Oakland Animal Services with questions about its adoption practices and relationship with the rescue. Less than 24 hours later, DeVries received a call from Woods, who told him about what she and Raymond had uncovered.

“It was horrible,” said DeVries, who added that Miranda had texted him days earlier to say that the dog identified by Woods had been adopted.

The sheriff served a search warrant on the Miranda’s Rescue property on May 1, according to a press release. In the wake of reporting from local outlets, the Times-Standard and the Lost Coast Outpost, the rescue community on Facebook has also leaped into action, starting a group to collect information about where the dogs and other animals that were sent to the rescue ended up.

Miranda has been accused of animal abuse before, but there was never a formal investigation.

Many municipal shelters around the state have severed ties and halted transfers to the rescue, but Woods said she has heard of the shelter receiving animals just days after it was searched. Woods said her goal is to get the word out as far as possible so that more shelters will stop transferring dogs to Miranda’s Rescue.

“I’m really hoping for criminal charges that hold him accountable for what he’s done, and I’m hoping that this investigation will halt any animals being sent to be put under his care ever again,” DeVries said.

Raymond said she hopes more people will consider sterilizing their pets to prevent abuse in the future.

“If they don’t want to hear one more story, we need to get behind spay and neuter,” she said.