Best Friends Animal Society

When Best Friends began in 1984, approximately 17 million dogs and cats were killed every year in our nation's shelters. Today, that number is down to about 378,000. That's incredible progress, but it also means there are still nearly 970 dogs and cats being killed every day simply because they don't have safe places to call home.

Best Friends is uniquely positioned to continue to lead our partners and the country to become a nation that no longer kills healthy dogs and cats in shelters.

Our goal is to reduce the number of cats and dogs entering the shelter system and increase the number leaving alive until we Save Them All by 2025.

To achieve these goals, we will directly save more shelter pets through proven, lifesaving adoption and spay/neuter programs and by addressing the gaps in public understanding and awareness through targeted outreach and education.

More specifically, we must:
• Through education and advocacy, create a groundswell of public support for spay/neuter and adoption.
• Save the most at-risk cats and dogs from being killed in shelters: kittens, adult cats (particularly community cats) and large dogs, including pit bull terriers and pit bull mixes.
• Through legislation and advocacy efforts, put an end to breed discrimination and puppy mills, and support trap-neuter-return as the best way to control community cat populations and reduce shelter intake.
• Maintain the beauty and integrity of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, a no-kill refuge that on any given day is home for about 1,600 animals (many with special needs), as well as the accompanying goal of rehabilitating and finding homes for as many as possible.
• Create Save Them All ambassadors through our visitor and volunteer programs.
• Expand our footprint beyond the Sanctuary and our existing regional centers in order to broaden our lifesaving impact.
• Strengthen our Best Friends Network by providing the needed resources so that our partners can save more lives.

Saving Lives

1. Increase pet adoptions - Best Friends is committed to making pet adoption an easy, inclusive process by removing barriers for people who want to provide a loving home for pets who need them.

2. Expand foster networks – Fostering a pet saves lives and frees up space for another pet to be rescued. Best Friends partners with shelters around the country, helping to create and maintain foster programs. A growing need is foster care for orphaned or newborn kittens and puppies. Best Friends equips foster families with the supplies and training they need to provide lifesaving one-on-one care in their homes.

3. Support spay/neuter services - Preventing accidental litters of puppies and kittens through spay and neuter is one of the most critical strategies for achieving our goal of ending the killing in the nation’s shelters. The impact affordable and accessible spay/neuter services has on decreasing shelter intake is large. Best Friends supports spay/neuter programs across the country and offers low-cost services in our lifesaving centers and clinics.

Helping Shelters

4. Provide hands-on mentoring and targeted coaching - To help shelters reach and sustain no-kill, we created a comprehensive “toolbox” of lifesaving solutions, including technical assistance, capacity-building support and grants. Using this toolbox, our expert trainers, coaches and mentors provide customized assistance and meet shelters where they are on their journey to no-kill. Organizations that partner with Best Friends save lives 3.5 times faster than those that don’t.

5. Invest in no-kill leadership development - We are helping to prepare the next generation of no-kill leaders through a variety of advanced learning opportunities, such as digital materials, podcast episodes, and online learning and certification opportunities. This includes the Executive Leadership Certification program, a first-of-its-kind, university-accredited academic program that provides professional development for those who will play pivotal roles in advancing the no-kill movement.

Rallying Supporters

6. Advocate for policy change - We are removing barriers to saving lives, such as breed-discriminatory legislation, through public policy advocacy. We have also helped change ordinances to legalize lifesaving practices like trap-neuter-return.

7. Empower community engagement - With more than 87,000 volunteer members, the 2025 Action Team advances local, statewide and national change on behalf of the animals. We support the team through advocacy training, self-serve resources and coaching

Beginning with the establishment of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, Best Friends has been a pioneer in the animal welfare field. Since 1984, we have challenged conventional practices and helped save the lives of millions of homeless pets. Our philosophies and strategies are grounded in our simple and steadfast belief that every unique, individual pet deserves a home.

We have demonstrated our effectiveness in saving the lives of pets and changing hearts and minds — like Utah, for example, where we have actively led the no-kill movement since 2000. In 1999, nearly 46,000 dogs and cats in shelters were being killed each year. Since then, the number of dogs and cats killed in Utah shelters has decreased by nearly 80 percent, and we are on the threshold of Utah becoming the largest no-kill state.

Throughout the years, Best Friends has distinguished itself by an unwavering commitment to save all pets — even those who people have given up on.

Our effectiveness and capacity to bring the nation to no-kill by 2025 is directly tied to our unique ability to demonstrate lifesaving programs and multiply our impact through our national network of more than 4,000 Best Friends Network partners and no-kill coalition partners. We are dedicated to empowering our animal welfare partners with the practical know-how and resources needed to achieve and sustain no-kill communities. This combination of experience, passion, innovation, collaboration and expansive reach sets Best Friends apart and positions us to Save Them All.

During fiscal year 2022, through a variety of Best Friends programs, events, clinics and lifesaving centers:

13,740 pets were adopted
31,787 pets were spayed or neutered
7,748 pets were fostered

Empowering shelter and rescue group partners to save more lives through targeted programming is a primary component of our plan to lead the nation to no-kill. In FY 2022, a total of $7.7 million in funding was provided to Best Friends Network partners. Through virtual town hall meetings, informative podcasts and operational playbooks on topics ranging from animal care to the latest in COVID-19 guidance, we have provided our network partners with lifesaving tools and resources to keep saving lives, even in uncertain times.

Best Friends’ shelter outreach team spent supports, guides and empowers partner animal welfare organizations committed to saving more lives around the country through a range of learning experiences. We provide shelters with expert staff members, assessments, recommendations and more. In FY 2022, 24 new national shelter embed programs were completed, across 15 states.