With 265,000 Instagram followers and some A-list Hollywood clients that include rock legend Paul McCartney, the Labelle Foundation is becoming one of the top dogs in the animal rescue world.
The organization was co-founded by Laura Labelle and her daughter Sabrina in late 2018. Samantha Peraino, the head of operations, said the foundation was created out of a love for animals, a passion for animal rescue, and a vision.
The foundation’s goal is “to help the animals they rescue find loving forever families, save as many lives as possible, and educate on the importance of responsible dog ownership,” according to its mission statement.
Outside of their booming social media presence, events are one of many ways the people at the Labelle Foundation spread the word about the rescue.
During a Friday afternoon visit to the Labelle Foundation’s small headquarters located in the Wilshire Vita area, employees and volunteers were in the thick of preparing for an adoption event that weekend.
Peraino said that networking and events are how she, Laura, and Sabrina spread the word back in the rescue’s earlier days.
“Laura is fifth generation Angelina, so she grew up here and they do know a lot of people just in their day-to-day life,” Peraino said. “So I think that really helped, but then Sabrina - the daughter and co-founder - and myself..we would just go to every event we could go to. We would tell everyone we could about the Labelle Foundation.”
She credits the foundation's earlier success to a little bit of luck and a little bit of putting themselves out there.
“In the beginning, we said yes to everything,” she said. “People would be like, ‘OK, can we do a YouTube video with you guys?’ We would be like, ‘Yes!’, We would say yes to everything and then we were able to really grow it...and then COVID happened.”
The COVID Boom
The pandemic, Peraino said, was the foundation’s “booming time." The foundation was receiving 50 applications a day for dogs.
“During COVID, like in the height of COVID…we had a team working 24 hours a day to answer DMs because we were getting so many an hour,” she said. “We couldn't answer them all. Even today, we probably still get anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 DMs a day.”
She said the foundation was “super lucky” that the team and the foundation’s transporters were still willing to work.
“I think it was a credit to being a family-run business that we were like, we're with each other all day, every day anyways. We might as well be saving dogs,” she said.
And saving dogs they did. Peraino estimates they were saving 35 to 40 dogs a week during the pandemic.
Where do those cute pups and dogs come from?
Scrolling through the Labelle Foundation’s Instagram page, you’re greeted by one adorable dog after the other. From puppies to senior dogs, there are plenty of photos to warm the hearts of dog lovers.
But where do they come from?
“The majority of our dogs come from [the] Bakersfield shelters and city shelters and county shelters,” Peraino said. “There's two Bakersfield shelters - Kern County and then Bakersfield city- and that's where I would say probably 80% of our dogs come from. The remaining 20% are owners surrender. We get emails every single day [from] people emailing to surrender their animal and then probably about 5% of our dogs come from vet surrenders.”
Celebrity clients
Paul McCartney isn’t the only A-lister to adopt a dog from the foundation. Singer P!nk, and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ star Glen Powell also adopted their dogs from the foundation. But Peraino said they go through the application process, just like everyone else.
“It's just like everyone else, and even when they announce themselves, it's still pretty similar to everyone else,” she said. “I would just say we do ask if you're willing and open to it and telling people where you got your dog, we would be so grateful. No pressure that just helps spread the word otherwise it's completely the same for everyone. But some celebrities do reach out by DM and they're like, ‘Hey, I really want this dog [or they just apply like normal.]”
Misconceptions
But it’s far from a strictly star-studded rescue.
“I mean, we do about 100 adoptions a month and I would say we probably do maybe two celebrity adoptions a month, and so it just gets amplified a lot more than the average person,” Peraino said. “Like if I were to adopt a dog, maybe 100 people would see it on my Instagram. But if Glen Powell adopts a dog, tons of people see it.”
That’s not the only misconception about the foundation.
“Another misconception is that we have all the money in the world,” Peraino said. “People think that we are a very, very well-off rescue, which we are fortunate enough to be able to cover our bills. But it is no small feat like our full-time job besides saving dogs is raising money to save them.”
And saving dogs is costly.
“So if we charge $700 as an adoption fee for a dog, on average, if you take out payroll, all of our expenses, it costs us about $1200 to save them,” Peraino said. “So we're spending just a little bit less than an extra $600 per dog to save them. And that's crazy.”
It takes a village
Rescuing dogs, according to Peraino, is a team sport.
“Rescue takes a village, it takes a whole community,” she said.
“So we have our team here.
We have our transporters, we have our vets, we have our trainers, we have our doctors, we have our fosters, [and] we have our friends on social media who are sharing and amplifying. There are so many touch points we're grateful for everyone.”
The future of the Labelle Foundation
When I asked Peraino what the Labelle Foundation would look like 10 years from now, she said she wants to see it grow.
“Not just in terms of saving other dogs,” she said. “We are really trying to touch every point of responsible pet ownership.”
That’s when Laura Labelle, the foundation’s owner, chimes in.
“I would like for dog overpopulation to be over due to our efforts and that we no longer have to place dogs and save them from euthanasia,” Labelle said.
Peraino agrees. “We would love to be put out of a job,” she said. “We hope we hope that we are not doing what we're doing every day because the problem is getting a lot better.”
Labelle continues, “Currently, it's not. I've been doing this full-time for 12 years and it's way worse now than it was 12 years ago.
And it's not a rescue problem and it's not a shelter problem. It’s a societal problem. People need to be responsible for their animals. They need to spay and neuter and they have to understand that it's a commitment for the lifetime of their animal.”
Until then, the foundation is working to make sure every dog, no matter how big or small, is given their furever home.
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