Leashes Of Love Rescue, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) dog rescue organization based in Lake Forest, Orange County, run entirely by volunteers who work from their own homes. The group focuses on pulling dogs from high-kill shelters across Southern California and giving them a real shot at landing a permanent home. Rather than operating a physical facility, they rely on a network of foster homes throughout the community where dogs live while waiting for adoption.

What sets this rescue apart is how they handle the transition period. Dogs aren’t just stored in kennels—they’re actually living in homes with people, which means they’re already adjusted to regular household life by the time they meet potential adopters. The volunteer foster families provide medical care, basic training, and honestly, just help the dogs decompress from the stress of shelter life. The rescue handles all the vetting, behavioral assessment, and matching process to make sure adoptions actually work out.

They organize adoption events regularly where you can meet available dogs in a low-pressure setting. If you’re considering adoption, you get a real sense of each dog’s personality from the volunteers who’ve been living with them, not just a kennel card with limited info. The organization also works with people who want to foster temporarily—which is huge if you’re considering adoption but want to test-drive living with a dog first.

Since they’re all-volunteer, their overhead is minimal, meaning almost all donations go directly to medical care, food, and supplies for the dogs in their foster network. If you’re looking to adopt and want to work with people who know their dogs intimately, or if you want to volunteer or foster in the Lake Forest area, their website has current dogs available and information about getting involved.