The Arizona Pet Project

The Arizona Pet Project supports the human-animal bond by providing services designed to keep pets in homes and prevent pet homelessness.

By reducing the number of animals entering Maricopa County shelters, fewer dogs and cats will face euthanasia. And by keeping families with pets together, we improve quality of life and overall community wellness.

The Arizona Pet Project is focused on improving the social, emotional, and physical conditions of our community's most vulnerable and marginalized communities, while also reducing the unnecessary euthanasia of pets in Maricopa County.

First, we address pet overpopulation by funding free spay/neuter surgeries for pets in low-income and underserved communities. Using a variety of data sets including, shelter intake, dog bites at large, euthanasia rates and census numbers, we identify communities with the highest need and deliver services through mobile clinics and a voucher program. In addition to reducing unwanted litters and disease, spay & neuter clinics reduce the number of unaltered roaming dogs that are responsible for the majority of dog bites in the communities we serve.

Secondly, we address pet displacement and homelessness through our shelter intervention program. A shelter intervention counselor, placed at the shelter with the highest rates of pets surrendered by their owners, to meet with pet owners in crisis. The counselor identifies the reason for the potential surrender and offers solutions and assistance to allow the pet to remain in the home. These services include veterinary care assistance, pet deposits for housing, behavioral assistance, and where appropriate, humane euthanasia for the terminally sick and elderly. The majority of our clients are from vulnerable and marginalized communities including, the homeless, housing insecure, veterans, elderly and homebound, domestic violence victims, and the chronically ill and physically disabled.

For many of our clients, their pets are the only family they have and play an important role in improving and maintaining the health and wellbeing of the household.

Pet and human issues are inextricably intertwined, and as a society, we best meet the needs of each group when we focus on the needs of both. The Arizona Pet Project understands this connection and works to remove the barriers to accessing care pet-owners face when seeking assistance, particularly our low-income and vulnerable community members, by employing social workers.

One, based out of Maricopa County Animal Care & Control, meets with families in crisis. Together, they explore what resources the family may need to keep their pets rather than surrender them to the shelter. This includes temporary shelter, pet deposit assistance, pet food, or veterinary care assistance.

The second, based out of Lost Our Home Pet Rescue, is Arizona's first certified Veterinary Social Worker. While there are hundreds of social service agencies in Maricopa County focused on assisting people in need, there are woefully few focused on meeting the needs of the entire bonded family, which encompasses people and their pets. This staff member's role is to work hand-in-hand with social service agency partners who are having difficulty meeting the needs of their clients who have pets. An example includes homeless and domestic violence shelters who can house humans, but not dogs and cats. For their clients, we offer temporary boarding so the entire family can access safe shelter. Assistance may also include providing vaccines, licenses, and spay/neuter surgeries so they can meet the requirements of transitional housing facilities.

Additionally, The Arizona Pet Project has 15 years of experience overseeing and managing a spay & neuter program. Each year, the program has been reviewed and revised to ensure those with the greatest need can access services. Rather than purchasing mobile veterinary clinics, we partner with existing clinics in the community. This helps us reduce costs and stay focused on outreach, education, and the surgeries themselves.

In 2020, The Arizona Pet Project will fund its 150,000th spay and neuter surgery.

The S.I.T. Stay Shelter Intervention program began in 2017 and resulted in 620 interventions by the year's end. In addition to those assisted, our counselor speaks with numerous community members each and every day to offer information, resources, and referrals.

98% of clients accepted our assistance instead of surrendering their pet. 99% of families surveyed have been able to keep their pets at least 90 days after our assistance. We provided 3,500 families seeking services in the community with resources and referrals.

Our shelter intervention efforts have saved Maricopa County Animal Care & Control an estimated $510,000 since March. The amount spent on services for animals in need is $150,000. Which means for every $1.50 we've spent, we have saved the shelter $5.00.