Find your forever friend at a local shelter or rescue

As Dean Daubert sees it, few experiences in life can bring more joy than the moment someone brings home a new furry friend.

“Everybody that has a dog or cat in their life is better for it,” he said.

And as CEO of Anderson Humane, Daubert certainly knows there is no shortage of opportunities for families to add that kind of joy to their households and their hearts.

Since 1966, South Elgin-based Anderson has helped unite pets with families in Kane County as one of the region’s most prominent pet shelters and animal rescue organizations.

That work over those decades has given Daubert and others on the Anderson team front-row seats to thousands of stories every year, in which an adopted dog, cat or other non-human addition to the family enriches the family’s existence in ways simple or even more profound.

Daubert says one of his favorites is the story of Alanna, a young local woman who struggled for years with functional neurological disorder, a condition that left her with “debilitating anxiety and non-epileptic seizures.”

The condition reportedly caused her to struggle in school and in maintaining relationships.

That changed in 2023, however, when she met and adopted Dahlia, a dog from Anderson Humane. From the start, Daubert said, Alanna reported that Dahlia seemed to anticipate her needs and provided a calming, reassuring presence that helped Alanna heal and overcome, for the first time. Alanna reportedly used her newfound mental and emotional balance to turn around her academic career, “reclaiming control of her life.”

“Dahlia wasn’t just a dog,” Anderson Humane wrote about Alanna’s story. “She was the reason Alanna found hope again.”

In addition to facilitating adoptions of dogs, cats and a variety of other animals, Anderson, through its staff and team of more than 1,100 volunteers, also provides low-cost veterinary care and other animal-related services for both domestic and wild creatures.

In 2024 alone, Anderson reported adopting out more than 3,800 pets, including 972 puppies, 742 adult dogs and 790 cats.

And the agency continued to build its strong and growing pet foster program. In 2024, Anderson reported 2,639 animals cared for in 693 foster homes, offering dogs and cats the opportunity to trade Anderson’s kennels for a loving family environment as they await their “forever homes,” as Daubert and others who work in the animal welfare field term it.

Today, 56% of the animals in Anderson’s care at any given moment are housed with fosters, Daubert said.

“The program has been a tremendous success for us, as it has incrementally grown for years,” he said.

And while demonstrating success, Daubert and others engaged in animal welfare said the continued growth also signals the continuing strong need for such animal rescue programs.

In 2024, for instance, Daubert said animal “surrenders”—in which pet owners voluntarily hand over their dogs, cats or other animals—increased 25% in 2024, as more than 1,000 animals were surrendered. Through the first six months of 2025, surrenders were up 35% year over year at Anderson, as well.

Such surrenders typically happen for economic reasons, he said, such as when people lose jobs, change jobs, move out of the area or to a new dwelling and can’t take their animals with them, or their financial or physical circumstances simply make it impossible for them to properly care for their animals any longer.

Lori Schutt, who serves as board president for Hoof Woof & Meow Animal Rescue of Elgin, agreed.

Hoof Woof & Meow is an entirely volunteer-run network of people that since 2012 has worked to rescue animals in need and “re-home” them as often as possible, Schutt said.

Hoof Woof & Meow rescues and “re-homes” about 400 animals every year, Schutt said.

She said the “amount of people that are re-homing their animals for various reasons” stands as the biggest challenge for her organization.

And while economics may serve as the leading driver of rescues, she added other causes can include pet owners overwhelmed by animal behavioral issues.

“The most difficult is when people adopt a puppy and do not do the proper training,” Schutt said. “Now the puppy is an out-of-control adult dog, and they can’t handle it. Instead of getting and following through with the proper training, they would rather give the dog back.”

Daubert said Anderson has committed to remedying some of those drivers of “surrenders.” The humane organization offers training programs for new animal owners and in the past year has launched a new “pet food pantry,” providing owners in need with up to a week’s supply of food, thanks to a grant through the Milstein Foundation.

“We want to make sure they don’t surrender an animal just because they can’t feed them right now,” Daubert said.

But the core of the mission for Anderson, Hoof Woof & Meow and other animal rescue operations remains facilitating adoptions, making them as fast and easy as possible, while demonstrating responsibility to the animals in their charge.

Both Hoof Woof & Meow and Anderson offer community events, at which people are invited to meet animals seeking new homes.

Prospective families, of course, can also browse available animals on the organizations’ websites.

Prospective pet owners can complete an adoption application on Hoof Woof & Meow’s website and then will need to go through the HWM adoption interview process to determine if a particular animal and family are a good fit.

“We don’t adopt on a first-come, first-serve basis, but try to match the best home for each animal,” HWM says on their website.

At Anderson, the shelter offers regular adoption hours every day of the week, allowing prospective pet owners the chance to visit with available animals. Families can also ask to arrange visits at the shelter with animals currently in foster care.

Once an animal and human have potentially bonded, families visit with adoption counselors, who will also help the family determine the best way forward toward adoption.

“We really work to make adoption as easy as possible,” Daubert said.

And, if everything works out, Daubert and Schutt said it is always their hope that loving families will be able to head home from their visits with a new “forever friend.”