An animal rescue group or animal rescue organization is dedicated to pet adoption. These groups take unwanted, abandoned, abused, or stray pets and attempt to find suitable new homes for them. Many rescue groups are created by and run by volunteers, who take the animals into their homes and care for them—including training, playing, handling medical issues, and solving behavior problems—until a suitable permanent home can be found.

Rescue groups exist for most types of pet—for example, rabbit rescue or bird rescue, but are most common for dogs and cats. For animals with many breed types, many rescue groups specialize in specific breeds or groups of breeds. For example, for dogs, there might be local Labrador Retriever rescue groups, hunting dog rescue groups, large-dog rescue groups, as well as general dog rescue groups.

Animal shelters often work closely with rescue groups, because shelters who have difficulty placing otherwise healthy and pet-worth animals would usually rather have the animal placed in a home than euthanized; while the shelters might run out of room, rescue groups can often find more volunteers with space in their homes for temporary placement. In the UK, both shelter and rescue organisations are described using the blanket term rescue, whether they have their own premises, buy in accommodation from commercial kennels, or operate a network of foster homes, where volunteers keep the animals in their homes until adoption.

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