“I have this idea,” said Dr. Jennifer Scarlett, CEO of the San Francisco SPCA, leaning forward at the edge of her desk in the spring of 2024. “What if we held a statewide adoption day—one day, across all of California—where shelters offered free adoptions?”
This idea marked the beginning of what would become California Adopt-a-Pet Day. A statewide event that unites shelters, rescues, and communities under one shared goal: to find homes for thousands of shelter animals across California.
After that initial meeting, we gathered our co-hosts: CalAnimals and the ASPCA. CalAnimals, a statewide organization representing over 300 animal welfare groups, joined as a lead partner, bringing its expansive network of shelters and rescues into the fold. The ASPCA provided a team of experts, project management support, and generous funding to help shelters across California waive adoption fees and participate in the event.
In a matter of weeks, an idea once scribbled on a meeting agenda grew into a full-scale movement.
Providing solutions for a growing problem
As we planned the 2024 event, our goal wasn’t just about putting on an adoption event. It was about solving a real and growing problem: more animals are entering California shelters than are being adopted.
The root causes are complex. In many communities, basic veterinary services, like spay/neuter surgeries, are simply out of reach. Without widespread spay/neuter, animal populations grow unchecked, and local shelters—especially those in under-resourced areas—quickly fill up.
Shelter overcrowding has become one of the most pressing challenges facing animal welfare organizations today.
This crisis isn’t just about space. It’s also about staffing, funding, and providing the critical services needed to care for companion animals. Many shelters want to do more, but with limited veterinary teams, reduced budgets, and long waitlists for care, they’re left with heartbreaking choices.
It’s important to understand that these shelters aren’t failing. They’re facing the downstream effects of a national veterinary shortage that’s hitting California hard, especially in rural and under-resourced regions.
As the SF SPCA, CalAnimals, and the ASPCA planned the 2024 event, we focused on a two-pronged approach to address this issue: direct relief and systemic change. California Adopt-a-Pet Day offers an immediate, tangible impact on animals and their communities. Behind the scenes, we work to change the landscape through policy and legislation. By uniting animal advocates and lawmakers, these efforts address the root causes of overcrowding and create long-term progress.
Celebrating the joy of shelter animals
California Adopt-a-Pet Day was also designed to be something joyful—an opportunity to spotlight the human-animal bond while also making adoption more accessible.
“Choosing adoption is a powerful action that helps both animals and people—in California and nationwide,” said Matt Bershadker, President and CEO of the ASPCA. Studies confirm what pet lovers have long known: animals bring tremendous value to our lives. According to a 2025 study, The Value of Pets: The Quantifiable Impact of Pets on Life Satisfaction, pet ownership can be valued at up to £70,000 (or nearly $95,000) a year in terms of the personal well-being and happiness it brings people.
To highlight the joy of pets, California Adopt-a-Pet Day set out to open the door to pet ownership for people who might otherwise think it’s out of reach.
One of the biggest barriers? Cost.
Adoption fees can be a hurdle for many potential adopters. That’s why the ASPCA stepped in with critical funding for California Adopt-a-Pet Day, making it possible for a wide range of organizations to waive adoption fees, from municipal shelters with strict fee policies to the smallest rural shelters. For many organizations, this was the only way they could offer free adoptions.
The effectiveness of free adoptions has sparked debate among animal lovers. However, research consistently shows that waiving fees doesn’t lead to poor outcomes, and it often results in more animals finding loving, permanent homes.
A 2006 study published in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science found that cats adopted for free were just as cherished—and just as likely to remain in their new homes—as those adopted for a fee. Not only that, but waiving fees during the adoption events that were studied led to a 50% increase in cat adoptions.
Further research in 2011 by Maddie’s Fund found that 95% of dogs and 93% of cats adopted during a waived-fee event were still with their families six to twelve months later—results that exceeded national retention averages.
More recently, Best Friends Animal Society found that with a thoughtful, conversation-based adoption process in place, shelters can ensure the safety and well-being of animals without relying on adoption fees to filter applicants. As they’ve learned, people with harmful intentions typically avoid adoptions altogether when there’s a record-keeping process in place.
The takeaway? A person’s ability to pay an adoption fee doesn’t predict their ability to provide love, safety, or a stable home.
Spreading the word
With the vision for California Adopt-a-Pet Day in place, we now needed to bring the conversation to a bigger stage to inspire statewide action.
That meant engaging with state leaders who could help amplify the event and raise awareness about the broader issues facing California’s shelters. In May 2024, that message reached the floor of the California State Senate.
During Animal Advocacy Day, advocates were able to speak for the thousands of animals waiting in shelters—and the millions more who stand to benefit from policies that expand access to care, support shelters, and build stronger communities for both pets and people.
Soon after, Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire introduced a Senate resolution formally recognizing California Adopt-a-Pet Day and honoring the efforts of the SF SPCA, CalAnimals, the ASPCA, and all the shelters and rescues that were participating in the event.
A Senate resolution is a formal statement passed by the Senate to express its collective opinion or support for a specific cause. While it doesn’t create new laws, a resolution like this plays a powerful role in drawing attention to important issues. This public recognition gave the event a major boost.
The inaugural California Adopt-a-Pet Day
In less than two months after the initial planning meeting, California Adopt-a-Pet Day became a reality. On June 1, 2024, shelters and rescues across the state opened their doors for a unified day of action.
We set an ambitious target: 2,024 adoptions in one day in honor of the year. On a typical day in California, about 1,100 shelter animals are adopted statewide. The response to California Adopt-a-Pet Day exceeded our highest hopes. By the end of the day, 3,609 animals had found homes.
But the success of the inaugural California Adopt-a-Pet Day wasn’t just in the numbers. It was in the stories shared by shelters, the smiling faces of new pet parents, and the overwhelming sense of community that rippled across California.
Buoyed by this momentum, we immediately started planning next year’s event.
‘It’s a sign!’ to adopt from your local shelter
As we turned our focus to California Adopt-a-Pet Day 2025, our team and partners knew we had to dig deeper—not just into logistics, but into how the public perceives shelters and shelter animals. In a state filled with wonderful animals waiting for homes, why are so many potential adopters still looking elsewhere?
To answer that question, CalAnimals launched a statewide research initiative, partially funded by the SF SPCA, to better understand how Californians view shelters and shelter pets. The results found that only about 30% of pet acquisitions in California currently come from shelters or rescues, and that many potential adopters said they were hesitant to visit a shelter. Why? Because they feared that visiting a shelter would make them feel sad.
This focus on sadness doesn’t reflect the love, care, and lifesaving work happening in shelters every day. California Adopt-a-Pet Day was created to counter that narrative and replace sadness with joy. It’s a chance to show the public what shelters are really about: second chances and unconditional love.
The data also shows that we don’t need to change everyone’s mind to make a big difference. If we increased shelter adoptions by just four percentage points—bumping the adoption rate up from 30% to 34%—we could place every adoptable pet in California in a loving home.
“If we want to reduce shelter overcrowding, we need to increase the number of people choosing adoption as their first option. There’s an incredible opportunity to shift pet acquisition trends and, in doing so, give thousands more animals the chance to thrive in loving homes. It’s about creating enthusiasm, removing barriers, and showing Californians that shelters are truly the very best place to find an amazing pet,” said Jill Tucker, CEO of CalAnimals.
That insight now drives CalAnimals’ statewide campaign. With its simple, uplifting message—“It’s a sign!”—the campaign invites Californians to visit their local shelter and find the pet they’ve been looking for.
Setting animals and shelters up for success
Behind every joyful adoption on California Adopt-a-Pet Day is a team of people working behind the scenes to ensure each animal is ready for their next chapter. At the SF SPCA, preparation starts with access to veterinary care.
In California, state law requires that all animals adopted from shelters and rescues be spayed or neutered and microchipped, and California Adopt-a-Pet Day is no exception. Preventative care like this helps reduce the financial burden on pet guardians. It also plays a critical role in keeping animals out of shelters by preventing unplanned litters, avoidable illnesses, and untreated conditions.
“Animal welfare is a team sport,” said Aiko Anderson, Adoption Intake Supervisor at the SF SPCA. “Across our network of rescues and shelters in California, we regularly share best practices, coordinate animal transfers to improve adoption chances, and collaborate on medical and transport resources.”
One of the most powerful ways the SF SPCA contributes to this team effort is by providing spay/neuter surgeries for shelters that lack veterinary capacity. These surgeries are among the most effective tools we have to prevent overcrowding, reduce euthanasia, and create long-term, sustainable outcomes for animals. In many under-resourced communities, access to surgical care remains a serious barrier.
That’s where collaboration makes all the difference.
In the weeks leading up to California Adopt-a-Pet Day, we focused our spay/neuter efforts on helping animals get adoption-ready. In San Francisco, we continued partnering with San Francisco Animal Care and Control to provide surgeries for their shelter animals. Across the Central Valley, we supported shelters like Kings County Animal Services, Tulare County Animal Services, and Fresno Humane through surgical teams and clinic partnerships, ensuring more pets were prepared for adoption in time for the big day.
By stepping in with spay/neuter support, the SF SPCA helps our partner shelters avoid surgical backlogs and allocate their limited resources to daily care, adoptions, and lifesaving work within their communities. It’s a shared mission—one rooted in compassion, coordination, and the belief that every adoptable pet deserves a chance to go home healthy and ready for a fresh start.
Tapping into star power
Building on the momentum of our inaugural event, we set out to make California Adopt-a-Pet Day 2025 even bigger—and to do that, we needed the whole state to hear about it.
To ensure shelters of all sizes could participate successfully, our team and co-hosts provided comprehensive marketing support, including an event overview, promotional tools and guidance, and ready-to-use social media content to remove logistical barriers and make it easy for any shelter that wanted to participate to join the statewide effort.
On the legislative front, we were once again honored to receive unanimous support from the California Senate in the form of a second resolution formally recognizing California Adopt-a-Pet Day and applauding the collaborative efforts behind it.
The enthusiastic, bipartisan support underscored something we’ve long believed: animal welfare crosses the political aisle. No matter your background or beliefs, the desire to see pets in loving homes is universal.
This year, California Adopt-a-Pet Day also got a major boost from some very familiar faces. Actor and animal lover Rob Lowe served as an official ambassador for the event and promoted it on social media alongside Daisy, one of his five beloved dogs.
Governor Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom also lent their voices to the cause. Proud pet parents themselves, they shared their support in a heartfelt video message featuring two adoptable puppies—reminding Californians that adopting a shelter animal doesn’t just change one life, it can transform two.
Senator Dave Cortese, a longtime ally of Shelter PALS, the SF SPCA’s advocacy arm, also rallied support. In the week leading up to California Adopt-a-Pet Day, Senator Cortese organized a social media campaign featuring legislators and their families posing with their pets. This simple show of solidarity helped spread the word and encouraged thousands of Californians to visit their local shelters.
Every share, every post, and every public show of support helped more people see that adoption is a joyful, accessible, and deeply meaningful way to make a difference.
A record-breaking day in San Francisco and across California
At the SF SPCA, the energy on June 7, 2025, was electric. Long before doors opened to the public, adopters were already lining up around the block—many of them eager to meet a very specific crowd: kittens. Before the day was over, all 91 of our available kittens had found loving homes.
By midmorning, our adoption center was bustling with excited adopters. The scene was inspiring: people of all ages, races, and walks of life—families, couples, longtime pet lovers, and first-time adopters—gathered to find their new best friend.
One family, beaming beside their newly adopted puppy Bibi, shared, “We got the email about the free adoption day. It was the perfect day to come and see if we could find our forever dog. We chose her because she was the first one to catch our eye.”
By the end of the day, 140 animals had been adopted from the SF SPCA—an all-time, single-day record for our organization and an 80% increase over last year’s event. Each adoption was a reminder of why California Adopt-a-Pet Day matters: behind every door is an animal waiting to bring joy, comfort, and love to a new home.
The true beauty of this event is in the quiet moments that follow the excitement of adoption. As one SF SPCA adopter shared after meeting a terrier-pit bull mix named Parker: “I’m so excited for the everyday things—all the walks and the park visits. All of that.”
Zooming out, the impact statewide was even more remarkable.
4,979 animals were adopted this year on June 7. Just as important, 46% of those adopters had never adopted from a shelter or rescue before. At Fresno Animal Center, that number climbed even higher, where 64% of adopters were first-time adopters. These numbers point to one of the most exciting takeaways from this year’s event: California Adopt-a-Pet Day is spreading the word that some of the best pets in the world are waiting at your local shelter.
California Adopt-a-Pet Day gave Fresno Humane Animal Services a much-needed boost, according to its Shelter Manager, Maria Garcia. With 15 adoptions—more than they typically see in a week—the event cleared kennel space, making room for new arrivals and giving long-stay dogs a better chance at adoption. Another exciting takeaway is that 100% of their adopters were new to the shelter, bringing fresh faces and renewed energy into their adoption center.
In Lakeport, California, a rural community north of the Bay Area, California Adopt-a-Pet Day made a life-changing difference at Lake County Animal Care and Control, not just for the animals, but for the entire shelter team. By the end of the day, 27 animals (15 dogs and 12 cats) had been adopted, completely clearing out the shelter’s cat kennels and emptying nearly half of its available space. For a small facility with just 34 kennels, the surge in adoptions provided immediate relief and created space for more animals in need. Stories like these demonstrate how a single day of focused effort can bring about lasting change, regardless of the size of the shelter.
Looking ahead
California Adopt-a-Pet Day began as a simple idea shared during a regular planning meeting: what if we could create one day to shine a spotlight on shelter animals across the state? A little more than a year later, that idea became a statewide movement. Thousands of adoptions, hundreds of participating shelters, and countless lives changed.
And the best part? You don’t need to wait for next year’s event to find your new best friend. Shelters across California have amazing animals waiting for loving homes every single day.
If you’ve been waiting for a sign to adopt, this is it. As CalAnimals’ statewide campaign reminds us, “It’s a sign!” to visit your local shelter and make room in your life for a pet who will love you forever.
This story originally appeared in the summer 2025 issue of Our Animals magazine. Download a copy to read more.