BARC, the City of Houston’s Animal Shelter and Adoption Center, is set to receive a $95,000 grant investment from national nonprofit Petco Love in support of their lifesaving work for animals in Houston.
Petco Love is a national nonprofit leading change for pets by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since its founding in 1999, Petco Love has invested nearly $400 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. And Petco Love helps find loving homes for pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations — like ours — across North America, with 6.8 million pets adopted and counting.
“Our investment in BARC is part of more than $15M in investments recently announced by Petco Love to power local organizations across the country as part of our commitment to create a future in which no pet is unnecessarily euthanized,” said Susanne Kogut, president of Petco Love. “Our local investments are only part of our strategy to empower animal lovers to drive lifesaving change right alongside us. We launched Petco Love Lost, a national lost and found database that uses patented image-recognition technology to simplify the search for lost pets.”
“We’re incredibly grateful to our partner Petco Love for investing in BARC with this grant and further allowing us to expand our life-saving initiatives here at our shelter,” said Jarrad Mears, BARC’s Shelter Director. “With these funds, we’ll be able to purchase additional equipment for our enforcement officers, and more proactively network pets at our shelter through on-site adoption events.”
BARC takes in more than 20,000 pets annually regardless of behavior, breed, or medical condition. BARC works each day to improve Houstonians and their pets’ health and safety by pioneering programs such as low-cost and no-cost spay/neuter services, mobile adoptions, transfer/rescue partnerships, and pet registration and microchipping. BARC is also committed to public safety through animal enforcement, which answers calls for service from the community and investigates cases of animal cruelty.
In May, BARC relaunched its Lost Pets page in collaboration with the Petco Love Lost database. Now, Houston residents have access to Petco Love Lost’s vast and free database that includes lost and found pets reported by individuals as well as thousands of shelter partners across the country. Learn more: www.houstontx.gov/barc/lost_pet.html
For more information about BARC, visit www.houstonbarc.com. Learn more about Petco Love here: petcolove.org.
About Petco Love
Petco Love is a life-changing nonprofit organization that makes communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since our founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, we’ve empowered animal welfare organizations by investing nearly $400 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. We’ve helped find loving homes for more than 6.8 million pets in partnership with Petco and organizations nationwide. Our love for pets drives us to lead with innovation, creating tools animal lovers need to reunite lost pets, and lead with passion, inspiring and mobilizing communities and our more than 4,000 animal welfare partners to drive lifesaving change alongside us. Is love calling you? Join us.Visit PetcoLove.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, and LinkedIn to be part of the lifesaving work we lead every day.