360@CACC: saving homeless pets through our partnership with the city pound
Mar 12, 2025
In 2024, intake at the Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC), the city pound, surged by nearly 18%. Currently, more than 41 pets enter CACC every single day, and it’s simply too many. PAWS Chicago launched 360@CACC to urgently respond to this untenable situation. This groundbreaking, solutions-based initiative is designed to alleviate overcrowding, prevent unnecessary euthanasia, and provide a path forward for pets in jeopardy. By focusing on prevention, intervention, and adoption, PAWS is not just saving lives—it is reshaping the future of animal welfare in Chicago.
In 2024, intake at the Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC), the city pound, surged by nearly 18%. In response, PAWS Chicago launched 360@CACC, a pioneering initiative to save lives by amplifying prevention, intervention, and adoption efforts.
Rescue Ready: providing critical medical services so small shelters can rescue pets from CACC
By law, homeless pets must be spayed or neutered before adoption. However, accessing veterinary resources is difficult and costly for rescue groups without their own veterinarians. As a result, they often choose to save animals from out-of-state-shelters that have already performed spay/neuter surgeries.
PAWS established the Rescue Ready program to encourage local shelters to rescue local pets from CACC.
With this initiative, PAWS provides critical medical services, such as spaying, neutering, and vetting – including microchips, vaccines, heartworm tests, and FeLV/FIV testing – enabling these organizations to transfer pets from the city pound. Overall, CACC saw transfers increase a remarkable 18.99% in 2024, totaling 7,242 animals, highlighting the collective impact of this lifesaving program.
The Big Fix: prepping more pets for adoption
Due to city budget cuts, CACC has faced staff reductions and hiring freezes, which have strained their medical team’s capacity to serve incoming pets. Without sufficient medical resources, they simply cannot perform enough spay/neuter surgeries and medical exams on their homeless pet population to keep up with adoption demand.
This is where PAWS Chicago makes a difference.
With our Big Fix program, volunteers transport homeless pets to the PAWS Chicago Lurie Spay/Neuter Clinic. The pets are spayed, vetted, and returned to CACC that afternoon, ready for adoption.
In 2024, PAWS spayed/neutered 931 CACC pets through the Big Fix. With this additional PAWS support, CACC performed 3,019 adoptions in 2024, a remarkable 28.6% increase over 2023.
Pet Owner Support: keeping pets in their home, not the city shelter
As part of the 360@CACC initiative, PAWS works to prevent animals from entering CACC through targeted Pet Owner Support programs. These provide basic care and necessities, from food and supplies to vaccinations and medical care, to help keep pets in their homes and out of the shelter system.
In 2024, PAWS successfully kept 123 pets with their families and out of CACC through Pet Owner Support Programs. We diverted another 135 animals from families directly to PAWS Chicago, giving CACC relief from additional overcrowding.
Our approach is working. In 2025, with your help, we’ll do even more.