Our History
1990 – 1998: Founding & First Years
In 1990, Homeward Pet – originally named Hooterville Pet Safehaus after an old cartoon – was founded on the belief that every adoptable animal would eventually find a safe, caring home. Our founder, Peggy Barnish, saw a need for a shelter without time limits in Greater Seattle. Euthanasia was – and continues to be – used only as a last resort to ease suffering from injury or illness. With this commitment to providing homeless animals stays without the pressure of a euthanasia deadline, we started small: just 350 cats and 20 dogs adopted this first year, many from foster homes.
It took time to grow: severe lack of funds, space constraints, and unfavorable attitudes toward adopting pets all required perseverance and dedication to overcome. But by 1996, Hooterville Pet Safehaus reached an important milestone: 1,000 pets adopted in a single year.
Pet homelessness, however, remained a pervasive problem. In 1997, in an effort to stop pet homelessness before it began, we began spaying and neutering every animal who came through our doors. Though we didn’t have a veterinary clinic of our own yet, we developed profound, lasting relationships with local vets in the area who assisted our spay/neuter efforts.
In 1998, to accommodate our growing need for additional space, we moved to Bothell’s Country Village. This location did not allow dogs on the premises, so we relied on foster housing for our canine companions. Our years at Country Village were full of growing pains: our sheltered animals were scattered throughout various buildings (including a chicken coop retrofitted into a feral cat home); we knew our next location needed more square footage than ever before.
1999 – 2009: Expanding Our Impact
In 2003, Hooterville Pet Safehaus underwent a much-needed name change to Homeward Pet Adoption Center along with a move to our Clearwater Spa location in Woodinville. For the first time, all of our adoptable dogs and cats were housed under one roof. Finally, we were able to build an on-site veterinary clinic to take care of the majority of medical care in-house. We also began to strengthen our connections to shelters across the nation, taking in animals from shelters forced to close and animals displaced by natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
But even as we sought national partnership, we remained committed more than ever to our local community. We introduced the Homeward Pet Low-Cost Spay & Neuter Clinic in 2010, to further reduce the number of unwanted animals born by providing low-cost surgeries to reduced-income families. That year, we also began including free training classes with all of our dog adoptions—hoping to increase pet retention through education on animal behavior.
2010 – 2020: Community Commitment & Beyond
In 2011, in addition to moving to our current Woodinville location, we debuted another community program, the Homeward Pet Food Bank. The Homeward Pet Food Bank provides pet food and supplies to families in need of a little assistance to help them keep their beloved pet in their home—providing hundreds of thousands of pounds each year to those who need it.
In 2015, we took major steps to address the behavior needs of our animals, to match the outstanding medical care provided by our clinic. The Homeward Pet Dog Behavior Team provides daily sessions to shelter dogs in need of training and socialization. After the success on the dog side, our Cat Behavior Team began recruiting in 2016.
We continue to grow each year: 2019, right before the pandemic, was our best adoption year on record, with 1,934 animals finding new beginnings under our roof.
The last few years have seen a lot of change, as shut downs and all of the lessons we learned from that time are coalescing into programs and ways of doing things that we might never have explored before. We used the time to study best-practices and to get the staff up to speed on a Fear Free mode of sheltering that we continue to improve upon. Adoptions moved to a more interactive and communication-based system, and we’ve opened up to helping animals stay out of the shelter system with our Home to Home program.
We invite you to look forward with us to what the future will bring!
