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History

In 2002, one of the Pets Alive founding-members-to-be wrote a letter to the Bloomington Herald-Times expressing outrage over the killing of homeless animals. Two others responded to this call to action, and formed the Pets Alive founders group.

Gathering momentum, a growing band of volunteers tirelessly researched the crisis of pet overpopulation, interviewed national experts, visited other areas that had successful programs in place, and spent countless hours discussing pet homelessness with area officials. As a result of their work, in December of 2002, Pets Alive Adopt-A-Pet was born.

Within 14 months it was responsible for over 350 adoptions. Not only did this program have a significant impact on the euthanasia rate, it brought to the forefront of community awareness the plight of over 75% of the homeless animals in our community.

Pets Alive's volunteers were responsible for bringing progressive solutions to the pet overpopulation crisis. In addition to the highly successful Adopt-A-Pet program, Pets Alive created the "puppy train"; wherein over 600 dogs were transported to Wisconsin Humane Society, which combines aggressive adoption programs and affordable spay/neuter to achieve a 98% adoption rate. Further, Pets Alive assisted Bloomington Animal Care & Control (BACC) with setting up online marketing of adoptable cats & dogs through the Petfinder website, assisted BACC staff in creating the foster program and tirelessly worked with staff to recruit additional volunteers to foster and fund animals in need.

Adopt-A-Pet and the puppy train had a successful run of 14 months. However, in that 14-month period, it also became clear that the root of the overpopulation problem could be addressed only by dramatically reducing the number of cats and dogs coming INTO the shelters to start with. It became clear that the solution is spaying and neutering.

Beginning in January 2004, Pets Alive made the decision to focus its energies on finding a permanent home for its spay/neuter clinic and became the first clinic in the Midwest to be based on the nationally recognized Spay/Neuter Response Team model of the Humane Alliance clinic in Asheville, North Carolina.

Our clinic opened in March 2005, and since then the Pets Alive Spay/Neuter staff has performed over 40,000 sterilization surgeries, thereby preventing the birth of tens of thousands of unwanted kittens and puppies.

Six years later, Pets Alive has become a highly effective nonprofit organization in Bloomington, dedicated to ending pet over-population in South-Central Indiana with high quality, low-cost spay/neuter services for cats and dogs.

Clinic Founders


Karla Kamstra		Katrina Sturgeon

Value of Spay/Neuter
Learn more about the importance and benefits of spaying and neutering your pets.

Vaccination Clinics
Keep your pet healthy at our weekly walk-in vaccination clinic held every Friday 3– 4 pm.

Clinic Tour
See photos of our clinic or RSVP for one of our monthly tours.