Working toward a
day when all pets have
a home.

The BISSELL Pet Foundation is designed to address the growing problem of displaced, unwanted and homeless animals in the United States and to help every pet find a home. The Foundation recognizes the huge need of animal welfare organizations that struggle with limited resources but continue to work tirelessly on the front lines to save lives.

The Foundation was created in 2011 by Cathy Bissell, a lifelong pet lover and advocate. She is responsible for creating LostPetUSA.net^® with her sister, a free website that provides tools for reuniting lost pets with their families and spearheading BISSELL’s Partners for Pets, a program developed to assist animal welfare organizations with their fundraising efforts. As Director of Corporate Affairs for BISSELL Inc., Cathy provided over a decade of support for the adoption efforts of shelters and rescues around the country and found the need for
help was not going away, but growing. Forming the Foundation was a natural extension of her passion for animal welfare and provides a powerful tool to assist those groups that directly care for homeless pets until they are adopted.

One of Cathy’s biggest influences in the development of the Foundation was a loving and gentle black Labrador Retriever named Bear. After spending three weeks being overlooked in a kennel at a local humane society, Bear found a loving home with the Bissells, joining the family’s other two black Labs. Seeing Bear’s love and appreciation for his new family proved to be a turning point for Cathy and made her realize she needed to step in and advocate for adoption. The BISSELL Pet Foundation hopes to raise awareness of the amazing animals that can be found in our nation’s shelters and redefine the perception of a rescue dog or cat.