Last year, nationwide

597,000

dogs and cats were euthanized in American shelters. About 1,600 every day.

Not because they were sick or dangerous — because there was no room and no money. Half of every parking dollar this lot takes in goes to Denison Animal Welfare Group.

Adopt, don't shop Do this with your lot

320,000Dogs, U.S.

277,000Cats, U.S.

#1Texas ranks worst

50%Of this lot, to DAWG

2025 national figures. Sources →

Parking here

327 West Crawford Street, Denison

STEP 1

Park in a numbered space

STEP 2

Scan the code on the sign

STEP 3

Pay $10–$20, plus $1

By phone, or inside NTX BBQ Supply. The $1 covers card processing.

STEP 4

Half the parking goes to DAWG

Not half of what's left after fees. Half of the rate.

327 West Crawford Street Denison, TX 75020

Rate: $10–$20 per vehicle, set by the event, plus a $1 service fee.
Time limit: Event parking only. Vehicles must be off the lot by midnight on the day of the event.
Season passes: Available for varsity games only, limited to 10 passes per season. Ask about availability before the season starts.
Payment: Scan the code at your space, or pay inside NTX BBQ Supply — we stay open during events.
The service fee: The $1 covers card processing. It is not part of the split, and it does not come out of the shelter's half.
Where the parking goes: 50% of the parking rate to Denison Animal Welfare Group, a no-kill 501(c)(3) founded in 2014. Park in a $20 space and $10 goes to DAWG.
The other half: Goes back into the lot — seal coat, striping, lighting, and upkeep.

Where your half goes

Denison Animal Welfare Group

A no-kill 501(c)(3) founded in 2014, three miles up Eisenhower Parkway. They report a 99% live release rate over their first three years. Leo and Ruby came from here.

See adoptable pets Donate directly

Adopt, don't shop. There is no shortage of dogs and cats who already need you.

Why it has to be adoption

Why It Matters

The numbers nobody puts on a billboard

This number has fallen roughly 60% since 2017, when the ASPCA still put it at 1.5 million. The work moves the needle. It just isn't finished.

597,000 dogs and cats euthanized in U.S. shelters and rescues in 2025

2025, nationally

Where 5.8 million animals ended up

In 2025, 5.8 million dogs and cats entered U.S. shelters, pounds and rescues — most as strays (59%), about 30% surrendered by owners. Intake fell 2% and adoptions rose to 4.2 million. That progress is real. So is the bar at the bottom.

Adopted

4,200,000

Returned to owner

638,000

Euthanized

597,000

Bars scaled against 5,800,000 — total dogs and cats entering U.S. facilities in 2025

Outcomes do not sum to intake — animals are also transferred between organizations and some remain in care at year end.

Texas

We live in the state with the worst number

Best Friends Animal Society's 2025 data puts Texas first in the nation for killing healthy, treatable pets — even after an 11% drop in a single year. The gap left is a countable number of animals.

78,800 Animals short of no-kill 46,600 dogs and 32,000 cats still need saving for Texas to reach a 90% save rate.

77% Texas save rate Thirteen points below the 90% threshold that defines no-kill.

194/391 Texas shelters at no-kill Nearly half. Another 82 are within 100 animals of getting there.

The mechanics

Why shelters need money, not just goodwill

Space is the binding constraint

A shelter has a fixed number of runs. When they're all full and a stray comes in, something has to give.

Medical care decides adoptability

Heartworm treatment, mange, a broken leg. A few hundred dollars often separates "treatable" from "adoptable" — and that gap is where euthanasia decisions actually live.

Small rescues run on small gifts

To a volunteer-run 501(c)(3), a few hundred predictable dollars a month isn't a rounding error. It's a line item.

Sources

Every figure on this page is linked to its published source. If a number here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

ASPCA — U.S. Animal Shelter Statistics, 2025 figures compiled from Shelter Animals Count: intake, adoptions, euthanasia, stray and owner-surrender shares.
Shelter Animals Count — 2025 Annual Data Report: national intake and outcome totals, year-over-year change.
ASPCA (2017): the 1.5 million estimate the current figure is measured against.
Best Friends Animal Society — Texas 2025 shelter data: state ranking, save rate, no-kill shelter count, animals short of no-kill.
Denison Animal Welfare Group — About: founding year, 501(c)(3) status, mission, reported live release rate.

Adopt, Don't Shop

Stop buying animals.

There is no shortage of dogs or cats in America. There is a shortage of homes. Every puppy or kitten bought from a breeder or a pet store is one made to meet demand — while an animal the same age, the same size, with the same life left in it sits in a cage waiting on a deadline.

What you are funding

The legal minimum is worse than most people picture

More than 2,000 commercial dog breeders hold federal USDA licenses. A licensed, fully compliant, never-cited facility can legally do all of the following to a breeding dog for her entire life:

Keep her in a wire-floored cage six inches longer than her body in each direction, stacked on top of other cages.
Never let her out of it. There is no federal exercise requirement, and USDA inspectors do not cite for lack of socialization.
Breed her at nearly every cycle, litter after litter, with no required recovery between them.
Sell every puppy she produces to a broker, a pet store, or a website with a photo of a field on it.

"USDA licensed" is a floor, not a seal of approval. It means an inspector has confirmed the dogs are healthy enough to keep reproducing. Cattery breeding operations run on the same logic with even less oversight.

Cats especially

Cats are the half of this nobody talks about

More cats enter U.S. shelters than dogs. They are the only half of the problem still getting worse — while shelter deaths fell 5% for dogs in 2025, they rose 4% for cats. A stray dog is six times more likely to be reunited with an owner than a stray cat is.

3,000,000Cats entered shelters

277,000Cats euthanized

+4%Cat deaths, year over year

Adopt in pairs when you can. Two bonded cats are easier to place, easier to live with, and twice the cages emptied.

The arithmetic

One adoption clears two cages

The one who leaves

Dog or cat, they go home. That is the part everyone sees.

The one who takes the space

The next stray through the door has somewhere to go. That is where lives are actually saved.

The litter that never happens

Shelter adoptions come altered. Breeder purchases signal demand for one more litter.

If you want something specific

You can still be picky. Just be picky in a shelter.

Want a puppy or kitten? Shelters take them in year-round, and every spring brings a flood of both.
Want a specific breed? Breed-specific rescues exist for nearly every dog breed, and for Siamese, Maine Coons, Persians and more.
Want a known personality? A foster animal comes with weeks of notes from someone who lived with it. A puppy or kitten from anywhere is a coin flip.
Want a small dog? Chihuahuas and small mixes are among the most common dogs in American shelters.
Want a quiet, low-effort cat? Adult cats are the easiest animals in any shelter to live with, and the hardest to place.

Search adoptable pets near you Adopt-a-Pet Best Friends Animal Society

Can't adopt right now? Foster, or help fund a spay/neuter clinic. Both create room in a shelter that has none.

For Property Owners

Nationwide program — coming soon

You already own the ground.

Paved, gravel, caliche, or grass — if your lot sits empty nights and weekends, it is a fundraiser you have not switched on yet.

Park4Paws is opening to property owners nationwide. Our lot in Denison, Texas is the pilot. The program goes live once the signage, QR payment system, and shelter-remittance setup are finished — and the lots on our list get set up first.

Any shelter working toward no-kill can partner with us — including the ones that haven't gotten there yet. A shelter sitting at 78% usually isn't failing. It's underfunded.

Send us a message

Or email us directly at park4paws2026@gmail.com

The program

What you'll get when the nationwide program launches

Signage package

Numbered space signs, a QR code printed for maximum scanner contrast, and one entrance sign stating the rate, the time limit, and the 50% split.

Phone payment, set up for you

Scan, pay, receipt. No app download and no account creation — or you lose half the cars at the sign.

A shelter partner in your county

Local matters. People pay more readily for a rescue they've heard of, and a small 501(c)(3) feels the money more than a national one does. No save-rate requirement to qualify.

The 50/50 template

The remittance schedule, the public reporting, and the language that makes the promise credible. The promise is the product — the moment it gets fuzzy, the whole thing stops working.

What we ask in return

Put your half back into the lot

50% 50%

To your local shelter Back into your property

Half the parking rate goes to the shelter — off the top, before anything else. We ask that you spend your half keeping the property looking good: a fresh seal coat, restriping, patched potholes, a working light, trimmed edges.

It isn't a rule we can enforce, and it isn't charity either: a clean, well-lit, freshly sealed lot earns more per event and protects the asset you already own. A shabby lot makes the whole program look shabby. Everyone who parks here should be able to see where their money went.

Straight answers

What we have learned so far

Event nights carry the whole thing. A lot near a stadium, theater, or downtown square earns more in six Friday nights than in a month of weekdays.
Put the time limit on the sign. Ours is midnight on event day. Ambiguity is how you end up towing a car and losing a customer for good.
Cap your season passes. Sell too many and you have no inventory on the night that matters.
Payment processing is the hard part, not the signage. Splitting funds to a nonprofit has real rules around it. Settle that before you print anything.
Publish what you sent. A dollar figure and a date. Cheapest trust you'll ever buy.
Don't skip the shelter that's struggling. No-kill means a 90% save rate. In Texas alone, 82 shelters are within 100 animals of hitting it. Funding a shelter at 85% is how it becomes a shelter at 91% — walking past it because the number is low is backwards.

Get on the list

Tell us about your lot

Send us where the lot is, roughly how many spaces you'd dedicate, and the shelter you have in mind. We'll come back to you when the nationwide program opens.

Send us a message

park4paws2026@gmail.com

Our Story

Leo and Ruby started this.

How two shelter dogs and an empty parking lot turned into Park4Paws.

Michael holding his two small rescue dogs, Leo and Ruby, in front of the Denison Animal Welfare Group sponsor banner at a DAWG fundraising event. — Leo and Ruby's wedding day. DAWG married them at one of their events — tuxedo, dress, the whole production. Both were adopted from Denison Animal Welfare Group.

Leo and Ruby came out of Denison Animal Welfare Group. Neither was anybody's first pick — a scruffy little mix and a one-eyed chihuahua — and between them they have run the house ever since.

DAWG later married them at one of their events, which is the photo here. One of the two also holds a first-place ribbon from a DAWG competition for sneezing on command. Nobody taught him that. He simply worked out that it got a reaction and made it his whole personality.

I run a business in North Texas and I have sponsored DAWG's events for years. Standing at those events, one thing got obvious: a rescue this size doesn't need a grand gesture. It needs a few hundred predictable dollars a month for heartworm treatment, kennel food, and spay surgeries. That's the difference between a dog who gets adopted and a dog who doesn't.

And I had a parking lot sitting empty on event nights.

So the lot at 327 West Crawford splits every dollar it takes in, fifty-fifty, with DAWG. This is the first one. The plan is to hand the model to any property owner who will listen — anywhere there's a shelter down the road and an empty lot on a Friday night.

Email Park4Paws Bring it to your lot

The lot

327 West Crawford Street
Denison, TX 75020

Event parking, $10–$20. Vehicles off the lot by midnight on the day of the event. Varsity season passes limited to 10.

Contact

park4paws2026@gmail.com

Questions about the lot, season passes, or starting a Park4Paws lot of your own.

Denison Animal Welfare Group

3307 S Eisenhower Pkwy, Denison, TX 75020
(903) 361-4211

denisonanimalwelfaregroup.org · Donate directly

Park4Paws is an independent effort. Denison Animal Welfare Group is the beneficiary of this lot's 50% split, not the operator of the lot. Donations made directly to DAWG go entirely to DAWG.