Orange County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals DBA OC Animal Allies

Making a Positive Impact on the Lives of Those Struggling with Loneliness, Anxiety or Illness

Our PAWS Therapy Dogs program is central to our mission of supporting the community. More than 80 volunteers and their dogs spend time at nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, hospices and children’s homes to help bring joy and encouragement to the disabled, bedridden or neglected.

Our therapy dog teams conduct monthly visits to more than 25 facilities throughout Orange County, California. Averaging more than 400 visits annually, our PAWS Therapy Dog program helps strengthen the human-animal bond by sharing the love of a pet with those that cannot have their own. These visits provide a unique and wholesome social opportunity for seniors, children, and the community at large.

Our Canine Literacy Program uses PAWS volunteers and their dogs visit classrooms and select public libraries to help students improve their reading By reading to the dogs it helps reduce the anxiety some students feel when reading aloud. It can also improve reading fluency and comprehension skills, builds self-esteem and confidence, all of which makes reading fun.  In addition to the educational benefits, the students also learn to appreciate the powerful human-animal bond that they witness between volunteer and dog.  Reading aloud can be very stressful for many students.  Studies have shown that petting a dog lowers both the blood pressure and stress levels.  The same occurs in reading sessions. Reading aloud to a dog is less intimidating than reading aloud in the classroom,  This unique experience is a wonderful way to motivate students.  Dogs are great listeners.  The dogs offer a calm, accepting, non-judgemental atmosphere for students to practice and improve their reading skills.

The PANDA program utilizes carefully selected and trained members of our Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS) therapy dog teams to help comfort child victims of sexual assault and abuse while they meet with OCDA staff to prepare for their cases and trial.


Volunteers and their therapy dog help comfort children during the stressful process of reliving traumas while they prepare for trial. The presence of a gentle and caring dog, makes the meetings more productive and provides victims with the unrivaled support of their gentle and caring furry friend.

Orange County Cares About Cats (OCCATS) is a program that provides assistance with helping control and reduce the population of Community/Feral cats through a spay/neuter program called Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Community/feral cats are not often social/tame cats, through no fault of their own have ended up in the streets.  Most are likely the offspring of domestic cats who were lost or abandoned.  Because these community cats are not usually socialized to people, if trapped and taken to a shelter they are euthanized.  Not only is this inhumane but it is costly to municipalities to trap, hold and euthanize these cats.  The OCSPCA has long been a leader in OC in supporting the more human, nationally recognized and more effective method of dealing with these community cats. For those who cannot afford it, the Orange County SPCA provides vouchers to get feral/community cats fixed at one of OCSPCA's participating vets. They are returned to the same location to live out their lives.

“No Empty Bowls” provides low income animal owners with food for their animals during times of need. The program receives both in-kind donations of food and money used to purchase food and to provide logistics (warehousing and delivery in some cases) to supply our warehouse for distribution to our community partners.
Every week volunteers pick up donated food and distribute it to low-income and homeless animal owners. Currently, the program feeds hundreds of animals each month through its distribution to partners. Since homeless animal owners cannot carry large supplies of food, volunteers often re-bag smaller amounts of food which is distributed every week. From week to week other animal owners that cannot make ends meet call for assistance to feed their animals.  In 2017 the No Empty Bowls program distributed more than 22,000 pounds of food. This year we will more than triple that number as this program expands to help meet the needs of Orange County's low income residents.

Kindness Kids is a Humane Education program of the OCSPCA. It is offered to students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Our KK program teaches the basic principles of kindness toward all living creatures, responsible animal care, and respect for wild animals. The students are also taught how to act responsibly and safely around dogs.
Volunteers and their therapy dogs visit classrooms and libraries throughout Orange County. The students are given activity books to review and reinforce the concepts taught during the presentation. They are asked to share the activity books with their family. The students are encouraged to make posters illustrating what they learned. The OCSPCA provides a subscription to Kind News magazine, published by the Humane Society of the United States. The lessons can be incorporated into the curriculum to inspire students to treat animals and our environment with kindness and compassion. Kindness, caring, and compassion impacts people and animals alike.