Our Mission

Focus on Homeless Animals is an all volunteer 501(c)3 not for profit animal rescue organization based in Washington Crossing, PA.   Focus on Homeless Animals is Incorporated in the state of Pennsylvania as a not-for-profit charity.  As a 501(c)3 organization, you can now declare your donations to us, and we will be more than happy to provide you with a donation letter.

Our focus is to prevent healthy, adoptable companion animals from dying needlessly.   We need volunteers to help us in our life saving mission by providing temporary homes for dogs and cats.  We will provide all medical care, vaccinations, heartworm/lyme checks; leukemia/aids tests; and other care as needed.  We will also provide obedience training and/or behavior modification if needed.  Many problems can be overcome in a few short lessons and with daily reinforcement while in your home.

• Our first goal is to prevent the birth of unwanted dogs and cats in order to reduce animal overpopulation.  Spay and neutering of all dogs and cats prior to adoption and/or fostering.

• Our second goal is to prevent the deaths of unwanted animals.  Dogs and cats may come from owner surrenders or animal shelters who are reaching out to animal rescue groups for help.  We also have implemented trap, neuter, release programs  for feral cats so that these cat colonies will die out naturally after being spayed/neutered.  The kittens already born will be turned quickly into human friendly non-feral kitties.  They too will need to be fostered this time of year.

•  Our third goal is to establish a sanctuary/adoption center for homeless animals on approximately one acre of  land.  We can house at least two of these mobile structures and the animals would have a quality facility.   We are seeking a donation of one acre of land.    We will need a sponsor to help meet the costs of leasing the unit and we will be fundraising for the additional amount.

• We have working knowledge of how an animal shelter should be designed and managed.  We provided consultations for a municipal shelter guided by our understanding of the best practices that animals shelters should follow.
  

•  We funded feline aids/leukemia tests; spay/neutering; and marketing to increase awareness of the needs of the shelter.
  

•  We located and coordinated volunteers and developed an outreach program within the community. We were successful  bringing monetary and food assistance. 

• We reduced the euthanasia of animals due to our adoption program.

•  We served on the Mayoral Animal Welfare Council for one of the animal shelters.

• We wrote and obtained several capital improvement grants from The Geraldine Dodge Foundation to install an HVAC system to temper the air and provide a healthy shelter climate for the purpose of disease control.   The Executive Director of the Geraldine Dodge Foundation wrote in a letter dated June 18, 2001 “Adoption practices, animal housing, and healthcare have improved due to the organizations’ commitment to the animals and facility improvements”. 
  

• We pioneered in our area the development of a “Pet-Pal” program at the animal shelter that included walking dogs and socializing them as well as socializing cats.

• We helped Jones Farm Prison to spay/neuter stray cats that  the prisoners had been socializing.  We funded the practice of trap, neuter, and release  (TNR) and provided spay/neuter when funding allowed.

•  We fostered many stray cats and/or feral kittens and were able to turn the kittens into adoptable pets. The photograph to the right depicts cats living out of a car in Trenton, NJ.  The person feeding them had called us for help. These cats were semi-feral and we were able to spay/neuter and find good homes for them.

We have hands-on experience with all types of dogs from pedigree to pit bulls and were successful in placing all breeds into good homes. We have experience reversing difficult dogs and gaining their trust.  We have removed abused and/or neglected animals from people’s homes immediately upon finding dogs in distress and we provided veterinarian care and temporary homes until we could place them in a permanent home. We fostered many homeless animals through the years.