08/20/2025
AUGUST MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: ALL ABOUT ANIMALS
In southeast Michigan, there’s an organization that every rescue and TNR team knows. It’s All About Animals Rescue (AAAR), headquartered in Warren, with additional locations in Flint, Auburn Hills and Detroit.
With a clear vision to end pet homelessness, suffering and unnecessary euthanasia, All About Animals launched in 2005 as a foster-based rescue in Macomb County to help adoptable cats and dogs find forever homes.
“We quickly understood our efforts would continually fall short of the need if we didn’t seek to prevent homelessness before it began,” said Amber Sitko, president and founder, All About Animals. “A lightbulb went off while attending a talk on high-volume spay/neuter at a PetSmart Charities conference. ‘Spay one, prevent 100.’
“Economically and strategically, it was brilliant. Play the long game to prevent hundreds of thousands of future homeless pets with a nominal investment per animal sterilized. It was exactly what we were looking for to make the biggest impact for animals.”
In 2008, All About Animals opened its first spay/neuter clinic to the public, then another in 2017. Fast forward to 2025 and All About Animals is now the largest high-quality, high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter, animal welfare organization in Michigan, if not the nation.
Inclusive in its No More Homeless Pets mission is a robust Trap Neuter Return (TNR) program, walk-in wellness services, off-site “shot clinics,” spay/neuter transports and its Detroit Pets for Life program. The goal is to proactively prevent unwanted litters and keep pets in loving homes.
“In 2010, we started holding monthly in-person TNR trainings on best practices and colony management,” said Sitko. “Instead of trying to take on TNR ourselves, we empower community members to address the spay/neuter needs of cats in their neighborhoods.”
Participants in All About Animals’ TNR trainings are entitled to discounted sterilization and rabies vaccines for community cats returning to their colonies where they were trapped.
Purchasing hundreds of Tru Catch traps and trap dividers each year, making them readily available for loan or sale, and offering weekly walk-in TNR days year-round to encourage timely spay/neuter, All About Animals is supporting people to help community cats everywhere they work, play and live.
“In 2013, we partnered with Macomb County Animal Control to meet with cities within Macomb County to discuss the merits of TNR versus catch-and-kill methods, helping to establish Return to Field as the preferred outcome,” said Sitko. “In 2020, we added an online TNR class, making it easier for people far away or with transportation challenges to still learn best practices.”
In the last 10 years, more than 5,000 people have completed TNR training and nearly 90,000 community cats have been spayed or neutered, making a major dent in the cycle with each one sterilized.
“From the beginning, we knew access to affordable wellness care was an important piece of addressing the homeless crisis,” said Sitko. “The more you can help people take care of their pets’ veterinary needs, the less animals will find themselves homeless or euthanized due to illness. Keep them healthy, help keep them in the home. It’s also a terrific opportunity to talk to pet owners about spay/neuter and pet care.”
As part of its mission to keep pets healthy, All About Animals teams up with cities, animal control agencies and shelters to hold large-scale walk-in vaccination clinics in the spring and fall. Last year, 11 clinics were held with 4,500 pets receiving services.
“Transport vans help us strategically extend our spay/neuter reach into low-income communities, which typically have higher rates of transportation issues,” said Sitko. “Average scheduling is 10 to 15 dogs, along with 25 to 30 cats, at a time. These climate-controlled vans have helped thousands of people gain access to sterilization for their animals.”
Boots on the ground outreach is the cornerstone to All About Animals’ Detroit Pets for Life program.
For the past 12 years, residents in four different zip codes have had a consistent ally with easy access to pet care questions and to free vet care. Pets are sterilized, microchipped and vaccinated at no charge.
The relationships built through the Detroit Pets for Life program have helped earn the trust of many who previously had no interest in spay/neuter.
“Our priority and goals as an organization are centered around breaking down barriers to spay/neuter and vet care,” said Sitko. “That means ramping up services we already provide. With the ongoing national veterinarian and veterinary technician shortage continuing to worsen, getting fully staffed to programing needs remains a top goal.”
As prices keep rising and service availability at other clinics continues to diminish, All About Animals is experiencing an unprecedented surge in demand from pet owners seeking affordable veterinary help and ways to surrender pets or strays.
The national veterinary staff shortage has a direct impact on animal welfare’s ability to meet the current needs of at-risk and homeless animals and pet owners’ ability to access vet care.
Animal welfare organizations continue to weather the perfect storm, created by the unending staff shortage, the COVID-19 pandemic, the present housing crisis affecting millions of pet owners pressured to give up their pets or be homeless, the exorbitant inflation of costs for pet goods and veterinary care, which is outpricing people’s ability to care for pets and diminishing donations, the ongoing ICE deportations causing pets to be suddenly left homeless, and the overworked medical staff and overwhelmed, emotionally fatigued animal welfare workers with no room for another surrendered animal or stray unless another animal is euthanized.
“We’re seeing an erosion of decades of gains we had collectively made for the animals,” said Sitko.
Unfortunately, Michigan is not exempt from the massive shortage of veterinarians and technicians that is crippling pet care across the country.
The good news is results are being realized from Michigan Pet Alliance and many other animal welfare organizations raising the alarm.
Last year, Colorado voters passed Proposition 129, creating a new veterinary midlevel practitioner position known as a veterinary professional associate.
Progressive moves like this free up veterinarians to focus on complex diagnoses and surgeries, while lower level positions handle simpler procedures.
In Michigan, animal welfare organizations, including Michigan Pet Alliance, are championing HB 4220/4221/SB 193/194, known as the telehealth bills.
This pending legislation removes the requirement that a veterinarian-patient relationship be established in person prior to a telehealth appointment, reverting back to the same practice that worked well during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This change is necessary to reduce barriers and to increase access to much needed vet care for families and for animal shelters.
As for the future, Sitko said, “we’re most looking forward to getting fully staffed to provide expanded care services and continue advocating on the local and state level for what’s best for animals and the people who care for them. For example, the latest telemedicine bill, HB 4220/4221, would help eliminate many barriers around helping pets virtually.”
For 2025, All About Animals is full of celebrations, reflecting on some true wins over the years. More than 430,000 cats and dogs sterilized, 10 years of championing high-volume TNR with nearly 90,000 community cats sterilized and 5,000 people trained, embracing telemedicine and opening its Flint clinic, which allowed the organization to double the number of pets benefiting from greater access to care, are all accomplishments worth celebrating.
Michigan Pet Alliance is incredibly proud to have All About Animals as a nonprofit member.
UPCOMING SHOT CLINICS:
September 20, 2025: Fall DPW Shot Clinic, Warren, All About Animals Rescue: https://www.facebook.com/share/19TcMrXjov/
September 27, 2025: Pontiac Oaks Park Vaccine, Heartworm and Microchip Clinic, Pontiac, All About Animals Rescue: https://www.facebook.com/events/1126279415935073
