Retired Officer Still Serving, Benefiting Camp Pendleton, Oceanside Animals

Retirement from the Army didn't mean a rocker on the veranda for Elaine Godzak. The former lieutenant colonel took a job with a company on Jones Road in Oceanside, just a stick's toss from the local animal shelter.

And down the street Godzak would go on her lunch hour, trekking from kennel to kennel looking for a possible addition to her family.   

"When you're on active duty, it's not really practical to have a pet," said Godzak, whose last assignment in uniform was in Europe. There she was tasked with deploying entire 3rd Army corps from Europe to Saudi Arabia, where the 1991 push to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces was launched.

But it was those logistic, planning and mission-driven skills that brought Godzak to the animal shelter as a volunteer a few years later. That post-Army search led her to Kate, a chow and shepherd mix who was just 3 months old, “enthusiastic and a typical puppy.”

A couple of years later, Godzak took her love for animals back to that same shelter where she walked dogs on a regular basis. In 2002, she became the shelter's coordinator of all volunteers. But the job chewed up too much of her time with the animals, so she returned to just volunteering with the dogs.

Things became challenging for Godzak when the shelter she had dedicated so many hours to merged with a San Diego animal shelter that had a higher “kill” rate than she could stomach.

“I had a member of the management team verify that part of the behavior assessment was a cat test for dogs,” she said. That test put Curtis, a Jack Russell terrier, on the euthanasia list at the shelter because Curtis wanted to chase the cats put before him. 

“I could no longer affiliate with an organization so unfair to animals,” she said. “No self-respecting Jack Russell WOULDN'T chase a cat. So how about placing that dog in a home that doesn't have cats?”

Curtis was rescued by a group of former shelter volunteers, including Godzak, and now “lives the high life” with a San Clemente couple who have no cats.    

Godzak was so upset about the shelter's new policy, she had a lawyer send a letter to the shelter demanding that it adhere to state law. The statute says if a rescue group wants to save an animal from being put down, the shelter has to turn the creature over to that group. The shelter complied so there was no need for a lawsuit.  

And so was born SPOT, Saving Pets One at a Time, a group co-founded by Godzak that takes doomed animals from the shelter and places them in foster homes until a permanent home can be found and they are adopted. To date, the group has saved more than 150 animals that had been slated for death.    

She also volunteers at the Camp Pendleton animal shelter near the airfield on base in the 25 Area.

An upcoming open house at Camp Pendleton's shelter is being billed as a “Certified Pre-Owned Pet Tent Sale,” in mock tribute to auto tent sales, Godzak said. It will be held June 11 and the public is welcome—just show a driver's license at the gate. Click here for directions to the shelter.

"Some people don't know the shelter even exists, but anyone is welcome to come out or volunteer," Godzak said. "We can't accept money but [can take] other things like kitty beds, doggie blankets, food and treats." Even acceptable, Godzak said, are nonanimal related services such as painting and watering or mowing the lawn at the shelter.

Godzak, who is married to Dominick Cordasco, also a retired Army officer, thinks former military people make great volunteers because "they know how to organize things, how to resource, plan, develop and execute things. They understand the importance of team work, of showing up for the job and getting the mission done."

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