Animal Shelter Directory USA brings municipal animal shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, rescues, sanctuaries and wildlife rehabilitators together in one searchable directory, organized by state, county and city. Listings are built from open map data (Overture Maps and OpenStreetMap) and checked against the IRS list of tax-exempt animal welfare charities, so a small volunteer rescue appears alongside a large county shelter, each with the address, phone number and services we can confirm.
Our principles
- Facts over filler. Every number on the site is calculated from the data. We don't call an animal shelter the best, largest or oldest unless a figure backs it.
- Say what we don't know. Unknown services show as “Not available”, never as a guess. We do not publish prices we cannot source.
- Correctable. Every listing can be corrected by the people who know it best, including the animal shelter itself.
- Private where it matters. Many rescues are run from volunteers' homes. We never publish a home address taken from tax records.
- Plain pages. Many visitors arrive worried about a lost pet. We keep pages simple, avoid sales language and never let ads cover what you came to read.
Read about our data sources and methodology, browse the guides, or get in touch.
The site is free to use and supported by advertising. Advertising never affects which animal shelters are listed or how they are described.