The Animal Welfare Society is a private, non-profit humane society that was founded in the 1960s by a people devoted to helping animals. Located in West Kennebunk, Maine, the Society promotes kind treatment of animals as well as the elimination of animal cruelty and neglect. The goal of the Animal Welfare Society is to provide care and humane animal shelter housing to homeless animals. The Society is also deeply involved in community outreach and in teaching public awareness about animal welfare issues as well as adoption. Important animal issues to be aware about include the importance of spaying and neutering pets (an issue also discussed in the Earthlings movie), the lifelong commitment of owning a pet, and the common link between animal abuse and other types of abuse such as child and spousal abuse. The Animal Welfare Society offers a variety of important outreach programs to disseminate these messages to the local community including classroom visits, shelter tours, community presentations, and high school community service programs.

In the Earthlings documentary, companion animal welfare is one of the important issues covered. The narrator, Joaquin Pheonix, discusses the difference between the two types of animal shelter euthanasia. Though most people believe that all animal shelter pets are euthanize with the humane lethal injection shot, this is often not the case. Many humane societies are extremely overcrowded and cannot afford the expensive euthanasia shots to put dogs and cats down one by one. In these cases, many shelters use horrific gas chambers in which the dogs are piled into on top of each other. The dogs then experience an uncomfortable, long death by suffocation that takes up to twenty minutes. Clearly, pet overpopulation and the unwillingness of all pet owners to spay or neuter is an issue that has dire consequences.