Best Friends Animal Society

Home is more than four walls and a roof 🏡 It is a place where we should feel safe and loved 🧡 Everyone deserves a home — and that includes pets in shelters 😸🐶    Shelter and rescue workers like you are working hard to find homes for every pet, but the reality is that today, not every dog and cat gets to experience the love and comfort of home. 💔     All we need is just 6% more people to choose to adopt versus purchase their pets to close the national lifesaving gap and #SaveThemAll! 🧡   Help us #BringLoveHome for pets across our nation - share and get your community involved in lifesaving! 🧡🐾 Visit bestfriends.org/home to learn more.

When Nick Walton, Best Friends Senior Manager of National Shelter Support, was an animal services officer in Fulton County Georgia, he was working calls in one of his regular neighborhoods when he heard a loud "bang." Someone had thrown a glass soda bottle at his ACO van. Rattled, he drove off and worked calls in another area. But relationships were important to him as an officer, so he kept working on building relationships in that neighborhood. Within a few weeks, he had a chance meeting with the person who threw the bottle. What he learned was that the person had had very negative experiences with animal control in the past...to the point that Nick completely understood why they threw the bottle. They likely never would have assisted with a request for information (like "do you know where this dog lives?") because there was mistrust and no relationship there. Now, Nick is passionate about helping animal control officers learn how to build relationships and trust in the field so they can save more lives by working with the community. He'll be a panelist on our upcoming Return to Home webinar, Lost and Loved: Empowering Your Community to Get Lost Pets Home, on Wednesday, August 7, at 5pm ET. He'll share actionable tips for increasing Field Return to Home. "The answers to our problems are in the community," Nick says. "Animal Services just hasn't historically done a good job of bringing the community along with us." Sign up for the webinar to learn more from Nick and our other panelists: https://bit.ly/3Wg2I6z

This is the story of six shelters across the South: three shelters that had achieved and maintained 90% lifesaving, and three shelters that had not yet achieved that benchmark, but with leadership who were determined to get there. See for yourself the 🌟 AMAZING 🌟 progress that can be made when we work together: https://lnkd.in/gfeKJx8j The Best Friends Shelter Collaborative Program strategically pairs Peer Mentors (leaders from shelters that have achieved a 90% save rate) with Peer Fellows (leaders from shelters working toward a 90% save rate). 🤝 Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter worked with Lampasas Animal Shelter 🤝  Gulf Coast Humane Society worked with Portland Animal Services 🤝  Lumpkin County Animal Shelter worked with Forsyth County Animal Shelter "They build lasting relationships," says Bethany Heins, Director of Best Friends' Shelter Collaborative program,"...building a broader community, where no one is alone, and we all work together." Learn more about becoming a Peer Mentor for the Shelter Collaborative program: https://lnkd.in/gB-aq5Ek Photo: Shyah Johnson, WCRAS Animal Care Supervisor, driving a transport for a recent dog swap between WCRAS and Lampasas

Have you been seeing fewer Return to Home outcomes? You're not alone. According to the Best Friends 2023 National Data Report, only 475,000 dogs were reclaimed in 2023, as compared to 605,000 in 2019. For more insights about this trend, check out the rest of the Best Friends 2023 National Data Report: https://lnkd.in/gtqVHrpU

We caught up with some Best Friends National Conference attendees to find out what animal welfare organization inspires them the most. Each of their responses felt like a warm hug, and this video has just a few!   Join the virtual hug fest and tag the organization that inspires you every day in the comments! And be sure to tell everyone why they're so inspiring 🤩

"This is the future of animal welfare, and you are a founder." - Julie Castle, CEO, Best Friends Animal Society Watch Julie Castle's keynote speech from the opening session of this year's Best Friends National Conference in Orlando: https://lnkd.in/e-8ickCC Were you there? What did you think?

When Pima Animal Care Center in Tucson, Arizona, realized that Spanish speakers weren't reclaiming their pets or reporting their lost pets in expected proportions, they set out to find out why and fix it. PACC created a campaign reaching out specifically to those Spanish speakers.   Hear more from PACC Program Manager Michele Figueroa along with Kaitlyn Pappas (PACC), Nick Walton (Best Friends Animal Society), and Lorien Clemens (PetHub, Inc.) at our Return to Home webinar, "Lost and Loved: Empowering Your Community to Get Lost Pets Home," on Wednesday, August 7, at 5pm ET. Save your spot and register today: https://bit.ly/3Wg2I6z

Part 2 of our 2023 National Data Report goes beyond just data. We’re giving you programming recommendations based on your specific 2022 and 2023 save rates! Here's a quick look from Brent Toellner, Best Friends Senior Director of Lifesaving Programs, at how it works for one of three categories: shelters with a 2023 save rate of 90% or above. Access the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gtqVHrpU Want to stay tuned into your data for decision making year-round? Sign up for SPDA: https://lnkd.in/gGjmpAPz

We celebrated some of the incredible accomplishments in lifesaving made by network partners at Best Friends National Conference. The Collective Impact Award is given to organizations that demonstrate an outstanding ability to support fellow partners and work collaboratively toward a common goal. Congratulations to these three organizations for earning the Collective Impact Award this year 👏: 🧡 Humane Society for Greater Savannah 🧡 Ruff Haven Crisis Sheltering 🧡 Spay Neuter Incentive Program of West Virginia 🧡 Fix West Texas (not pictured) 🧡 California Labradors, Retrievers and More (not pictured) Additional (not pictured) awards and their recipients include: 🏆 Transformational Change 🧡 Animal Shelter Alliance of Rhea 🧡 Brownsville Animal Regulation Care Center 🧡 El Paso Animal Services 🏆 Touchstone 🧡 Gatesville Police Department Animal Control 🧡 Humane Society of North Texas

Best Friends Lifesaving Center in NYC had a very special guest over the weekend: Alex Bowman, NASCAR driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. He stopped by to help #BringZoomiesHome 💨   Inspired by his personal dogs Finn and Huck (and previous dog who has since passed, Roscoe), Alex and Ally Racing have been supporting Best Friends since 2021. Since the first year, together they have given more than $650,000 to Best Friends and select network partners. For each race, Best Friends nominates a local network parter to receive a $4,800 donation -- and if Alex wins, the donation increases to $10,000! For this race, the lucky Network Partner to receive the donation was Lycoming County SPCA, located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania 👏