A revealing Best Friends–led study, just published in the current issue of the “Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association,” adds more weight to that analysis. Led by Dr. Frank McMillan, director of well-being studies at Best Friends, in collaboration with a highly regarded research team, the study compared the behavior profiles of pet store puppies with those acquired from hobbyist, noncommercial breeders. It is estimated that 99 percent of pet store puppies are sourced from high-volume commercial breeders, which is to say they come from puppy mills.

Dogs acquired as puppies from small, noncommercial breeders were selected for comparison for the following reasons:

1. They enter their new homes at approximately the same age as pet store pups do.
2. Their history prior to purchase is known.
3. They are, for the most part, purebred dogs.

In fact, the only difference then between the sampled groups was the nature of their breeding, whelping, weaning and prolonged, stressful transport. One is set in a commercial breeding environment with hundreds or even thousands of other dogs, while the other is set in a hobby breeder’s home environment with only a mother dog or a small group of household pets.

The difference in findings between the two groups was profound, but not surprising.

Problem behaviors exhibited by pet store dogs read like answers to a shelter surrender questionnaire, with the strongest effects observed in relation to aggressive behavior. For example, sexually intact pet store dogs were three times as likely to have owner-directed aggression as were sexually intact dogs acquired from small breeders. Pet store dogs were nearly twice as likely to have aggression toward unfamiliar dogs.

Additionally, pet store dogs were also 30 to 60 percent more likely to have stranger-directed aggression, aggression to other household dogs, as well as fear of dogs and nonsocial stimuli, separation anxiety, and touch sensitivity. Other undesirable behaviors included escaping from the home, sexual mounting of people and objects, and most forms of house soiling.

This Best Friends’ research effort is a follow-up to a 2011 study conducted by Dr. Frank and the same research team that compared adult puppy mill survivors to a sampling of dogs without any puppy mill history. The results of that study were equally dramatic, but likewise not at all surprising.

The adult breeding dogs from puppy mills showed significantly elevated levels of fears/phobias, compulsive/repetitive behaviors, and heightened sensitivity to being touched. “The most prominent difference was in the level of fear,” says Dr. Frank. “Compared to normal pet dogs, the chance of recovered puppy mill dogs scoring in the highest ranges for fear was six to eight times higher.”

The physical abuses associated with puppy mills are well documented. Puppy mills are just another version of factory farming, where the profit margin for the mostly rural mill operators is small. Production cost savings are paid for on the backs of the dogs held captive for breeding and their pet store–bound puppies.

For example, small cages mean that more animals can be crammed into limited space. Understaffed workers provide only subsistence level care for the dogs and pups. Low-cost, low-quality food results in dietary deficiencies and chronic disease. Puppies are force-weaned at an earlier-than-appropriate age so that they can arrive at the pet store at eight weeks of age. Veterinary care is nominal and is limited to the replacement cost of the animal. A puppy miller typically sells a pup to a middle man for as little as a couple of hundred dollars so the incentive to invest in medical care is essentially zero. Every corner that is cut represents a corresponding slice cut from the quality of life of the puppy mill dog.

This newly published research fills in the picture of the invisible psychological damage that puppy mills inflict on innocent, young dogs.

The entire pet trade industry — from breeder to pet store — is a disgrace and needs a major overhaul. Needless to say, there is often a considerable desire to “save” pet store puppies by buying them, but that sentiment is misguided because it merely makes room for another victim. The best way to fight puppy mills is to never buy from a pet store or an online retailer.

Many thanks to Dr. Frank and his research colleagues, James A. Serpell, PhD and Deborah L. Duffy, PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, along with Elmabrok Masaoud, PhD and Ian R. Dohoo, DVM, PhD from the Department of Health Management, Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Your work has given us another compelling argument in our campaign against the shame of puppy mills.

Gregory Castle
CEO
Best Friends Animal Society

I want to express my personal gratitude to everyone who worked so hard on this lifesaving legislation and assure everyone concerned that we will be back at this for the next legislative session in 2015. I also want to thank all of our members and friends in Texas who took action on this by contacting your state representatives. Together, we will continue to save the lives of more Texas shelter pets.

For some time now, Best Friends has been working with a variety of stakeholders in Texas to develop meaningful legislation to help reduce the high rate of shelter killing in the state.

In Texas, like in many places across the country, some shelters either choose not to work with rescue groups or only work with rescues they like. We are optimistic that with the support of animal lovers, fiscal conservatives and common sense people across the state, this is about to change.

Texas House Bill 2981, the “Tax Saving Pet Adoption, Sterilization and Transfer Act,” sponsored by Rep. Eddie Rodriguez of Austin, is an important piece of legislation that will, for the first time under Texas law, require governmental shelters in counties with a population greater that 75,000 to cooperate with qualified rescue organizations and make available to them animals who have been in the shelter for their required holding period prior to being killed. Privately run shelters are exempt from the requirement of establishing lifesaving relationships with rescues that they are not already working with, but they would be prevented from withholding from adoption any animal based on age, size or breed. This sounds like a no-brainer, but currently in Houston, for example, the larger private shelters will not offer pit bull terriers for adoption to the public.

Legislation with the provisions of HB 2981 is long overdue in Texas. Among the many superlatives associated with the Lone Star State is the dubious distinction of leading the country in shelter deaths with over 500,000 animals killed annually. That is more than one eighth of the total for all 50 states!

For those of us in the no-kill movement, the reduction in shelter killing that HB 2981 will produce is sufficient rationale to pass it, but a look at the economics of shelter management with regard to adoptions and transfers to rescues versus killing makes an equally strong case for budget hawks to support the bill whether or not they have a heart for animals.

In addition to working with all stakeholders, including rescues and advocacy organizations, such as Fix Austin and Austin Pets Alive, municipal and private shelter managers, and CEOs, Best Friends engaged John Dunham & Associates, an economic research firm, which specializes in studying the fiscal impact of legislation. They basically do a cost/benefit analysis – how much will it cost, how much will it save, and what are the peripheral benefits or detriments. Here’s what they had to say:

Interestingly, state-funded animal control organizations seem to excel in eliminating their most valuable assets – namely dogs and cats available for adoption. In fact, adoption fees can be significant revenue streams. In the case of the 49 counties included in this analysis, the average adoption fee for a dog is $75.15 and for a cat $61.32. By killing as many as 80 percent of the animals entering the shelter system, these state-funded operations lose out on this potential revenue, while at the same time incurring all of the additional expenses associated with this policy.

By requiring shelters to make animals available to acceptable private rescue shelters, the proposed legislation could not only save the lives of thousands of animals, but would encourage shelters to generate revenues rather than simply serve as large scale, expensive euthanasia operations.

Killing a dog costs a shelter $36 on average ($33 for a cat) on top of the $13.50 per day for the cost of care and feeding per dog ($8.70 per cat per day). Running all these numbers, it is estimated that this legislation could reduce net government expenditures for animal control by $241,680 for each percent of total dogs and cats entering shelters that are transferred to rescue. With the Austin adoption rate as a laudable and achievable benchmark, it is reasonable to say that if all of the participating counties have programs as least as productive as Austin’s, the statewide savings could be as high as $6.4 million per year. That’s real money, even in Texas!

Killing shelter animals just doesn’t pay.

HB 2981 has generated a lot of high-profile support. Willie Nelson has done a PSA for Best Friends in support, as has longtime Texas favorite Asleep at the Wheel lead Ray Benson.

As things stand, the bill has passed out of the Urban Affairs Committee by a unanimous 5-0 vote. It needs to be scheduled for a full House vote by the Calendars Committee. If you live in Texas, your voice is urgently needed. Politics is not a spectator sport. Texans, please take action today.

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society

Florida recently passed a new law requiring all animal shelters in the state – public and private – to compile shelter statistics and keep them available for public requests for three years. All the data for intake and outcomes must be tracked, including “Released in field/Trapped, Neutered, Released (TNR).” Best Friends worked with the bill’s sponsors to get this TNR language into the final draft, along with having “Feral Cats” stricken from the books as a separate category of animal. That’s good news for community cats and the people who love them.

The big picture is this: Mandating the keeping of shelter statistics according to a “noses in, noses out” formulation is an important step in transparency and the ability to compare apples to apples from shelter to shelter within the state. Squishy terms like “adoptable,” which are entirely subjective, are not part of the calculus. Knowing how many animals are entering a given shelter system and how many of those are getting out alive is the only way to get a fix on the effectiveness of animal services and the only way to track a community’s progress toward no-kill. This type of transparency translates to accountability on the part of municipalities and shelter operators. Not insignificantly, it will also generate a comprehensive list of animal shelters in the state for the first time.

It’s not all roses, however. The new law doesn’t mandate central reporting, so stats will have to be requested from individual shelters; nor does it conform to other national reporting standards, such as those kept by Maddie’s Fund, so comparisons of Florida shelters with those in other states will not be as seamless as they might otherwise be. However, these are minor flaws compared with the sea change that the keeping of shelter statistics represents.

These changes to Florida state law will provide a powerful boost to no-kill efforts across the state. To read the new bill in its entirety, click here.

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society

Here is the link to the report.

Of course, there was nothing new in this report that any forward-thinking animal welfare organization hasn’t already been dealing with for years. But the fact that the story hit a national network in morning prime time is significant. Perhaps the little-discussed subject of puppy mills, perhaps the most significant source of grief for canines in the United States, may finally be going mainstream.

All we can say is it’s about time.

Of particular note in this report is the fact that the AKC’s public relations representative, interviewed by NBC’s Jeff Rossen, could not even answer basic questions, such as how many breeders in the United States have AKC-registered dogs or what percentage of AKC-registered breeders are inspected. When further asked if the nine kennel inspectors are enough to cover the country, the answer was: “That’s the number that we have.”

Further complicating things is the fact that 47 percent of all individual dog registrations and 75 percent of all litter registrations were online in 2011. With so many registrations taking place on the Internet, the integrity of the registration depends on the honesty of the registrant.

All of this uncertainty flies in the face of the AKC mission statement that reads in part: “We are dedicated to maintaining the integrity of our Registry.” This begs the question of exactly how the AKC is able to do that.

The report also hit on the issue of money. Every time a puppy is registered with the AKC — no matter where it is bred — the AKC makes money. This is the case whether the dog is registered by the breeder, the consumer, a broker or at an auction. We’ve seen AKC reps registering dogs at auctions, even though they have never seen where the dogs came from.

So it makes sense for the AKC to oppose legislation. Fewer breeders and fewer dogs mean less money for the AKC. Additionally, fewer registered dogs make it less likely that pet stores could charge high prices ($600 to more than $2,000), as compared with a comparable dog in a shelter ($70-$100). AKC papers make the dog more valuable. Like a Gucci label, it’s a mark of distinction that comes with a high price tag.

Here are some basic facts about the AKC: There are more than 600 AKC clubs in the United States. The AKC produces or licenses more than 200 revenue-generating products sold through more than 7,000 U.S. retailers. AKC revenue for 2011 surpassed $59 million, with $23 million coming from registrations.

Since the AKC is classified as a nonprofit organization, all of this income is tax free.

Thanks to the work of Best Friends, which for years has utilized the slogan “Puppies Aren’t Products” to fight puppy mills, and the work of other national animal welfare groups, the number of retail outlets selling dogs from commercial puppy mill sources is declining. But the NBC report underlines the severity of a problem that still exists and implicates an organization that puts its stamp of approval on pet stores retailing puppy mill dogs, many of them AKC-registered. Yet, accredited AKC clubs have in their codes of ethics that they will never sell a puppy to a pet store.

Interestingly enough, the AKC is not the only breed registry organization contributing to this situation, though it is the oldest. There are at least 22 other well-established registries in the United States and more in Canada, such as the Continental Kennel Club, United Kennel Club, World Kennel Club, American Canine Association, etc.

Congratulations to NBC for shining the spotlight on the AKC and by showing how a long-established organization with connections to large breeding operations contributes to the problem. Let’s hope that we see more of this in the national media. Only by letting the greatest number of people know about puppy mills — especially the vast majority of people who don’t follow animal welfare — will we eventually get to the point where puppy mills are a thing of the past.

Gregory Castle
CEO
Best Friends Animal Society

The New York event was held at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, a sturdy municipal auditorium that my friends and I used to go to in the ’50s and ’60s to catch the touring Harlem Globetrotters, various blues/rock acts and even wrestling in the days of Killer Kowalski and Gorgeous George. However, rather than a wrestling ring or a basketball court, the place was loaded up with portable kennels, about 700 dogs and cats, 300 volunteers, including 10 trainers, and lots of happy people in search of their new best friends.

One of the volunteers on hand was Emma Kenney, the young star of the ensemble cast of Showtime’s “Shameless.” Emma drew a crowd, but more importantly she was tweeting to her followers and getting out the word about pet adoptions. We caught Emma on video having fun with the animals and sharing her insights into animal issues. What a great way to get kids to steer their parents to the shelter for their next pet. Go, Emma!

Super adoptions are intended to be high-volume adoption affairs that make an impact on local shelter populations, but we shouldn’t overlook those special-needs sweeties – such as a mostly blind cat, Isis, and a one-eyed dog, Gala, who found great homes – and the wonderful folks who go out of their way to accommodate them as their way of contributing to the cause.

Dobbie, a 15-year-old dachshund came from a breeding/hoarding situation that Pets Alive assisted with. Dobbie is a staff favorite – he’s got no teeth, but he still grins.
Dobbie was adopted by Gary Rockfield and Lesta Cordil, who explain,”We always adopt older dogs, and we feel it’s one thing we can do. Rescue dogs are so happy, grateful and loyal.”

When Best Friends volunteer Elizabeth McKeon saw Portia, a little pit mix who had been born with deformed hind legs, she didn’t see a problem: “I was looking at her on the inside, and I saw she’s an awesome dog.” Elizabeth, who is also a dog trainer, plans on working with Portia to help her become a therapy dog, so she can help children and veterans who might be struggling with birth deformities or lost limbs. Portia demonstrates an indomitable, positive spirit and helps people to understand that everyone deserves dignity and respect.

These events advance the cause in so may ways – with or without a formal coalition, super adoptions provide the framework for collaboration and mutual support, with every group focused on offering the best of our movement to the public. They also elevate public awareness of the issues and are invariably newsworthy occasions that draw the media and show a wider public what great animals are waiting for them at their local shelter or rescue and how they can help by adopting their next pet. They are celebratory, life-affirming occasions that truly embody the spirit of rescue and no-kill.

I want to leave you with a great video shot and edited by Brooklyn resident Sarah Oren Brasky, CEO of Foster Dogs, Inc. and founder of the Dog Matchmaker.

Next up: the Best Friends NKLA Super Adoption at La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles next Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society

For me and I believe for everyone at Best Friends, volunteers are much more than a means to a noble end – they are an inspiration. Volunteers embody the passion and selfless commitment that are at the heart of our movement, and Best Friends is especially blessed to have the participation of the best volunteers anywhere. They are highly motivated, super talented and super passionate.

Here at the Sanctuary, volunteers come from all over the country on a daily basis and, not infrequently, from around the world, like a young woman from Malaysia who visits several times a year to help out at Cat World. In their daily lives, they are teachers, mechanics, doctors, stockbrokers, large and small business people, stay-at-home parents and students … you name it, they are represented in our volunteers. They are an amazingly diverse collection of individuals, families, school and church groups. We recently had a volunteer who celebrated his 100th birthday by volunteering at Dogtown. Talk about inspiring!

Many volunteers have demanding lives, jobs and schedules. They could easily be spending their downtime relaxing at some beach or catching up on their own backlogged chores and DIY projects, but here they are walking dogs, clearing trails, cleaning litter trays, grooming bunnies, cleaning Piggy Paradise, or hauling hay at Horse Haven.

And it’s not just here at the Sanctuary. At the Best Friends Pet Adoption and Spay/Neuter Center in Los Angeles, volunteers are part of the daily fabric of the operation, providing extra attention, training and enrichment to the dogs and cats who have come from L.A. city shelters and are being readied for new lives. Volunteers are also the backbone of our Los Angeles mobile adoptions.

Later this week, at Best Friends pet super adoptions for the greater New York area and in St George, Utah, hundreds of homeless pets will find loving forever homes. These events could never happen without squadrons of volunteers. Not only that, but the dozens of rescues and shelters, whose pets will find themselves in new homes come next week, are likewise powered by volunteers. The following week, another volunteer-powered Best Friends pet super adoption will take place in Los Angeles, and two weeks after that in Salt Lake City. Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers!

Volunteering in your local community for a rescue or shelter is a great way to help homeless pets. Local groups need volunteers for all kinds of work, from fostering to fundraising, to updating websites, to helping with adoptions. It’s easy to make an important difference. If you’d like to volunteer for Best Friends, even if you are unable to visit the Sanctuary or one of our regional program cities, visit volunteers.bestfriends.org to find out about opportunities closer to home.

This may be National Volunteer Week, but for Best Friends, every week is volunteer week. I offer my personal thanks to each and every volunteer for all that you do for the animals and for Best Friends.

Gregory Castle
CEO
Best Friends Animal Society

My first encounter with Jimmy was memorable. Of course you remember how you met each of the animals who come to share you home, but Jimmy’s entrance was particularly memorable.

There was a blue grass festival in Kanab on July 17, 1999, and Silva was helping to man a Best Friends booth at the event. I stopped by to offer my support and to check out the music. July is monsoon season here in Southern Utah, with warm, moist air from the south producing frequent afternoon and evening thunderstorms and the occasional gully-washing flashflood. Storms out here can be pretty spectacular, with sharp cracks of thunder echoing off the cliffs and through the canyons. Crystal blue skies turn leaden gray, and the lightening branches dance on the ridges like a Hollywood special effect. These isolated storm cells tend to move on in under an hour to be followed by a return of blue skies and sunshine.

On this particular day, a spectacular and very loud storm moved in during the early afternoon and temporarily shut down the festival. I left and headed back to Best Friends – about a five-mile drive up Highway 89. About two miles up the road, I got stuck in a line of cars moving at under 10 miles per hour. This is normally the result of some huge piece of mining equipment being hauled up the winding two-lane highway at a snail’s pace with wide-load signs and flashing lights. There was nothing of the sort in this case, just a line of about 15 to 20 cars crawling along. Did the lead car have an engine problem? Was I at the end of a funeral procession? Maybe it was a carload of tourists taking in the red rocks?

As the line snaked around a curve, my irritation turned to concern when I caught a glimpse of a small dog in the center of the lane leading the procession! I started passing cars as fast as I could until I passed the frantic black-and-white dog, pulled over, jumped out of my car and called to him as he passed. Jimmy ran to me and jumped into my car … it would be the last time he would ever voluntarily get into a car. His paw pads were entirely worn bloody from his flight. He was just terrified of thunder – something that only failing hearing in his later years cured.

He quickly fit into our household and appointed himself to a position similar to that of the sergeant at arms of the Little Rascals clubhouse, deciding who could enter our office and who couldn’t.

Jimmy was a wonderful friend who had many friends, both human and animal, and apart from his unfortunate habit of wanting to nip guests from behind on their way out the door, he was the most charming of little rascals.

We buried him this morning, and as Silva tossed the last shovel of dirt onto his grave, I heard unusual birdcalls. Looking up, it was a rare flyover of Canada geese in an uneven chevron formation – one wing of the V was missing a goose. It was the famed missing man formation. Truth.

Goodbye, Jimmy. You will be missed.

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society

When Best Friends partnered with San Antonio Pets Alive (SAPA) in late 2011 to fund SAPA’s new engagement to manage the adoption/live release component of San Antonio’s animal shelter, that city had been following an official strategic plan to achieve no-kill for several years. In 2006, then-Mayor Phil Hardberger had challenged the city to dramatically reduce the number of animals entering and being killed by their Animal Care Services department. At that time, the city was killing 50,000 homeless pets per year – the third highest number in the country.

It was a bold and ambitious statement and a serious one. Before long, the Animal Care Advisory Board — the body that oversees ACS — had developed a no-kill strategic plan. The San Antonio Area Foundation, a local organization that makes grants from funds established by individuals, families, businesses, and so on to support charitable causes in the community, jumped on board with funding for spay/neuter and adoptions and helped create an umbrella organization for local rescues to promote pet adoption.

By 2011, things were coming together in the community, but the shelter still had serious problems as indicated by a 32% LRR. Looking to the northeast, city leaders saw a light and hope in Austin where Austin Pets Alive, under the leadership of Dr. Ellen Jefferson, was providing the essential partner for Austin to achieve no-kill. They reached out to Ellen — a woman who has never seen an animal problem that she didn’t believe she could solve. In late 2011, Ellen approached Best Friends about her ideas for turning San Antonio around, and we agreed to support her efforts to the tune of an initial grant of $300,000, which was later expanded to a total investment of $450,000 for 2012 in a shared vision of a no-kill San Antonio.

The city, however, still had unaddressed animal issues, including a community cat problem that was contributing to shelter intake numbers and the needless killing of feral cats, which are not adoptable as household pets and really have no future once they enter any shelter system.

Within a few months, Best Friends expanded our role in helping solve the San Antonio no-kill puzzle by bringing in yet another partner. In May of 2012, Best Friends was awarded a PetSmart Charities® grant to develop and manage community cat programs in San Antonio and Albuquerque. The impact of the Petsmart Charities/Best Friends partnership on San Antonio shelter animals has been profound. The San Antonio community cat program involves combined funding of nearly $1,000,000 over three years to build out a trap/neuter/return (TNR) program that is integrated with the city shelter. In 2012, the work saved 1,000 cats that would have previously been killed that were fixed and returned to their colonies. Additionally, 4,000 cats were fixed in the areas where those cats were initially picked up. The program includes community engagement and has tremendous support from residents. In 2013, the community cat program is targeting 4,000 TNR procedures, and the Best Friends grant to San Antonio Pets Alive has been raised to $550,000.

San Antonio is the seventh most populous city in the country, and we are pleased and privileged to be an integral part of an extensive community effort that is saving lives and has the city well on the way to no-kill. Kudos all around and a tip of the hat to Phil Hardberger.

For those who may be interested, there are community cat volunteer opportunities in San Antonio and Albuquerque.

Gregory Castle
CEO
Best Friends Animal Society

—Francis Battista

As I sit here writing, I have a beagle staring me down. For all of 26 pounds, she can be very insistent. It’s a habit of hers to jump on my desk and walk across my keyboard as I try to write. All she wants is my undivided attention and love. I suppose that, considering her past, she has a lot of loving to make up for.

Two and a half years ago, Best Friends rescued Juno and 119 other beagles from a New Jersey laboratory in what has become known as the Great Beagle Rescue. Watching the video of the rescue online broke my heart. Like many others, I had no idea that dogs, mostly beagles, are routinely purposely bred for research. As the tears fell freely, I filled out an adoption application, and one week later, I brought Juno home.

As she made her first steps into her new forever life, little did I know that she would break my heart a million times as she adjusted to life outside of her former sterile environment. I watched in both sadness and amazement at her transformation into a confident, sweet dog who took to getting into beagle mischief in short order. She has gotten into my closet and eaten my flip-flops numerous times (my fault), gotten into the garbage, dug holes larger than she is in the backyard, and once even shredded my tax returns (again, my fault). Each time she gets into mischief, I secure the area and I laugh, not only because she makes the very best sad eyes ever, but because she is behaving exactly like a dog, and I could not have asked for more. Juno is a wonderful ambassador, not only helping to raise awareness about the plight of other animals in research but also as a therapy dog. Just 11 short months after being rescued, we became a certified pet therapy team.

Juno and I have attended many events in both her capacity as an ambassador for laboratory animals and therapy dog. Earlier this year, in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, Juno and I were invited as a pet therapy team to the area. Donning her bandana and special tags, she did what she does best: She gave back. For all intents and purposes, she has no reason to trust any of us, yet she does. She looks to me for assurance a lot, but she carries herself with an air of confidence when she has her therapy bandana on. She knows exactly what is expected of her as she greets each person she meets with a wag and a smile. Sometimes I feel as though all of those years she was locked in a research kennel without love or affection have given her an insatiable desire to be loved. Children especially love her, and the feeling is mutual. In fact, she inspires others in ways that I never imagined.

I have learned an awful lot from watching my little girl and am very proud of her. She is smart and stubborn and knows exactly what she wants. She is far braver than I have ever been in my life. She is also remarkably resilient and has few residual effects from her past life. Occasionally she will be startled by a loud noise or a slamming door (then again so am I!). I consider myself lucky to have been able to witness her journey as she has blossomed into so much more than just the laboratory identification number that is tattooed in her ear. She is a great dog, an amazing friend, a healer and a comfort to many. It’s sad to think of all the lab beagles who never had a chance to know life beyond the confines of their cages. Hopefully Juno’s example can help to bring needed change to that cruel practice.

When Juno is not being an ambassador or therapy dog, she enjoys belly rubs, cookies, running zoomies, blogging, digging and the pure luxury of just being a dog.

Forgive me, but I must go now and hug my beagle. She has been terribly patient this entire time.

Please visit Juno’s blog.

—Kathleen Aubry

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society

Taking the show on the road to the East Coast!

This year, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be taking the conference to the East Coast. It will be held in Jacksonville, Florida, October 10–13, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront. Early bird registration starts today, and you don’t want to miss your opportunity to join us … last year we nearly sold out!

Learn from the best!

The conference is a unique opportunity to learn from the best in our field. You will also make contacts and friendships that will help you make a difference in the lives of more animals, help end needless shelter killing, and usher in a day when there are No More Homeless Pets.

Last year, the No More Homeless Pets National Conference took place at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas over Halloween weekend. There were over 1,400 people in attendance – dedicated animal-loving rescuers, volunteers, fundraisers, networkers, and animal welfare professionals all committed to the same simple goal: no-kill.

We were all inspired by Julie Castle

One of the highlights of the event was the closing address from Julie Castle, Best Friends senior manager of Communications. Her theme of faithfulness and trust resonated through the conference hall and is embodied in the very simple message that our animal friends convey: “I am faithful.” Here is an excerpt of Julie’s closing address:

See you there!

Francis Battista
Co-founder
Best Friends Animal Society