The Best Friends Podcast

It may be hard to believe, but kitten season is just around the corner. In a few weeks, animal shelters and rescues coast-to-coast will be struggling to find enough resources to save this adorable and most at-risk segment of the shelter population. This week, Best Friends launched a national kitten fostering campaign that urges the public to sign up to become foster parents. Anyone who raises thei...

There are 100,000 more pets in the care of shelters across the country than there were at this same time last year. It’s an overwhelming challenge and only exacerbated by the shortage of veterinary services. In many communities, unsterilized animals are not allowed to go home with an adopter before the spay/neuter surgery. Unequivocally, Best Friends Animal Society supports the spaying and neuteri...

As this new year gets underway, we’ve been thinking about what lies ahead for 2022. Of course, the last two years were a good reminder that even the best prognosticator can’t see everything coming, but that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about the future. We asked the experts and settled on a “top five” list of areas that are most likely to be affecting you in one way or another in the weeks...

As animal welfare focuses more on supporting pets and their people, how do we best provide those services in areas that historically have not had essential resources, such as veterinary services and pet supplies?  CARE (Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity) recently launched a new program, CARE Centers. A model through which they hope will provide those services and engage t...

The human-animal bond transcends all, regardless of where someone lives, their race, or how much they have in their bank account - pet ownership is for everyone. It’s a concept that is gaining more and more acceptance across animal welfare, and it has brought new approaches to keep people and pets together to the forefront. There have been shifts in animal services (called animal control or field...

For our 48th and final episode of 2021, we're looking back at some of the best moments of the year. We had 66 different guests from 22 states, representing 40 organizations, rescues, foundations, and companies. They all had one thing in common; they shared their expertise and stories to help us all be more effective in our lifesaving work. We covered a lot of topics this year. Everything from DEI...

It’s Christmas Eve-Eve, and we hope you are having a safe and happy holiday season. As we talked about last week, the national level lifesaving data is starting to show some concerning trends, such as increased length of stay. One key lifesaving strategy is transport - moving animals from one community to another with fewer adoptable pets and greater demand. This episode is another fantastic sessi...

As the world attempts to return to some sense of normalcy, we're still feeling the impacts of the global pandemic across animal welfare. While there have been positives for the industry, the disruption of our daily lives over the last two years is showing its impact on lifesaving, and it's not all good news. One particular data point trending in the wrong direction is length of stay (LOS). This me...

When there is a pet in need, there is often a person in need. That intersection of people and pets is at the heart of a new partnership in the state of Washington. As the COVID-19 pandemic set in, the unknowns about the next few weeks and months raised concerns about the impact on pets. Would owners need help if they are struggling with illness? What would happen to the economy, and how would evic...

Happy holidays to you from all of us here at The Best Friends Podcast! This is the busiest time of the year for many in animal welfare, with the end-of-year fundraising efforts in full swing. December is when we often focus on giving to others, but we want to ensure you don’t forget about yourself! This week’s episode focuses on our personal well-being courtesy of Melissa Treuman, the Senior Direc...

On behalf of all of us at Best Friends, we'd like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! Season two of the Best Friends network vlog series  Saving America's Pets  wrapped up recently, and we're thrilled to share the finale on the podcast. The host of  Saving America's Pets , Chief Mission Officer for Best Friends Holly Sizemore, talks with Best Friends CEO Julie Castle about a recent aw...

When was the last time you tried to change someone's mind? A discussion on the internet, perhaps. Maybe a dinner with family or friends led to a heated debate. Or it may have been in your day-to-day work as you try to get everyone on board with proven lifesaving strategies - even though those approaches may be different than what you've always done. Why is it so difficult to change minds? David Mc...

On behalf of everyone at Best Friends, we’d like to wish all brave men and women who have served in the armed forces a Happy Veteran’s Day! To commemorate this special day, we talk about the healing power of pets and how the right animal can help veterans through tough times as they readjust to life back at home. We all know the healing power of animals. Studies have shown that the benefits of sha...

Every industry, including animal welfare, uses jargon - the terms and acronyms familiar to those working within the field but often leaves everyone else scratching their heads. The alphabet soup of acronyms and technical language can confuse the public and makes saving lives more difficult. Best Friends recently conducted a research project to understand better the public’s knowledge of and affini...

We save more lives working together than we do if we all go it alone. Lifesaving coalitions - partnerships between the shelter and those from the rescue community - can be incredibly effective. This week we are sharing a session from the 2021 Best Friends National Conference that offers tips on how to forge those relationships. You’ll also get some ideas about how to create targeted programs to sa...

As the calendar year begins to wind down, one group of people in animal welfare are just getting warmed up - the fundraisers. Roughly one-third of all donations to nonprofits come in the last 31 days of the year. For some organizations, December's donations amount to more than half of their overall fundraising for the entire year, so it's a critical time. At the core of every good end-of-year camp...

We all know how important the work being done in the animal welfare field is right now. But dealing with the pandemic and other serious issues such as the growing staffing crisis - on top of all the demands associated with living in this moment in time - has certainly not made working in the   field any easier. These challenges are driving people away from the field at what seems like a highe...

For decades, the lack of positive outreach into bilingual communities has left generations of people unaware of animal shelters, what is happening at them, and how they, as pet lovers, can help save lives. And it truly is millions of pet owners. The Hispanic community alone accounts for more than 22-million pet owners. The focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion across the industry has brought v...

Have you ever owned a pet you acquired for free as a stray? Do you love that pet any less than others you’ve had in your life? For decades the conventional wisdom was that charging adoption fees was the right thing to do. It would dissuade anyone from a spur-of-the-moment decision that might end in a return, and not charging a fee would devalue the pet, and in turn, adopters wouldn’t love the pet...

Animal welfare is more professional than it’s ever been. Across the country, collectively, we’re saving more lives on any given day than some ever thought possible. We have a greater understanding of the role pets play in our individual lives and within our communities. More than ever, our industry strives to preserve the human-animal bond and keep families together. So why are we still fighting t...

The United States is suffering from a severe labor shortage, and just about every industry is feeling it. From hospitality to healthcare, transportation, banking, agriculture — and yes, animal welfare is also finding it challenging to hire new staff and retain the staff they already have. Best Friends recently surveyed our Network partners and nearly nine out of every ten organizations that respon...

Saving senior pets from shelters is expensive and challenging and another area of lifesaving where the need outweighs the amount of available help. Compared to the total number of rescue organizations coast-to-coast, only a fraction focus solely on saving this highly at-risk group of animals. Senior animals often carry a stigma that they don’t make good pets. Some adopters may believe seniors are...

Reliable data around what’s happening to senior pets in shelters are hard to come by, but we do know this. Older animals are a highly vulnerable segment of the shelter population that is more difficult to save, and more needs to be done to help them. Older pets may have medical issues that landed them at the shelter in the first place - and animal shelters are often ill-equipped to handle costly m...

If you're feeling more overwhelmed than usual, you are not alone. The year-to-date shelter data shows that intake is up - but not by much compared to the last "normal" year of 2019. Instead, it's mostly driven by a dramatic drop in adoptions which are down roughly 20% from 2019. How are you communicating to the public at this time of great need, and what are you saying? We spoke with Caitlin Quinn...

We all experience defining moments in our lives. Events such as marriage, kids, losing loved ones, career changes can all shape who we are, often on profound levels. This week's guest, Heather Owen, says her experience of watching heartbroken families surrender pets was a defining moment for her - when she realized she could offer assistance to keep those pets with their loving families. Heather i...