spcaLA Pet Adoption Center history

1914: spcaLA opens our first permanent shelter, the “San Pedro Street Station,” in Downtown Los Angeles.

1932: spcaLA opens the “Grand Hotel” shelter for pets on 11th Avenue.

1940-50s: spcaLA creates LA’s first Lost Dog Bureau and Antivivisection League.

1947: spcaLA forms The Southern California Humane Society and operates shelters in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Long Beach.

1952: spcaLA opens the South Gate Shelter (9330 South Garfield Ave).

1986: spcaLA begins the Animal Assisted Therapy volunteer program, a program of the newly formalized Volunteer program (Violence Prevention & Humane Education and Fund Development Departments are also formalized at this time).

1987: spcaLA Board of Directors member, Betty Denny Smith, proposes and creates the Coalition for Pet Population Control, a coalition comprised all the animal control and private animal welfare agencies in greater Los Angeles, aimed at increasing public awareness about and access to spay/neuter.

1994: spcaLA creates Teaching Love and Compassion (TLC)™ our international violence-prevention program.

1995: spcaLA formalizes our disaster relief program, forming the Disaster Animal Response Team (DART)™ to provide rescue, temporary shelter and front-line veterinary care for animals.

1997: The Helping Enhance Animals’ Lives (HEAL)™ program is formed, wherein the spcaLA Animal Behavior and Training Department works with shelter staff and volunteers, enabling them to teach shelter pets basic obedience and manners, in addition to other enrichment activities.

1998: Realizing that survivors of domestic violence often refuse to leave their homes out of fear for the safety of their pets, spcaLA begins the Animal Safety Net (ASN)™ program.

2000: spcaLA begins offering basic obedience classes for owned animals.

2001: Together with the City of Long Beach leaders, spcaLA brought forward Southern California’s first public-private partnership in animal welfare: the PD Pitchford Companion Animal Village and Education Center situated on 6.5 acres in Long Beach’s El Dorado Park.

2004: spcaLA begins offering spcaLA Friends for Life Camp, a summer day camp for youth who wish to participate in animal-related games, crafts, and activities while learning about helping shelter pets.

2007: spcaLA works with then-State Senator Sheila Kuehl and other humane advocates to make California the fourth state in the nation to permit companion animals to be added to restraining orders in cases of domestic violence.

2009: spcaLA launches the inaugural Air Chihuahua™ flight.

2014: spcaLA opens California’s first PetSmart Charities® Everyday Adoption Center.

2015: spcaLA launches its Humane Education Elective Program (EP). The first of its kind in California, the EP brings humane education principles to the classroom at school districts in Southern California.

2017: spcaLA launches an education‐based component of Animal Safety Net (ASN) in order to expand its reach and deepen its impact within domestic violence (DV) support services.

Located inside the Pico Rivera PetSmart store, spcaLA adopts 1,478 shelter pets to the Pico Rivera community before closing the Center in 2018.

2019: 70 years after the grand opening of the Jefferson Boulevard shelter, spcaLA re-opened the facility as the spcaLA Pet Adoption Center in the July of 2019.