Our Mission

Prince William Animal Advocates is a non-profit organization that was formed in 2020 to support the programs of the Prince William County Animal Shelter.

OUR VISION is for all adoptable animals at Prince William County Animal Shelter to find a loving home. PWAA is dedicated to ensuring dignity and quality of life for all animals in Prince William County and to the well-being and adoption of animals at the Prince William County Shelter.  PWAA’s function is to financially assist in providing the care necessary to ensure they are as healthy as possible when adopted, support the Shelter volunteers, and promote pet health, spay/neuter services, and education through community outreach. 

Our Goals


Raise awareness of all the animals currently at the shelter, and in particular the animals who need wider exposure, in order to find the right adopter through community outreach. 


Provide financial assistance as a non-profit 501c3 for shelter animals who require emergency veterinary care, extensive diagnostic testing, or additional outpatient care in order to provide the environment necessary for them to thrive while in foster care.


Connect shelter adopters with resources and information to ensure long term successful adoption.


Support other community initiatives when needed to improve the health and well-being of all homeless animals in Prince William County.

Our Story

In the summer of 2019, as the dog walking program at the Prince William County Animal Shelter was getting underway, a few of its participants were looking for ways to do more to spotlight the dogs – help network them, get them noticed. They knew Dave’s Dogs, a local food truck that donates all of its tips towards helping hard to adopt shelter animals find new homes, had a far reach and an army of supporters. And luckily one of them knew Karen, Dave’s sister, who manages his shelter initiative. So began an informal collaboration that involved Karen using social media for sharing the walkers’ pictures and stories and the walkers giving Dave’s Dogs their thoughts and suggestions on how to help under-noticed and struggling animals. Our pictures of shelter dogs outside and smiling during the very best part of their day changed the perceptions of shelter dogs for a lot of people in the community and we believe helped to speed up adoptions for a lot of these overlooked dogs.

The collaboration organically grew into a team of like-minded friends that was continually passing around a hat to take up funds for sponsoring animals of all kinds, getting them the veterinary care to make them more adoptable and in some cases raising money for life-saving treatments. What we noticed is what made us different – six days a week there is at least one of us at the shelter meeting new animals and figuring out how to get them into their forever homes faster. We are kitten and cat fosters, puppy and dog fosters, fundraisers, pet owners, dog walkers, and street kitty rescuers, but most of all we are advocates. With these various roles comes more ideas about improving the lives of animals in all areas of the shelter’s care and throughout all stages of their adoption journey, from providing supplies for a new puppy foster program to paying for neuters so that long term residents can go home the same day they are adopted, making them more attractive. And so we were inspired to use our ideas and insights to make our collaboration a non-profit dedicated to supporting the Prince William County Animal Shelter and its animals.

As a non-profit, individuals can make tax-deductible contributions to help PWAA support and expand these efforts, as well as to strengthen our ability to develop partnerships with other organizations for services such as training for new adopters and resources to ensure successful adoption outcomes.