Partnering with Shelters and Helping Animals in Communities Nationwide
The ASPCA strives to ensure that our staff and shelter partners have the training they need to care for and find loving homes for vulnerable animals.
Keeping Animals Healthy in Communities & Shelters
Moving Animals to Adoption
Helping Vulnerable Animals in NYC and Los Angeles
Northern Tier Shelter Initiative
Helping At-Risk Equines Transition to New Homes and Careers
Grantmaking to Support Animal Welfare
Keeping Animals Healthy in Communities & Shelters
Our Shelter Medicine Services team strives to improve the health and welfare of animals in shelters and communities by strengthening shelter medicine programs and expanding access to veterinary care. The team broadly supports the field through education, research and development of educational resources on shelter medicine topics and through direct consultation with sheltering organizations. They provide mentorship and training to shelter veterinarians and future specialists through Residency and Practitioner Pathway Mentorship programs. In 2023, the team provided consultations to 89 organizations in 28 states, supporting the care of almost 200,000 animals.
Moving Animals to Adoption
Transporting animals not only helps them find new homes, it also reduces strain on the shelters where those animals originated, freeing space and resources for the shelters to develop and strengthen animal welfare programs in their communities.
In 2023, animal shelters faced increased pet surrenders and decreased adoptions. Limited space and staffing forced some shelters to reduce transport capacity or pause their programs. Despite these challenges, the ASPCA relocated more than 23,500 animals through more than 700 lifesaving animal transports, increasing their chances of adoption and freeing up capacity. Gertie, an older dog, spent nearly two months in a Texas shelter before she was relocated by the ASPCA to a shelter in Wisconsin. She was adopted quickly and is now a helper dog for a children’s reading program at a local elementary school.
Helping Vulnerable Animals in NYC and Los Angeles
To address some of animal sheltering’s biggest challenges, the ASPCA Adoption Center in New York City pilots new strategies for the management and placement of harder-to-adopt animals and shares what we learn with other animal welfare professionals.
In 2023, our Adoption Center placed nearly 1,600 animals (1,338 cats and 259 dogs) and worked with hundreds of foster homes to provide care and support for more than 1,200 ASPCA animals.
Many of these animals were rescued through the ASPCA-NYPD partnership or transferred from our partner, Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC) — the city’s only open-admission shelter system.
The ASPCA Kitten Nursery, New York City’s first and largest kitten nursery dedicated to the care and treatment of neonatal kittens, has provided lifesaving support for more than 10,000 New York City kittens since 2014 and for 840 kittens in 2023 alone. Admitting these kittens to our nursery or placing them in our foster network conserves shelter space and resources at ACC, which takes in thousands of kittens each year. Clarence was just 10 days old and weighed only 220 grams — as little as a cup of sugar — when he was transferred from the ACC to our Kitten Nursery.
The ASPCA Los Angeles Kitten Foster Program has saved the lives of more than 10,000 vulnerable kittens surrendered to Los Angeles County shelters since the program was launched in 2017. The Los Angeles Kitten Foster Program is in partnership with the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control at the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center, which takes in the highest number of kittens in the county. Intake numbers at the county’s Downey Animal Care Center follow closely. Like in New York City, taking kittens from high-intake shelters to foster homes allows these shelters to save more animals.
Once foster kittens are ready for adoption, the ASPCA helps place them in homes. The ASPCA Animal Relocation & Placement team also helps transport kittens to adoption partners in the Pacific Northwest where adoption demand is higher.
In 2023, the ASPCA’s Los Angeles Kitten Foster Program helped more than 1,700 vulnerable kittens. One of those was tiny Mitzy, the youngest baby of the season, dropped off at the Downey Animal Care Center when she was just two days old. The newborn was whisked to a foster caregiver, who cared for Mitzy from the time she weighed just 75 grams — roughly the weight of an egg — until she was ready to be adopted into a loving home.
Northern Tier Shelter Initiative
The ASPCA directly supports animal welfare and community organizations across seven Northern Tier states: Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Through grants, consultations and more, our Northern Tier Shelter Initiative (NTSI) works to improve the quality of life for companion animals in those regions, while collecting and analyzing data to address long-term challenges.
In 2023, grant funding through NTSI boosted access to spay/neuter services, improved shelter operations, increased access to veterinary care for Indigenous communities and supported programs to keep people and pets together.
Iowa County Humane Society is one of the ASPCA’s NTSI partners. Located in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Iowa County Humane Society reduced the average length of stay for animals in their shelter by 66% after revising their adoption policies to reduce barriers and streamline the process. This dramatic improvement was fueled in part by the guidance provided by our NTSI team. Our team reviewed Iowa County Humane Society’s adoption procedures and offered tools to help staff implement barrier-free adoptions — policies that allow animals to move through the adoption process quickly.
The ASPCA’s work in these states has furthered collaboration with Native communities so we can continue to reach more animals.
Helping At-Risk Equines Transition to New Homes and Careers
In 2023, the ASPCA Right Horse program facilitated over 4,350 adoption inquiries and placed more than 2,900 horses into adoptive homes via our online equine adoption portal, My Right Horse. By popularizing equine adoption and promoting innovative concepts like long-distance adoptions, the program is transforming how people regard adopting horses.
Located in El Reno, Oklahoma, the ASPCA Equine Transition and Adoption Center (ETAC) is an open-admission facility that provides a safe place for horse owners to relinquish their horses. Collaborating with local veterinarians, ETAC offers basic veterinary care and humane euthanasia for suffering equines. Since July 2019, ETAC has assisted 567 equines, with over 150 horses finding new beginnings in 2023. The center also transported approximately 100 equines on the Horse Adoption Express, a service that moves horses to new adopters, training partners or areas where they’re more likely to be adopted.
Our ETAC team trains horses with behavioral challenges, develops adoption marketing for older or medically challenged horses and shares these strategies with shelters and rescues nationwide. Gramps, who was 33 years old, had been in his previous home since his owner’s childhood. After his family’s circumstances changed, Gramps was surrendered to ETAC and highlighted on our social media accounts. It worked — he caught the eye of an equine veterinarian who adopted him for her nieces.
Grantmaking to Support Animal Welfare
While the ASPCA is a working charity, not simply a grantmaking entity, we are one of the nation’s largest animal welfare grant-makers, providing strategic funding and valuable support to organizations whose programs align with our commitment to prevent animal cruelty and suffering.
In 2023, the ASPCA awarded nearly $7.5 million in grants to 393 organizations across 49 states and the District of Columbia. These grants supported a wide range of initiatives, including increasing adoptions and advancing original research on animal welfare, and helped under-resourced communities build robust programs for rescuing, sheltering, transporting and supporting animals.
Since 2001, the ASPCA has provided $214 million in grants to over 3,500 organizations. This funding enables those organizations to prevent cruelty and significantly improve the lives of animals.