Shelters and Rescue Groups
Area Shelters
These shelters have dedicated physical facilities and frequently either have animal control contracts for their municipalities or work closely with the organizations that do.
Open admission shelters take each and every animal brought to their doors. They are thus forced to euthanize healthy, adoptable animals for space when intake exceeds adoptions.
No-kill shelters do not euthanize healthy, adoptable pets (although they may euthanize sick pets or those whose mental conditions deteriorate so much that they go "kennel crazy" and are no longer safely adoptable), but are limited admission: they take pets only when they have the kennel space to accommodate additional animals. Most no-kill shelters in Philadelphia pull animals from ACCT and do not accept strays or owner surrenders.
Philadelphia Shelters
- Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia: Primary intake facility for the unwanted pets of Philadelphia. Located at 111 W. Hunting Park Avenue, ACCT is an open admission shelter that receives more than 30,000 stray and owner-surrendered animals per year.
- Morris Animal Refuge: Founded in 1874, this small open admission shelter is located at 1242 Lombard Street in Center City.
- Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS): No-kill shelter that runs an Adoption Center at 100 N. 2nd Street in Old City and a low-cost spay/neuter clinic at 2900 Grays Ferry Avenue.
- Philadelphia SPCA: No-kill shelter located at 350 East Erie Avenue. The largest no-kill facility in the city.
