Molly Goldston lives on the farm. That is the first thing to understand about Saving Grace Animals for Adoption, and it explains most of the rest. This is not a facility she drives to. The dogs are in her yard. The operation runs on a private residence on Old Creedmoor Road with a very small staff and a lot of volunteers.
Since it was officially established in 2004, Saving Grace has placed more than 15,000 dogs into homes.
Where the dogs come from
Not from Wake Forest.
Saving Grace partners with shelters across North Carolina and South Carolina that have extremely limited resources and high euthanasia rates. Rural animal control facilities, mostly, in the most underserved communities in both states. They pull adoptable dogs, and they also take dogs in critical condition or dire situations that those facilities cannot treat.
Goldston has been clear about why those shelters are in that position, and the explanation is structural rather than moral. The communities they work in already struggled with access to spay and neuter care before the pandemic. When clinics closed or ran on limited staff for two years, that access disappeared entirely. The dog population soared as a direct result.
Her framing of the shelters is worth noting: this is an issue everywhere, not just with them.
What a rescued dog gets before adoption
Veterinary care including spay or neuter, microchip, heartworm test, vaccinations, and monthly preventatives, all provided before the dog goes home.
Temperament screening. Each dog is assessed for disposition so the family knows what they are getting.
Crate training, at least started, for most of them.
The adoption fee is $395. That number surprises people until you price out that list of veterinary work independently, at which point it stops surprising them.
Saving Grace is honest about what these dogs are. Their own description is that the dogs come from rural, underserved areas and may have little experience as indoor family members, but that they have the temperament and personality to bring a lot to a new home. That is an accurate and unusually candid thing for a rescue to publish.
How adoption actually works
Start with the online adoption request. Once approved, you get an appointment to visit the farm.
Come ready to meet several dogs and puppies rather than one specific animal. This is important and often misunderstood: not all of the dogs are listed on the website, and they bring in new ones every week. A dog you would never have clicked on may be the one.
Appointments run on a 30-minute cadence, though you are not held to it. A counselor may be working with more than one family at a time.
You provide your own transportation and pick up at the facility. They welcome out-of-state adopters, with the caveat that you should check your own state’s rules on health certificates and moving animals across state lines.
They also run a fostering program, which reviewers describe as a way to find out whether you are ready for a dog before committing to one. That is a genuinely good use of a foster system and part of why the Nextdoor reviews are so consistently positive.
It is also a farm animal sanctuary. You can adopt a potbellied pig.
What the farm is like
This is the part that separates it from a shelter, and it is the thing adopters mention first.
The dogs run around. They play with other dogs. One reviewer, comparing it directly to the shelter where she had adopted before, said the dogs here are better cared for and it is simply a nicer place. Another described it as a rescue where dogs can still behave like dogs.
Anyone who has walked a row of concrete kennels understands why that matters. A dog that has been socialized in a yard with other dogs presents differently, behaves differently, and transitions into a home more easily than one that has spent six weeks in a run.
Hours are noon to 6 most weekdays, 1 to 6 on Thursday, noon to 3 Saturday, closed Sunday.
The need right now
Goldston has issued direct public appeals for adopters and volunteers, and the specific gap she names every time is older, larger dogs.
Everyone wants a puppy. Everyone wants small. The seven-year-old fifty-pound dog with a gray muzzle sits, and sits, and sits.
The volunteer and foster shortage has its own explanation, and Goldston refuses to blame anyone for it. Her point is that after two years of being stuck at home, people want to travel and get out, and that is entirely fair. The problem is that the animals still need care at the same time.
There is an Amazon wish list of supplies, a donation page, and a range of volunteer roles.
Why this one is worth knowing about
Rescue organizations are not interchangeable, and the difference usually comes down to where the dogs come from and what happens to them in between.
Saving Grace goes to the shelters with the worst odds, in the counties with the least money, and brings dogs back to a farm where they get full veterinary care and room to run before anyone meets them. Fifteen thousand dogs later, it is still one woman’s property with a small staff and a volunteer list.
The dogs are there now. Most of them are bigger and older than you were picturing.
Saving Grace Animals for Adoption, 13400 Old Creedmoor Road, Wake Forest. savinggracenc.org