There are 1.5 million shelter animals euthanized each year in the United States as a result of overcrowded shelters and a lack of adoptive homes. People also tend to buy pets instead of adopting them from a shelter. In order to find adopted homes for these animals, animal rescue organizations must often get creative.

In an effort to get more attention and help their animals find new homes, Niagara SPCA from New York partnered with Just Pizza & Wing Co. in Amherst.

In an effort to further assist the dogs in need, Kimberly LaRussa, an SPCA event coordinator, and Mary Alloy, the owner of Just Pizza & Wing, brainstormed. Together, they developed a truly amazing and genius idea. To ensure that adoptable dogs have a chance to find their forever homes, they decided to put flyers of adoptable dogs on pizza delivery boxes

Pizza customers will receive an especially cute treat as a thank you for purchasing their food and helping out a community organization at the same time. The best part? Anyone who adopts one of the dogs on the pizza box flyer will win a $50 gift card for the pizza shop.

Many people in the community embraced the idea and were fascinated by it. The first day after the campaign was launched, six-month-old puppy Larry found a home. The other pets also caught the attention of many potential owners. We hope that they will be as lucky as Larry!

Kimberly was overwhelmed, saying, “We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest and support from the community and beyond since the story went viral on Friday. Many people want to order a pizza just to get the shelter dog photo, other pizzerias have offered to put flyers on their pizza boxes, and so many people are tagging their friends and family.”

If you love this awesome idea, please share it with everyone around you! We hope that many shelters and organizations will adopt this idea to help every shelter pet find its forever home.