Our History
The History of Golden State Humane Society.
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1972
Golden State Humane Society (GSHS) was founded in 1972 by Robert J Fischer and the former Board of Directors of the Humane Society of the United States’ dissolved California Branch (HSUSCB). Included in our original Board of Directors was honorary member, Doris Day. Our first clinic was located on Haster Street in Garden Grove and services included birth control, health care, cruelty investigations, shelter, adoptions and education outreach.
1979
1979 saw a major increase in activity for GSHS. As city and county animal care agencies expanded in Orange County, we refined our focus and discontinued our investigation, shelter and adoptions programs, enabling us to increase birth control surgeries, health care and education outreach.
October 1979
In October 1979, we built and opened our second location in North Long Beach with generous donations of real estate and construction by HSUSCB and the Graham Family Trust. This much larger facility enabled us to aid a wider population of dogs and cats in need of birth control and basic veterinary care. We established a relationship with Long Beach Animal Care Services that continues to this day.
1981
By 1981, we were providing birth control surgeries and medical attention to nearly 33,000 dogs and cats per year. That number would continue to rise through the decades.
1987
In 1987, we moved our Garden Grove clinic to our current location on Gilbert Street.
2017
In 2017, we spayed and neutered nearly 10,000 dogs and cats, administered over 40,000 vaccines and provided basic healthcare to over 12,000 patients whose families could not afford the costs of private, full-service veterinary hospitals. Our interactive education programs for elementary and middle-school students across Orange County and South Los Angeles continues to provide valuable information about the importance of dog and cat birth control and basic health care.
2023
In 2023, we celebrated our grand re-opening!
