BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY: "No More Homeless Pets"

By Gregory Castle
Photo courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society

When we started Best Friends in 1984, we were a no-kill organization with a no-kill message: animals are unique individuals and their lives have intrinsic value. Killing them as a method of population control simply was not and is not acceptable. The group of friends that founded the sanctuary had been doing shelter rescue individually and collectively for ten years by then. We have always been a hands-on, rescueoriented organization. What began as a sanctuary of last resort for tens of thousands of animals over the years has evolved into one of the largest animal welfare organizations in the country and the only one with a no-kill mission: to bring about a time when there are No More Homeless Pets ®.

Beyond the work of the sanctuary (which cares for approximately 1700 dogs, cats, birds, bunnies, and injured wildlife on any given day-most of them with special needs), Best Friends has a national reach that includes running our own model programs and sponsoring partnerships that make other innovative programs possible. These include Feral Freedom in Jacksonville, Florida, Safe Humane Chicago, No More Homeless Pets in Utah, and FixNation in Los Angeles.

Because Best Friends evolved from a hands-on, grassroots approach to animal welfare, our work at a national level is grounded with an understanding that the ultimate test of any big-picture decision is how it affects individual animals as well as the frontline rescuers and volunteers who drive our movement. How a policy affects a feral colony in Iowa or rescued pit bulls in Los Angeles matters every bit as much as the numbers, percentages, and trends by which we measure our progress and effectiveness.

For example, No More Homeless Pets in Utah was created by Best Friends to lead a statewide no-kill campaign that embraces major municipal shelters, one-horse towns with police-run animal control agencies, and rescues ranging from mom-and-pop operations to substantial no-kill organizations. The results have been impressive. Four Utah counties and three cities in other counties have gone no-kill, and Salt Lake County Animal Services-one of the largest in the state-is close to a 90% save rate for dogs and 65% for cats. At a national level, in 2008, we conducted an analysis of the four primary contributing factors to shelter populations. From that analysis, we also identified four categories of activity that would yield the greatest benefits to the cause of No More Homeless Pets. The results revealing the main streams contributing to high shelter population won't surprise anyone who spends time at a shelter: pit bulls, feral or community cats, puppy mills, and owner surrenders.

A fact that may surprise some is that, nationwide, cats comprise close to 70% of the animals dying in shelters and most of those are free-roaming (stray or feral) community cats. In order to achieve no-kill, we must institutionalize Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) as the accepted management protocol for community cats at the municipal level. Frightened or fractious cats never make it to the adoption room. They have no business entering a shelter in the first place.

Mainstreaming TNR is a Best Friends priority and is the main reason we co-sponsored Feral Freedom in Jacksonville, Florida. The program began in 2008 as a collaboration between First Coast No More Homeless Pets, the Jacksonville Humane Society, and Best Friends Animal Society. Community cats humanely trapped by animal control are taken to First Coast to be fixed. The cats bypass the shelter altogether and, rather than becoming unfortunate statistics, they are returned by First Coast to the area in which they were trapped. This has reduced the shelter death rate for cats from 86% to 41% and increased the live release rate from 14% to 59% in just 2 years. In addition to Feral Freedom, Best Friends provides free food and support to caregivers of 4,000 community cats in Southern Utah and sponsors spay/ neuter for another 12,000 cats in Utah and the Los Angeles area.

Pit bulls and other bully breeds and their mixes are also at tremendous risk in our shelters and are further victimized by media hype and regressive policies in some communities.

Examples of this discrimination range from outright breed bans to shelters that refuse to even offer these dogs for adoption. Best Friends has fought against breed discriminatory legislation in 110 communities and has won victories for pit bulls in 73 of them-benefiting an estimated 63,000 dogs that won't need to look for new homes and that won't be seized by enforcement officers.

Puppy mills crank out an estimated 4 million dogs per year. Many of these dogs wind up in shelters and the mill operations themselves are a source of suffering for the hundreds of thousands of dogs trapped and forced to breed and live in hellish conditions. Puppy mills are driven by market demand from pet store and Internet sales. Best Friends' peaceful pet store protests have resulted in either a change to a humane model, featuring shelter pets for adoption, or the closure of eleven pet stores in Southern California and Las Vegas.

Best Friends' Pup-My-Ride LA is a small-dog shelter rescue and transport that has moved about 3000 small dogs of all ages out of high-kill Los Angeles area shelters to communities in Utah, Oregon, and Montana where small dogs are in high demand and not commonly found in shelters and rescues.

Helping families keep their pets is an important piece of any no-kill effort. For many families that help often comes down to the basics of being able to afford to feed their dogs and cats. In the last two years, Best Friends has arranged the distribution of 400,000 pounds of pet food to families in need.

Finally, local rescues need to raise money to carry out their lifesaving no-kill mission. In 2010, Best Friends produced and hosted community dog walks, Strut Your Mutt LA and Strut Your Mutt NYC, through which local groups could generate sponsors and raise funds. Over $300,000 was raised-all of it going to local no-kill efforts. On top of that, Best Friends distributed hundreds of thousand of dollars in grants to grassroots, no-kill efforts in 2010.

These are a few snapshots of our work. There's a lot more, buts it's all pulling in the same direction: no-kill. Best Friends is committed to providing practical tools and material support to grassroots organizations around the country. By working collaboratively with individuals and organizations, we can make our shared goal of No More Homeless Pets ® a reality.

For more information or to make a donation: www.bestfriends.org