Spotlight: Best Friends Animal Society

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One black-and-white kitten named Mouse was born as a stray. He was also born with a congenital deformity that kept his legs from growing properly. He faced long odds on the streets. But someone took Mouse to the Best Friends Kitten Shelter in Salt Lake City. The staff discovered his deformity and placed Mouse into foster care. A family fell in love with Mouse’s adventurous personality and adopted him. Now Mouse—rechristened Smalls—is thriving in his permanent home.

The staff and volunteers at Best Friends Animal Society hope to multiply Mouse’s success story by millions. The founders intended to create a sanctuary for abandoned and abused animals, but their endeavor quickly catapulted them into an even bigger cause: a national movement to end the killing of companion animals. At the time of the organization’s founding in 1984, an estimated 17 million cats and dogs were being killed in American shelters every year, with sick or disabled animals like Mouse often being the first to go.

Best Friends Animal Society aims to end the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters by 2025. Best Friends is the only national organization of its kind based in Utah. In addition to regional centers in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City, Best Friends Animal Society operates the nation’s largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals in Kanab, Utah.

Accomplishing such a broad and lofty mission requires a lot of work and cooperation. Best Friends Animal Society collaborates with local pet shelters, animal-rescue organizations, and community-based no-kill programs. The society also advocates nationally to keep community cats safe, fights breed discrimination, pushes for the eradication of puppy mills, and encourages adopting.

Best Friends Animal Society and a coalition of 57 other Utah-based animal-welfare organizations are working to make Utah a no-kill state—a state in which animal shelters achieve a combined save rate of at least 90%. Only one other state in the country has achieved this status. A great deal of progress has already been made. Utah’s save rate, which was at 77.4% in 2014, jumped to 85.8% by the end of 2016. Nationally, the number of cats and dogs killed annually in the US has decreased from 17 million in 1984 to 2 million, but, for Best Friends, that is still 2 million too many. 

As a non-profit, Best Friends Animal Society is supported by donations from its members as well as corporate and foundation partners. In addition to donating, members of the community are encouraged to spay and neuter their pets and adopt pets from rescue shelters instead of purchasing them from stores or puppy farms. To learn more or donate to Best Friends Animal Society, visit the organization’s website, https://www.bestfriends.org/, for more information.

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Marina Lowe of the ACLU of Utah