SALEM — At 9 a.m. one day last week, a minivan with West Virginia plates pulled into the parking lot behind the Northeast Animal Shelter (NEAS) in Salem. Caged in back were 22 dogs: 7 adults and 15 puppies. All healthy, all adorable. Having survived a 15-hour car ride, they yelped with relief as shelter workers greeted them with smiles and hugs — and a few tears, too.

Back home, these dogs had been deemed all-too-expendable; had they not made it to Salem, they would almost certainly have been euthanized. On this sunny springtime day, however, they were well on their way to new homes, and to owners eager to care for them.

While the dogs were being taken inside for a 48-hour quarantine period and medical checkup, Dina Wood, a volunteer with the Monroe County (W. Va.) Animal League, talked with shelter staffers about her next trip north. Her organization had sent more than 4,000 dogs to the Salem shelter, she said. More would soon be arriving. “They do great work, here,” said a road-weary Wood.

So began another busy day at NEAS, one of New England’s oldest and largest “no-kill” shelters. Here, hundreds of dogs and cats are placed with adoptive owners each month. Not one is put down because the shelter has run out of room or can no longer care for the animal. And just as the animals are screened, so are potential owners.

Some of the animals are rescued strays. Many are so-called private surrenders, given up voluntarily because an owner is moving away, has developed allergy issues, or for a host of other reasons. Still other animals, like the West Virginia group, come in through the shelter’s Puppies Across America program, a rescue network spread over a dozen states and Puerto Rico.

Since opening in 1976, NEAS has placed more than 100,000 animals in homes around New England. Last year, 4,400 dogs and cats passed through the facility, for periods ranging from a few hours — puppies and kittens go the fastest, staffers say — to a couple of weeks, on average. Their goal this year is 5,000 adoptions, each costing between $50 and $500, fees that include shots and spaying or neutering if needed.

“Until recently, the [kill] rate was around 90 percent” at animal shelters across the US, says Cindi Shapiro, NEAS founder and president. “That’s declining, because there’s more awareness that it just isn’t right.”

Still, Shapiro says, NEAS, whose “no-kill” policy has never wavered, only accepts animals that can be successfully placed, a labor-intensive process that includes screening prospective owners, too.