ALIVE Rescue

Do not turn up unannounced

ALIVE Rescue's Chicago adoption center is at 1214 W Monroe Street, in the West Loop, and the most important thing on this page is that it is not a drop-in shelter. In the rescue's own words, "the Adoption Center isn't regularly open to the public" — instead "we often have Open Houses on Saturdays and Sundays," with the dates posted on its own events page.

So the trip to make is to a scheduled open house, not to the address on a weekday afternoon.

Two statements about the same building, and which one to go by

The rescue's contact page still reads, undated: "The Adoption Center is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic! We are still doing adoptions." Its adoption-center page gives the more specific and more recent-sounding account above — not regularly open, open houses at weekends.

Go by the open-house wording, because it is the page about this building and it describes an arrangement rather than an emergency. But the plainer reading of both together is the useful one: adoptions happen, and the building is not somewhere you can simply visit. Check the events page, or email before you plan anything.

The site's footer still carries a 2021 copyright line, while its fundraising pages advertise a 2026 event — so the organisation is active and the website is unevenly maintained. Treat anything undated on it with that in mind.

What it is, and what it does not say

ALIVE Rescue takes in dogs and cats and places them through fostering and adoption, with an application process set out on its own site. It does not state its admission model anywhere — not open-admission, not limited-admission, not no-kill — and this listing is not going to assign it one. In this category the model is the fact that matters most, and a rescue that has not published it has not published it. If it matters to you, ask when you email.

It publishes three locations and a street address for only one of them. Besides this adoption center, there is a rescue operation in Memphis, Tennessee and a shelter and sanctuary called The Big Barn in Salem Lakes, Wisconsin, which the site says is now open. This directory covers Chicago, so this listing is the Monroe Street center only.

Getting in touch

There is no phone number published anywhere on the rescue's site. Contact runs through email, and the addresses are split by purpose: general enquiries and adoptions at info@aliverescue.org, volunteering and donations through their own addresses on the contact page. Post goes to a PO box rather than to Monroe Street.

If you are looking for a lost dog

Start with Chicago Animal Care and Control at 2741 S Western Avenue — the city's open-admission shelter, where a dog found anywhere in Chicago is most likely to have been taken. A private rescue chooses which animals it takes; CACC cannot, which is why it is the first place to look rather than the last.