Over the years, Bissell vacuum cleaners have become synonymous not only with basic house cleaning machines, but in more recent times, they have become a savior for pet owners who struggle to control pet hair issues and carpet stains inside the home.
But more than that, in addition to the products Bissell offers to make our floor-cleaning tasks easier, they’re also putting advanced efforts into helping rescue animals enjoy a better life, in many cases, before they even reach their furever homes. One of those most recent initiatives is their Fix the Future program.
First: A Little Bissell History
The Bissell story began in Grand Rapids, Michigan when Melville Bissell developed a way to remove sawdust from the floors in the crockery shop he and his wife Anna owned. While the hog bristles attached to rollers didn’t include a vacuum component, customers of the crockery shop were impressed with the invention and wanted it for themselves. Thus, a new business was born.
The device Melville created was patented as the Bissell Carpet Sweeper in 1876. Seven years later, the company’s first manufacturing plant was constructed and by the 1890s the company had an international presence—thanks in part to an endorsement by England’s Queen Victoria who was a big fan—and was producing 1,000 sweepers each day.
A Family Legacy
The propulsion—no pun intended—of the sweeper’s popularity actually came from Anna. When Melville passed away in 1889, she took over as the company’s leader, becoming the first female CEO in America. Through the years, she helped shape the future of what we know as the modern vacuum cleaner today.
Through the years, the company remained a family-owned entity, eventually introducing new concepts such as the manual carpet shampooer in 1956, the first vacuum/floor scrubber for hard surfaces in the late 1960s, and later the Gemini Sweeper, which was the first to offer dual-brush sweeping. They introduced the first carpet deep cleaning machine in 1979, and they were the first deep cleaner that had an onboard water source versus being connected to an exterior source such as the kitchen faucet.
In Walks Cathy
In the early 2000s, the company discovered that more than 70 percent of their customers were animal owners, which changed their target focus—not only in the products they offered, but in how they were viewed as a good corporate citizen. In 2001, they partnered with Petfinder.com to help increase adoption efforts, and in 2005 they introduced the SpotBot®, a portable deep cleaning machine designed specifically to tackle pet messes on carpets.
Even though she already had other dogs and a cat, Cathy’s real passion for helping animals started in 2008 when she adopted Bear, a six-year-old black Labrador Retriever she rescued from a local Humane Society who was given up because his family got a new puppy and didn’t have time for him (sound familiar?). In 2011, she founded the BISSELL Pet Foundation® (BPF) to support spay/neuter, adoption, microchipping, and foster care programs across the United States and Canada.
The Next Step
While the BISSELL Pet Foundation has awarded millions of dollars to animal welfare organizations, Cathy wanted to do more. In October 2023, BPF established BISSELL’s Fix the Future® free spay/neuter program to provide zero to low-cost spay and neuter services across the nation. While BPF seeks to help existing animals in need, Fix the Future strives to stop the problem of animal overpopulation by going straight to the source.
Many animal owners claim they do not have the financial resources needed to have their pet spayed or neutered, which usually ends up in unwanted pregnancies that eventually end up being a burden on animal rescues and shelters. The Fix the Future initiative aims to eliminate the number of unwanted animals to prevent suffering from overpopulation and neglect and promote responsible pet ownership.
Fix The Future®
Fix the Future was created to address the lack of access to veterinary care for both animal rescues and shelters, as well as individual pet owners. Rather than supplying grant funding for spay/neuter programs, the BISSELL Pet Foundation pays contracted veterinarians directly and connects them with approved host organizations, including animal shelters and rescues.
In addition to spay/neuter services, each pet that comes through the program also receives preventative vaccines and is microchipped. This not only prepares shelter and rescue pets for adoption, it provides low-cost options for pet owners who wouldn’t normally be able to afford to do what they need to do to keep their pets healthy and happy.
As of the end of 2024, more than 155 animal shelters and clinics have participated in this amazing initiative. Utilizing a pool of more than 180 relief veterinarians, more than 95,000 surgeries have been completed. Considering that a single female cat and her offspring can reportedly produce 420,000 kittens within seven years, and that a pregnant female dog’s gestation period is only about two months, and they can deliver a littler of anywhere from one to 12 puppies, the impact of this program is astronomical.
Get Involved
If you are an animal rescue or shelter that intakes a large number of male and female animals regularly, or if you are a veterinary clinic that works in rural areas where animal overpopulation is an issue but many of your clients may not be able to afford the service, you can apply to have Fix the Future help.
If you are interested in being a host organization for a Fix the Future program, check out their the BPF Host Checklist to see if you’re a good candidate. If you believe you meet the requirements, email [email protected] to be placed on a candidate consideration list.
For those who wish to make a cash gift to the cause, you can make an impactful difference. They also offer merchandise if you would like to make a “purchase with a purpose.”