Humane Fort Wayne

We want to save as many adoptable animals' lives as possible.
1) Euthanasia of healthy animals has reached a crisis point in our country. We are tireless in our efforts to intake animals from crowded, high-risk shelters and prepare them for adoption.
2)To make an impact on the number of animals entering such shelters, and to reduce overpopulation, we sterilize r every animal.
3)To encourage a healthy start and reduce the spread of disease, we fully vaccinate the pets in our care.
4) We enrich the experience of the animals in our program by offering a holistic approach to their emotional well being during their stay. In the end, our adopters will have the opportunity to bring home a healthy and happy pet.
5)We aim to educate the community about the option to adopt, rather than purchase, family pets.
6) We operate programs that provide services to pets living in poverty to ensure that their needs are met, too. The goal is to keep pets in their homes and out of shelters.

We rely upon the expertise of other animal welfare professionals. We attend conferences, read timely materials, utilize the services of nationally-renown veterinarians, scour the latest research on animal welfare and stay abreast of the latest issues impacting our industry.

We utilize local media to spread awareness of our program and appear on television and radio to draw attention to our cause. We also partner with local businesses. They lend their financial support as well as offer us the opportunity to speak and educate about our programming.

We partner with local pet stores to offer off-site adoptions each and every week. This allows our animals to be seen and visited-with outside the shelter setting. It also offers a reciprocal relationship with these stores.

Finally, we collaborate with other animal welfare organizations and funders to ensure best practices are in place and that ALL animals, adoptable or owned, receive proper care and the chance at a better life.

We follow the Humane Society of the United States guidelines for shelter population. Because we utilize cat colonies as well as cage-banks and off-site feline adoption, we can house upwards of 70 felines. We can shelter approximately 30 dogs, depending on their size, at any given time. In total, approximately 100 animals are in various stages of the shelter adoption program.

To do so, we employ a professional staff with significant experience in animal husbandry. We are governed by a board committed at every level to our cause, and we receive national and local grant funding on a regular basis. Additionally, we are a member-based organization with 2,500 current members and over 20,000 followers on social media. These supporters ensure our capability to meet our goals annually.

While our adoption numbers speak for themselves, we strive to achieve greater results than we did in any given month from the prior year. For example, we adopted 63 animals in September of 2012 and 109 in September of 2013. Each month, our goal is to do better than we did the year before. In 2015-2016, we send home an average of 200 pets per month with a goal of 2,500 adoptions per year. In 2016, we sent home 2,660 animals for an average of 222 pets per month.

Additionally, we serve as a real resource for area residents struggling to keep animals in the home instead of surrendering them to shelters. To do so, we think strategically about utilizing our limited resources to better help the community at large. In 2015 we launched a full-scale program to reach out to pet owners living in the underserved community adjacent to our shelter. With a one-year grant, we were able to sterilize more than 500 pets, vaccinate 750 animals and provide 91,520 lbs. of free food to pets in need.