PAWS Chicago is the city's largest No Kill humane organization, focused on alleviating the community's tragic pet overpopulation problem--19,288 dogs and cats were euthanized in Chicago in 2008. PAWS Chicago envisions a No Kill Chicago--a city in which pets are not destroyed just because they are homeless. Since PAWS Chicago was founded in 1997, the number of homeless pets killed has been more than halved: from more than 42,000 to less than 20,000.
PAWS Chicago has just opened the first cageless, state-of-the-art, No Kill shelter in the Midwest in Lincoln Park and anticipates finding homes for 4,000 pets in 2010. Additionally, PAWS Chicago operates the Lurie Spay/Neuter Clinic which provides free spay/neuter for pets of people on public assistance or living in the city's most low-income neighborhoods, projecting more than 17,000 surgeries this year.