Heroes To Homeless Pets and Animal Lovers!

At Angel Canyon, just outside the town of Kanab, sits a 33,000-acre ranch in the heart of majestic red-rock country of southern Utah. The ranch is home on any given day to about 1,700 animals. Most of these are dogs and cats, but there are also horses, burros, birds, rabbits, goats, farm animals, and an assortment of other creatures. The animals come from all over the country, and sometimes beyond - mostly from shelters that don't have the resources to rehabilitate them and where they would otherwise be destroyed. In exchange, many of these shelters take back animals that are ready to be placed in good homes.

This sanctuary, known to Nat Geo viewers as "Dogtown", is formally called Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. It is through the show about the efforts to rehabilitate the Michael Vick dogs that I became aware of Best Friends. I was very interested so I went to their awesome website to find out more.

Best Friends began in Arizona in the 1970s with a group of animal lovers who were unwilling to accept the conventional wisdom of the time that humane societies and shelters "had no choice" but to kill their unadoptable animals. In a pilot program they rescued animals from shelters where their luck was about to run out, rehabilitated them, and found homes for hundreds of these cast-off cats and dogs. Those who were still unadoptable formed a crazy group lovable creatures whose numbers grew until Best Friends was established in the early 1980s as a large and unique sanctuary at Angel Canyon in Utah.

Best Friends has quickly grown to be the flagship of the rapidly growing no-kill movement. Central to this is their work to create a world where there are No More Homeless Pets. This goal became central to the work of Best Friends, and by the end of the decade the number of animals being killed in shelters had dropped from about 15 million in 1990 to less than 5 million. The No More Homeless Pets campaign is a concerted spay/neuter, adoption, and public awareness campaign to bring an end to the killing of homeless animals in shelters. All across the country, grassroots organizations, humane societies, and local governments are bidding farewell to the outdated notion that killing millions of homeless pets every year in "shelters" is some kind of inevitable and acceptable "necessary evil.

According to Best Friends.org, the organization believes that "No More Homeless Pets is an obtainable goal". No More Homeless Pets in Utah, a nonprofit organization supported by Best Friends Animal Society, has maintained reliable statewide statistics in Utah for a number of years. In 1999, over 46,000 animals were killed in Utah shelters. Today, that number has decreased by 30 percent. This remarkable achievement is due to the success of spay/neuter and adoption programs, and a growing public sentiment that dogs, cats, and other pets should be valued as family members. Every week, more humane societies, animal welfare groups, animal control authorities, and concerned citizens are committing themselves to the goal of bringing an end to the killing in their own neighborhoods, cities, or states, due in no small part to the work being done by Best Friends.

Best Friends offers programs like Best Friends Network, an interactive online community connecting people and organizations through kindness to animals. They sponsor confrences, a wonderful magazine and host The Best Friends website, which is updated biweekly with news about the sanctuary and news about No More Homeless Pets efforts and programs around the country. The website also provides a Resource Library to help individuals and organizations help animals.

As a Angelino, I am excited to see that Best Friends staff members and volunteers coordinate programs in Los Angeles with the goal of helping L.A. become a No More Homeless Pets city. Programs include adoption events, spay/neuter programs, and public awareness campaigns. Best Friends support a model campaign, working with shelters and humane societies to bring an end to the killing of healthy homeless pets.

The folks at Best Friends work tirelessly behind their heartfelt mission to lead a kindness revolution that transforms the way people relate to animals, nature and each other. It is this mission Best Friends believes will lead to "A better world through kindness to animals". Working to better the world for both humans and animals makes the folks at Best Friends true heroes.

PLEASE visit the Best Friends website for more information on the many progams and resources Best Friends have to offer. To see them in action, tune into "Dogtown" on Nat Geo.