I got Cherokee from my sister, who apparently lies a lot about how she got her, so... Last I heard the story was she heard these people had puppies, went to look, but the mama (Cherokee) was so skinny and neglected she asked about taking her instead. They originally said no, said she wouldn't want her anyway because she was ill-behaved (at 10 months, after living her whole life outside and getting pregnant at 8 months..hmmm..) and smelly, but my sister persisted and they said okay. Now...the OLD story was..Suzi went to see the pups, decided against getting one..saw how badly the mama was treated..and went back in the middle of the night and stole her from the yard. The old story was also that Cherokee was physically abused. Now it's "she seemed to have been abused". Grr..who knows..
Jaz (a different sister's dog..they live with me) was my sister's boyfriend's dog, and came from some drug dealer in Baltimore who was selling 5 week old pit bull puppies from an empty fish tank. There were two left when he got there, so he took them both and found a home for the other one. Then when he and my sister broke up, he took off back to Maryland without the dog...tried to call like 6 months later and say he was coming back for Jaz. hahahaha, riiiiiiiight...
My other sister's dog (who doesn't live with me, and isn't the one who rescued Cherokee) came from the SPCA.
Now for kitties:
Kovu came from a rescue in Petsmart (though I was 14 when I got him, and my Mom told me I couldn't have a cat..so the story is still he came from a McDonald's parking lot..hehe..hopefully she doesn't stalk me on here 
).
Lucifer we found in a tree behind my Grandmom's house. Coaxed him down and kept him.
Tiger-Lily we got through my sister's work at the time (a vet clinic). Someone found her, her mama, and the rest of her litter on the side of the road. I've no clue why they didn't call a rescue or something, but they adopted out the kittens at 5 weeks.
Taz is my cousin's... some friend of hers decided it was a good idea to give her a kitten when they found out she (my cousin) was pregnant. 
I don't know where she came from.
And my sister's kitty Rajah came up to she and I when we were outside of our aunt's house. She lives in the center of a small city, on a very busy street, and here's this 12 week old kitten running around by himself. My sister took him, and ignored "lost" posters when they went up 2 weeks later. We figured if they didn't miss their kitten before two weeks after we found him, he was better off without them. Maybe mean and wrong, but hey..it's been 8 years..