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Pet Care Foundation was founded as a non-profit organization by Paula Kent Meehan in June of 2003. Its primary mission when founded was to create a Beverly Hills Animal Shelter that would be managed by the City of Beverly Hills. Paula was horrified to find that when she called the City of Beverly Hills to ascertain what to do with a mama dog and puppy that she found on the street, no one there knew. She later found that the City contracted with the County of Los Angeles for animal services the nearest County shelter being in Carson over an hour away.
Paula worked vigorously for two years going to many BH City Council meetings, and organizing citizens to try to make the BH Animal Shelter a reality. In December of 2004 she hired Bill Crowe as the Director of the Foundation. While he began research on how to make the shelter happen, he began creating pet adoption events within the City of Beverly Hills at the Farmers’ Market, Roxbury Park and La Cienega Park bringing in animals from the Carson Shelter LA County Shelter where the City of Beverly Hills had their contract for animal services.
After many meetings, phone calls and a lot of research, Bill discovered that the City of Beverly Hills only had an average of 33 animal calls on average per year – not enough to warrant a municipal shelter. After that realization, Paula and Bill decided to try for a contract with the City of Los Angeles because they were in the process of building a new, very close by, West LA Animal Shelter – something the City of LA had never done.
Meanwhile, the pet adoption events were growing substantially. Also created was the ADOPT A PET TODAY TV show. For the first 5 years the show was filmed at Beverly Hills High School by the media teacher, Dusty Stiles. Dusty then retired and the TV show continues on now filming at the LA Shelters. It airs every weekday at 12:30 PM on the LA City Channel 35 and randomly on the BH City Channel – it has a 90% adoption rate.
Bill and Paula began going to the LA Animal Commission meetings to try to get the contract with the new WLA Shelter. After four years (2009) of writing copious letters, going to several LA City Council Meetings, Public Safety Meetings and Budget Committee Meetings as well as BH City Council Meetings, the contract with WLA came to fruition, and is still in place. Citizens no longer had to drive to Carson to look for their lost pets or wait a few hours for an animal officer to come when they saw a stray.
Also in 2009, Paula and Bill noticed that the photos of the animals on the shelters’ websites were not good. They decided to create the LA Animals Services Employee Photo Contest as incentive for the staff to take better photos. An awards luncheon is given at the winning shelter, as well as trophies and a small honorarium. Photos of the animals are now greatly improved thus creating a higher adoption rate.
In 2010, Bill began producing the adoption events within the LA Shelters themselves. This greatly increased the number of pets being adopted. Today there are ten adoption events per year in the shelters and one in Roxbury Park. They are My Furry Valentine, Woofstock, Spring ‘Em, Catapalooza 1 & 2, Chi-Pitty-Kitty, My Buddy, The Fur is Flying, Basic Black and Whisker Wonderland. These events are costly so fundraising is very important to keep them going and the euthanasia rate lowering.
In 2012 and 2013, PCF produced two Rose Bowl Parade Floats to encourage Adopt vs Buy to 150 Million Viewers World Wide. The 2012 float won the award for Most Beautiful Non-Commercial Float. The 2013 float had celebrities Crystal Hefner and Brandon McMillian on it.
In 2013, Paula suggested her daughter-in-law, Fabi Lydon, who is a professional dog groomer, go to the shelters on her day off and groom dogs. Fabi and Bill began by going to the East Valley Shelter. The before and after photos of the dogs they groomed were so dramatic that they inspired Paula to create a grooming program that happened every day at all the shelters. Today PCF has three full time groomers and three groomers’ assistants working five days a week in the LA City and Pasadena Animal Shelters. The program has an 83% adoption rate.
PCF’s newest program is free spay/neuter clinics in lower income areas. Currently, we produce six per year each one helping 40 dogs and cats live a healthier, happier life while lowing the number of homeless animals.
To find a pet near you, please go to www.petfinder.com or www.laanimalservices.com in Los Angeles.
Check out Pet Care Foundation’s TV show ADOPT A PET TODAY
For assistance in keeping your pet call 213-403-0129 for free spay/neuter, vaccinations, licensing fees, fence/gate repair, dog training, some vet care, and tenant/property owner negotiations. Your call will be
returned within 48 hours.
