The Ryan Newman Foundation

The Ryan Newman Foundation encourages families to adopt pets from animal shelters and pet rescue groups and to spay and neuter family pets.

Pet Adoption

Animal shelters and pet rescue organizations across the country rescue and find homes for wonderful pets. All five of Ryan and Krissie’s beautiful, sweet, smart and friendly dogs are rescued. If you are looking for a mixed breed or purebred pet of any age, size and level of training, a shelter somewhere in driving distance from your home can help you make a love connection with the right pet for your family. To search for pets for adoption or pet rescue groups in your area, visit Petfinder.com.

The Pet Overpopulation Epidemic

Sadly, U.S. shelters have to euthanize an estimated 3-4 million cats and dogs each year simply because there are not enough homes for all the abandoned dogs, cats, puppies and kittens. The pet overpopulation epidemic is so staggering that for every animal born in the United States to have a home each and every human being would have to own 6 dogs and 9 cats. So, in actuality a family of four…2 parents and 2 small children would have to own 24 dogs and 36 cats. It costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated 2 billion each year to round up, house, kill and dispose of homeless animals.

The Spay/Neuter Solution

Spaying and neutering is the only way to permanently curb the proliferation of millions of unwanted and abandoned animals each year in the United States. Spay/neuter humanely reduces the number of healthy, homeless pets who are euthanized. For example, the Humane Alliance of Western North Carolina is a non-profit high volume, high quality, affordable spay/neuter clinic located in Asheville, NC. Since its inception, Humane Alliance has sterilized more than 275,000 dogs and cats in Western North Carolina.

Spay/neuter saves lives!

National Spay/Neuter Response Team

Ryan and Krissie Newman are spokespeople for the Humane Alliance’s National Spay Neuter Response Team (NSNRT). The NSNRT operates much like a NASCAR pit crew, sending groups of trained vets and veterinary technicians to help nonprofit organizations learn how to open spay/neuter clinics using the Humane Alliance model.

Through the NSNRT initiative, which began in 2005, the Humane Alliance’s team of facilitators has trained and mentored 42 organizations across the nation to successfully implement its high volume, high quality spay/neuter model. Those clinics will perform an estimated 300,000 spay/neuter surgeries per year. Additionally a total of 36 nonprofit organizations around the country have applied to open low-cost, high-volume, high-quality spay/neuter clinics within the coming year. These nonprofit spay/neuter clinics will partner with hundreds of local animal shelters and rescue groups in their regions across the nation.

Spay/Neuter Your Family Pet

If your family pet is unsterilized, please consider spaying/neutering your furry loved one for the health and well-being of your pet and to stop unwanted litters. Fixing your pet will not only protect you from ending up with an unwanted litter of puppies and kittens that you have to find homes for, but it can also improve your pet's health and behavior. To learn more about why to spay/neuter your pet, visit SPAY USA's Benefits of Spay/Neuter website.

To see a list of NSNRT spay/neuter clinics across the nation, visit our NSNRT Spay/Neuter Clinics website. Contact your local clinic or family veterinarian to schedule your pet's spay/neuter surgery today.

Hurricane Katrina

In September 2005, a month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, Krissie Newman volunteered alongside Ryan Newman Foundation Executive Director Rosalie De Fini and Ryan Newman Motorsports executive assistant Michelle Croom. The group traveled to Gulfport, Mississippi with a busload of supplies for people and their pets and a tractor trailer load of pet food donated by Purina. The group spent a week traveling to New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and Slidell, Louisiana to distribute the supplies and food to Hurricane Katrina victims.

The Ryan Newman Foundation also donated $19,000 in grants to nonprofit animal welfare organizations that were rescuing abandoned animals and helping families with pets. When Krissie Newman and Rosalie De Fini returned to the Gulf Coast in July 2006 to welcome the Big Fix Rig—a project of the National Spay/Neuter Response Team–into St. Bernard Parish, LA, they visited two of the organizations that received those grants—the Humane Society of South Mississippi and St. Francis Animal Sanctuary.

This experience opened our eyes about the tremendous need for disaster training for the pets and families with pets who are victims of disasters in our country. The Ryan Newman Foundation and Regan Smith Racing co-sponsored the American Humane Basic Animal Emergency Services Training in Charlotte, NC in July 2008.