Half a Year and Thousands of Lives: Q2 2026 Update

Wow, we’re already halfway through 2026. Time flies when you’re saving lives! Let’s go ahead and update everyone on our progress through the first half of the year.  Spoiler alert: some pretty big things are happening here and I encourage you to read all the way to the end.

Starting with the top line number, our save rate for the year currently stands at 97.3%, and for Q2 (April through June) we’re still floating around that 97% mark, specifically at 96.51% in the second quarter.

This is a big deal. This time last year, that same April-to-June save rate was 94.55%. We’re up almost two full points from last year. Pretty great right?  But it gets even better when you consider that we did it in a quarter where we took in more animals, ran more surgeries, and pulled more pets out of struggling partner shelters than we did a year ago. Nudging a save rate upward while your intake shrinks is one kind of accomplishment. Doing it while everything is getting busier is a lot harder.

Allow me to brag on this team a little, and I say “a little” a bit ironically because this whole post is me bragging about how amazing this team is. The people at this shelter right now are relentless. They’re dedicated, they work hard, and they say yes to trying new things even when the old way would’ve been easier. I’ll show you exactly what I mean as we go (the long-stay dogs who finally went home, the outside experts we brought in, the noise they tuned out to keep their heads down and do the work). For now I’ll just say it plainly: I’m proud of every single person here, and by the end of this you’ll understand why.

The first half of the year, by the numbers:

• 97.3% save rate, year to date (up from 95.2% for all of 2025)
• 1,033 adoptions through June 30
• 541 of those found their perfect match in Q2 alone
• 649 animals received in Q2, up 20% over the same quarter last year
• 532 transfers in from partner shelters in Q2, up 39% year over year
• 8,695 volunteer hours logged in the first half of the year

Dogs Are Going Home

Sometimes listed stats like that can feel a bit hollow. So, here’s some context. Last spring, in Q2 of 2025, PBHSN adopted out 95 dogs. This Q2, we adopted out 195. We more than DOUBLED it! That’s a hundred additional dogs finding their forever families in the same three-month stretch, one year later.

A jump like that isn’t luck. Those lives saved are the result of unbelievably hard work. They come from industry best-practice animal care techniques we now have in place, built on foundations laid by the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, and other leading voices in animal welfare. We now have daily population rounds where we discuss barriers to adoption and what it will take to find each animal a home. We act with urgency. We have a great shelter and we love these animals deeply, but pets belong in homes, not shelters. Our daily mission is to help them get there.

The Long-Stay Wins

Not only are the adoptions WAY up, which again is amazing. But it’s also which pets are being adopted. Long stay pets are finally finding their matches! Pets who have been here for unbelievably long times are going home.

For the first half of this year, 44 pets who have been at this shelter for six months or longer have gone home! It gets better. Of those 44, half of them have been at this shelter in our care for a year or more. Twenty-two pets are now in loving homes who had spent a year or more in our shelter.

Again for context, a typical long stay for a shelter our size runs 120 to 180 days (4 to 6 months). That’s a “long stay” by traditional definition. We’re finding homes for pets who’ve waited well past that, the ones who need a particular person rather than any person walking through the door. They take patience, some creativity, and a team unwilling to settle and unwilling to let them become permanent.

Let’s talk about a few of them:

Rando waited 1,780 days. That’s not a typo. He came to us on an All Sato transport back in 2021, had a couple of adoptions fall through along the way, and spent the better part of five years as one of ours. This quarter, finally, he got to stop waiting. (Watch him being told he’s going home here.)

Louie waited 1,055 days. Thanks to our amazing social, his adopter spotted him online, drove in from out of state to meet him, and then they all went home together. Louie was a special boy and I have a soft spot in my heart for him. We took time with him. He didn’t get lost in the shuffle. Now he’s home.

Babylon waited 682 days. Now he’s home.

And it’s not just dogs. Some cats had their own long waits. Josie spent 754 days here before her adoption, Lucille 750, Sunny 459. More than a year each. A cat who needs something specific from a home can be every bit as hard to place as any dog, and all three found their people this quarter. So did plenty of others across both species: Star (536 days), Jack (475), Wags (423), Bobby (406), and Sierra (378) among the dogs, and Duke (326), Diamond (310), and Louis (263) among the cats.

We helped all of them find homes in just the past 3 months.

I’ll tell you what I told the staff. We have to celebrate these accomplishments right now, because we’re simply running out of five-year dogs to throw parties for… and that day can’t come soon enough. The backlog we’re working through took years to build. Clearing it feels enormous because it is, and it’s a celebration. But there’s still a handful more that have been here WAY too long. And every day we’re doing everything in our power to find homes for adoptable pets and prioritize their quality of life.

Why We’re Seeing This

So, when I talk about how proud I am of this team for their hard work and dedication, this is what I’m talking about. A “great quarter” is easy to say and much harder to earn.

Back in the late spring we brought in Dogs Playing for Life, a nationally recognized program that trains shelters to run structured, supervised playgroups. We brought them in because we are pushing ourselves to do more, and DPFL’s approach is one of the most effective tools in the field for getting them unstuck. “Every dog, every day” is working toward enriching, cooperative play for every dog possible. Our DPFL trainer spent about 45 days embedded with us, working shoulder to shoulder with our staff and volunteers, building playgroups into the daily rhythm of the shelter and teaching our people to run them long after she left. Their standard is “every dog, every day,” and it’s ours now too.

Playgroups do more than burn off energy, though the enrichment is real and the dogs are visibly happier for it. They’re one of the best assessment tools we have. Watching a dog in a group tells us how they manage life with other dogs, what rattles them, what makes them happy and excited, and we learn what kind of home they’ll thrive in. That knowledge feeds straight into the rest of our process: the daily population rounds where we look at every animal, the pathway plan we build and revisit for each one, the unbelievably copious behavioral notes we painstakingly take the time to make that ultimately help a dog (and our team) find the right adopter. We act with urgency. And it’s the difference between dogs sitting in a kennels and a dogs actively moving toward a home.

And that’s it. I’d say it’s simple but it’s not. I keep coming back to it, but it’s hard work and dedication. And it’s the machinery behind the doubled dog adoptions and behind Rando, Louie, and every long-stay win above. This shelter decided to make a change. The team that shows up and runs it every single day are dedicated, thoughtful and focused. All of it was done while frankly hurtful online chatter, lies and misinformation swirled. And they did it with grace. In fact, you should come meet them. Tell them thanks yourself. I’m not kidding, we’re open every day but Mondays. Just hop on over and shake someone’s hand. They’ve earned it.

Where We Go From Here

Same as I said three months ago: we’re nowhere near finished. Not even close.

In fact, we’re just getting started. I think about how much more we’ll be able to do as we keep working through the animals who’ve waited the longest, giving every one of them our very best shot at a home.

So, wrapping up here’s how I’ll leave you. A high save rate isn’t something to hang on the wall and admire. It’s a result, not a cause. The cause is the people and the work. Our save rate is high and staying there because people keep showing up for the shelter pets, every day, animal by animal. The staff who know every dog and cat in the building. The volunteers who willfully gave us close to 8,700 hours of their lives in six months. The fosters who make room in their hearts and homes for pets who need a break. And of course, the supporters and donors who make all of it possible.

Thank you, all of you. If you adopted, fostered, volunteered, gave, shared a post, cheered us on, you helped build these numbers, and you’re part of every life inside them.

Okay, enough with the congrats. Let’s get back to work. Here’s to a second half that outdoes the first.