About Us
History. Buffalo Humane began as a group of area citizens protesting the announced end of adoptions at the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter, part of the city's cost-cutting moves to close its serious budget gap. Effectively, the shelter would have become all-kill, allowing only 3 days for animals to be claimed or they would be destroyed. The original Save-Our-Shelter group mobilized quickly and successfully stopped the cuts for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, with the hope that the 1-year reprieve would allow some kind of safety net to be put in place before elimination of the adoption program in July 2005.
Fortunately, the anticipated 1-year reprieve for the city shelter appeared to become a permanent reprieve. The immediate fight to retain the adoption program seemed to be over, but we knew that more could be done. Buffalo Humane emerged to help fill the gap between what a cash-strapped city could provide and what was needed. Furthermore, a core group of original protest participants wanted to work as a city-based no-kill rescue organization, and to support the efforts of individuals throughout the city who make a difference daily in the lives of homeless companion animals.
In 2011, Buffalo Humane moved into a physical facility in Pendleton, NY where it runs it's entire operations and a small cat shelter. As the organization moved into Niagara County and out of the City of Buffalo, the board of directors felt that the current organizational name, Buffalo Humane, no longer fit the organization. In September of 2014, Buffalo Humane officially changed it's name to Pets Alive WNY by filing a DBA with NY State. IN 2017, the name change was official as NY State granted our request for a corporate name change and our bylaws were amended to reflect this.
Nonprofit status. Pets Alive WNY (aka Buffalo Humane) is a New York State incorporated nonprofit organization and IRS tax-exempt 501(c)3 public charity devoted to animal welfare in the region. We operate on a 100% volunteer basis, and our activities are funded exclusively through fundraising, contributions, and donations. Your help is greatly needed so that we can continue our work on behalf of area animals.
Statistics. We keep statistics of all our animal outcomes on the Shelter Animals Count website. You can view our yearly statistics from the following list:
We believe that "Every Life Counts, Every Life Matters"
Our Mission
Our mission is to promote and protect the health, safety, and welfare of pets and people by taking in and placing homeless companion animals, encouraging and supporting spay/neuter, providing community outreach to ensure proper animal stewardship, and promoting rational and effective animal care and control policies at all levels of government.
Our Vision
Saving one until there are none