New homes for Texas dogs and cats in Pennsylvania

Texas may be a long way from Pennsylvania, but a 23-hour drive was but a mere inconvenience for 102 pets tucked into travel crates for the journey. Forty-eight cats and kittens from three crowded shelters near Houston — along with 54 dogs from nearby Montgomery County Animal Services & Adoption Center (MCAS) — got a free ride northward to the Delaware Valley, where they’d get a fresh start in an area where adoptable animals are in constant demand.

Their final destination: the Brandywine Valley SPCA, based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which each year adopts out about 18,000 dogs and cats. Brandywine and MCAS have cooperated in recent years to bring adoptable pets to the area. This time, MCAS had plenty of dogs to send but no cats because, thankfully, they had already placed their cats locally. So they turned to the Best Friends team in Houston.

Best Friends works with a wide variety of shelters in the Houston area, but three shelters in particular welcomed the opportunity to send some of their cats and kittens on the trip. So Best Friends brought them into the local foster program to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and provided with basic medical care. Best Friends paid stipends to MCAS to handle the cats’ health certificates and other items associated with the trip and provided a van for the cats’ transportation.

[230 dogs in Dallas shelter get fresh start]

Sophia Proler, Best Friends South Central regional director, says: “We were happy to collaborate with Montgomery County in an effort to help save the lives of more cats and kittens. While cat lifesaving has increased in Texas, cats are still needlessly dying in shelters across the state, including here in Houston.”

Sending cats to Brandywine would guarantee them a fresh start and provide the best chances for adoption. “It would also give staff at the three shelters a chance to focus on dogs, which remain a significant challenge at overcapacity shelters here,” Sophia says. “And it would give them a chance to work on enrichment, customer service, and other important activities.”

Despite unseasonably cold weather across Texas and all through the South, the trip was completed without a hitch. “All of the animals seemed to handle the travel well,” says Michael Barnes, Best Friends transportation manager and (for this trip) cat van chauffeur.

Colleen Harrington, director of Brandywine’s Second Chance Program, says demand for adoptable cats and dogs had been high since the beginning of the year. “The weekend before the Texas animals arrived, 333 cats and dogs from across all the Brandywine campuses went to new homes, all in one weekend. And cats, well, they were flying out the door.”

[Teamwork, tenacity, and an epic road trip save 36 cats]

That proved to be a predictor of success for all the dogs and cats on the trip. Within less than a month, the little furry Texans were settling into new homes, including kitties with new adopted names — Stormy, Legolas, Junie B., and Crash. “We have such great communities in all of our locations, with tons of demand (for adoptable animals),” says Colleen. “We might do 40 adoptions today, and then we’ll do it all again tomorrow.”

Sophia says, “Transport partnerships will continue to be a valuable piece of the national pet lifesaving puzzle, especially in Texas and throughout the south-central part of the country where the urgency remains significant.”

Our goal at Best Friends is to support all animal shelters in the U.S. in reaching no-kill in 2025. No-kill means saving every dog and cat in a shelter who can be saved, accounting for community safety and good quality of life for pets. 

Shelter staff can’t do it alone. Saving animals in shelters is everyone’s responsibility, and it takes support and participation from the community. No-kill is possible when we work together thoughtfully, honestly, and collaboratively.