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 a pet is lost, the goal is simple: return them to their family as quickly as possible. This has become the guiding principle for Tulsa Animal Welfare (TAW), which now prioritizes returning pets home rather than filling up shelters. With the help of a Best Friends Animal Society expert embedded into their staff for 12 months, TAW shifted from bringing in every stray to engaging with owners in the community to get lost pets back home. In 2021, officers returned over 300 pets home without ever bringing them into the shelter; more than three times as many as in 2020 and almost six times as many as in 2019. ?? "This approach not only reduces intake but builds relationships with the community," said Kristin Barney, TAW's embed director. ?? To learn how TAW is leading the way in Return-to-Home efforts and how your community can follow suit, read the full case study: https://brnw.ch/21wNaM3 You can learn about the field of animal services, lifesaving programs, and more in our Introduction to Animal Services beginning October 16. To apply, visit https://brnw.ch/21wNaM2

Last call for conference speaker proposals! Best Friends Animal Society is now accepting speaker proposals for the Best Friends National Conference, happening February 20-22 in Palm Springs, California. Share your expertise and help save lives by submitting a proposal by Monday, September 30: https://lnkd.in/gdSP5w4X

Congratulations to our latest Shelter Pet Data Alliance grant recipient! The Animal Assistance League of Slidell in Louisiana was selected for our $3,000 July data grant, and all they had to do was be a Best Friends Network Partner, and have all their shelter data current in SPDA. The team at Animal Assistance League of Slidell is looking forward to using the funds to enhance the living conditions for the pets in their care with Kuranda Dog & Cat Beds and peanut butter. Make sure you're eligible for any future SPDA grant opportunities by keeping your data updated at shelterpetdata.org.

At Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter in Texas, data is a critical part of how they let their community know how they're doing and what they need. WCRAS Director Misty Valenta shared that they use the data visualizations available in Shelter Pet Data Alliance (SPDA) to help explain the complexity of their work to the stakeholders in their community. One recent example is in their annual report, where they included graphs from SPDA's One Alliance data comparison feature to show that WCRAS was not only saving more pets than many of their peers, but they were also taking in more. Get started for your shelter or rescue at shelterpetdata.org. Have questions? Let us help: https://lnkd.in/gbsUGeQr

Best Friends Animal Society has been honored to be included in Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators list for our animal services curriculum offered in partnership with Southern Utah University. Here’s to continuing to innovate and push this lifesaving momentum forward!

?? In a recent LinkedIn poll, 48% of our respondents told us they had lost their pet at some point. It can happen to anyone. Many of us think that the best thing to do if we find someone's lost dog is to take them to the nearest shelter. But the reality is that once a dog is inside the shelter system, the barriers to them getting back to their original family start to stack up: ?? there may be reclaim fees ?? there may be ordinance violations ?? the owner may not have transportation to get to the shelter and the shelter may be far away ?? the owner may not even know about the shelter If you really want to help reunite a lost dog with their family, the most helpful thing you can do is first take some steps to try to find out who the owner is: 1?? Walk the dog around the immediate area. Ask people! Most pets are found within a mile of home. 2?? Post photos of the pet on social media, NextDoor, and neighborhood lost and found groups. 3?? Does the pet have visible ID? Be sure to call/text the number. Check the pet for a microchip (most shelters and vet clinics can scan for a chip). 4?? Contact your local shelter(s) via phone or website to file a found pet report. Find out more you can do to help lost pets get home to their families at bfas.org/getthemhome

No matter the size of your organization, your work counts and deserves to be represented by data! Using a tool like Shelter Pet Data Alliance can help by creating visual representations of your data. When you carefully analyze and transparently share your data, you can: ? Set an example for others by sharing successful lifesaving methods. ? Erase the isolation—every region is part of a bigger movement! ? Understand trends, patterns, and industry best practices to save more lives. Data collection and management are key drivers to achieving our collective lifesaving goals in animal services. ?? ?? Want to dive deeper into how data drives canine lifesaving? Our Dog Lifesaving Fundamentals course covers topics from lifesaving programs to data strategies that make a real impact. ?? Course begins October 16 – Don’t miss out! Apply here: bfas.org/DogLifesaving

I love a challenge. That’s what no-kill 2025 is all about — to challenge ourselves and our movement to do the absolute best we can. I also love to pass along stories of people who rise up in the face of adversity and step up to another level to defy the odds — especially when it comes to lifesaving. ? That’s why I love what 27-year-old Madison Ohler, seen here, who runs Wonky Whiskers Rescue in Woodway, Texas did with a little help from her friends when her operation was up against the wall. ? Madison says she was drowning with medical cases and kittens. Her org does cat and dog adoptions, supports community spay/neuter, and vaccinates community cats. She was getting burned out quickly, and ready to try something different. ? Then, in June, Best Friends Animal Society offered our first-ever challenge with the goal of breaking down barriers to pet adoption. Madison joined the challenge, and came out of it with an astonishing result: A 2,133% increase in getting pets into homes. ? Individuals like Madison are the bedrock of our movement. HUGE kudos to her. Read more about Madison and Wonky Whiskers' results, and gain insights into the challenge and its overall results: https://lnkd.in/gSVdBQXu

ICYMI: "Keeping pets in their homes reserves precious shelter space for pets in need of emergency sheltering. It saves families time, heartache, and the cost of fines that many cannot afford. And it saves stress on the pet who may do very poorly in the animal shelter." Check out our recent blog about proven strategy of Field Return to Home (also known as Field RTH/RTO) by Best Friends Director of No-Kill Advancement Tawny Hammond, MIS: https://lnkd.in/edtWhdeC