25 Celebs Who Adopted Animals From Shelters Or Rescued Them From The Streets

Chris first met Dodger in an animal shelter that was used as a set for one of his filmographical projects. He didn’t realize at first that these weren’t trained movie dogs, but actual rescues up for adoption. He fell in love with Dodger and decided to adopt him. There is even a video of him meeting Dodger for the first time.

“I saw this big, dumb-looking retriever staring up at me… I whispered to him, ‘Hey, let’s get the hell out of here.’ And he jumped up, like he spoke English fluently. He came with me, he jumped in the car, and we’ve been best buddies ever since,” told Reynolds in an interview with ABC News. Did you expect any other rhetoric from him?

Hilary Swank has not one, not two, not three, but four dogs named Lucky, Karoo, Rumi, and Kai, all seen above. Swank has her very own animal shelter and she claims that she has already rescued and found homes for thousands of dogs through it.

A few months ago, Zac rescued a pit bull named Maca from the humane pet shop in LA. Reportedly, Maca was on her way to being euthanized when the pet shop rescued her, soon after which Zac came in and adopted her and gave her a forever home.

Meet Benjamin Button, Taylor Swift’s beloved ragdoll cat. Taylor saw Benjie on the set of one of her music videos, where she fell in love with him and decided to adopt him. Before this, he used to be a part of a company that does commercials that urged people to adopt. Now, he joins two of Taylor's other cats, Meredith and Olivia.

The Governator adopted the now 1-year-old dog named Dutch during the pandemic. He named the dog Dutch after his character in the movie Predator, leading to people joking how the Terminator adopted the Predator. Dutch is still getting used to Arnold’s two other animal companions, the pony Whiskey and donkey Lulu.

Selena Gomez is truly a dog person as she’s rescued seven dogs already. Her love for rescuing dogs came from her family and she is now a mom of six dogs: Willie, Baylor, Chip, Chaz, Wallace, Fina, and her latest addition Winnie, as seen above.

While working on the set of Big Love, she found a stray Australian shepherd, who she took in and named Finn. She explained that her anxiety has gotten better since taking him in, and we have no doubt Finn is happier that he now has a forever home with her.

Driver is a pit bull who had a bit of a rough childhood. He doesn’t have two of his toes and had a broken leg when Josh decided to take him in. This was after 110 days of Driver being in the shelter—each shelter has its own limit of days animals can stay there, and this one stayed for longer than usual, but it was worth it. He got very much-needed surgery and is now living puppily ever after with Hutcherson.

A bit over a year ago, Eva Mendes announced the addition of a doggo named Lucho to her family. She and her significant other Ryan Gosling adopted him from the Friends For Life Rescue Network.

Aniston recently announced a third addition to her pooch family named Lord Chesterfield, posting a picture where he is seen asleep with a bone in his mouth—adorable. He joined two of Aniston’s other doggies, Clyde, her Schnauzer mix, and Sophie, her white pit bull.

Zooey had no pets previously, so her boyfriend decided to get her a dog. They went to a shelter to look for one. They actually ended up getting two as Dot and Zelda were sisters and it would have been traumatic for them to be separated, especially after their affectionate display of sisterhood in the shelter—licking each other frantically.

Justin Theroux is also an animal lover and a long-time bully breed advocate, having tattoos of two of his previous doggos, and he also worked closely with Austin Pets Alive. During his work, he heard about Pooch, a dog that was left in bad shape after Hurricane Harvey, and ended up taking her home.

Barrymore is also a long-time animal lover and has saved over ten animals throughout her life. In 2017, she rescued Douglas, a doggo that was abandoned in the San Fernando valley fires, and a year later, she and her daughters went to adopt a kitten. They ended up adopting three—Lucky, Peach (seen above), and Fern.

Michele loves animals so much that she even once saved a 6-kitten litter that she found wandering around the Paramount Studios premises where she was filming Glee. She ended up adopting two of them, one of which is Sheila and the other Claude, while giving the others to Heather Morris and Glee’s directors.

Theron is an avid advocate of animal rights, having grown up on a farm in South Africa. She works with a number of animal rights organizations and has a number of rescue dogs, with two of them, Johnny Utah and Berkley, seen above. Her most well-known dog is Tucker, who she adopted back in 2001.

Brooks adopted Koda the husky from a shelter back in 2018, who at that time joined Lexi and Harley, the King Charles spaniels, who have unfortunately passed away since then.

Simon is the owner of four dogs now: Squiddly and Diddly, Yorkshire Terriers who joined the family in 2013. Since then, two other doggos were also adopted, namely Freddie and Daisy, as seen above. Freddie grew up with his mother, who had sadly passed away, and Simon inherited Freddie in 2016, while Daisy was a rescue picked up in Barbados in 2018.

Kellan has been a devout advocate of pet adoption as opposed to buying them from breeders—so much, in fact, that he was even featured in animal adoption campaigns with his other dog Kola. Now he’s the hooman companion of an Australian shepherd named Koda.

Liev is the proud companion of three rescues, Woody, Willow, and Scout. Woody and Willow were picked up from the set of Live with Kelly and Ryan, which featured them as rescues from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Just months ago, he adopted another pooch named Scout from Tobie's Small Dog Rescue.