From the CEO
SO MUCH OF WHAT THE NO-KILL MOVEMENT — and Best Friends in particular — is about, beyond implementing lifesaving strategies and programs, is uprooting animal sheltering from its unsavory past, celebrating where we are today and giving this work continued new life as an expression of community compassion and pride. That’s where you and I come in — because you and I are a part of an enormous movement, well underway, to right a more than 100-year-old wrong.
Let’s face it. It has rarely been a community-wide decision to kill homeless pets as a means of animal control. But entire communities are, and will continue to be, fully involved in the work to stop the killing.
We’ve got so much to celebrate. We’ve come a long way from the “bad old days” of isolated, unwelcoming facilities designed to store and then dispose of animals. Now focused on adoptions, many shelters are places where the public feels welcome, the animals aren’t miserable, and people are asked to help solve local homeless pet problems by fostering, adopting, spaying and neutering, and even creating their own solutions. Many shelters are under-resourced, but still willing and eager to save more lives and hold themselves measurably accountable. This is all real progress, and we need more of it. It’s what we mean when we talk about building compassionate communities.
The killing of homeless pets has never been a problem contained within a single building. It’s a community-wide problem that calls for a community-wide solution. And everyone’s involvement is essential.
Unlike the catch-and-kill policies of the past, no-kill policies are aligned with how most members of most communities actually feel. Studies have shown that Americans love their animals and would like a positive outcome for every homeless pet who comes into the shelter system. There is a place for euthanasia — when an animal is suffering irremediably from disease or injury or is genuinely too aggressive to be safely rehomed. But killing pets for being homeless is not in accord with the public’s wishes — in addition to being just plain wrong.
That’s why we, as members of our communities, need to be involved every step of the way. And that’s why all of Best Friends’ programs are geared toward embracing and seeking the help of every single person out there, never holding the public at arm’s length, but bringing us all together to help our own communities to save our own pets.
I believe that in the not-too-distant future, kids will read about what went on in animal shelters throughout the 20th century and ask whether it really happened. And you’ll be able to respond, “Yes, sadly, it’s true, but I was part of the movement that changed all that.”
It’s a fresh new year. Perhaps there is no better time for a fresh new perspective as it pertains to the animals. Together, we can Save Them All.
To get even more deeply involved in creating compassionate communities, join the 2025 Action Team at bestfriends.org/actionteam.
Yours in faithfulness to the animals,