Saving lives: Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

While providing a home-between-homes for up to 1,600 animals on any given day, we’re constantly finding new ways to save and improve their lives, including using cutting-edge technologies that enable us to save those who previously weren’t possible to save. 

In addition to all the lifesaving that happens in Angel Canyon, the Sanctuary also supports local shelters in their efforts to reach no-kill and bolsters Best Friends’ commitment to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters. And you fuel every aspect of this work.

New digs for dogs

Right now, so much innovation at the Sanctuary is centered on dogs with behavior challenges. That’s because they’re among the animals most at risk of being killed in our nation’s shelters. While they’ve always found refuge at the Sanctuary, this year marks a new era for them here and across the country.

The Shipley Dog Lodges are a six-acre, state-of-the-art complex made possible through a generous gift from the Shipley Foundation. The new facility is a beacon of hope for vulnerable pups like Dana. It’s also a place for Best Friends to innovate and model how to care for dogs with behavior challenges, with the goal of placing them into loving homes more quickly than ever before.

Dana was one of the first group of dogs to move into the new digs in September. Designed with dogs like her in mind, the Shipley Dog Lodges help limit her exposure to things that upset her. For Dana, that’s other dogs. She’s reactive to them, especially when she's walking on a leash. 

But here, she’s already making huge strides and even romping with other dogs in playgroups! When she’s not working hard at her training and socialization, she enjoys sunbathing and dressing up like a princess.

Powering through panleuk

Recently, Cat World received a frantic plea from the nearby Cedar City Animal Shelter. They’d lost multiple kittens to illness within 24 hours. And although the shelter is making lifesaving improvements with help from Best Friends, they were not equipped to deal with the outbreak.

Arrangements were quickly made to get the remaining sick cats and kittens to Best Friends Animal Clinic. There, the Best Friends veterinary team confirmed their suspicion — the illness was panleukopenia, a serious virus. They immediately started giving lifesaving treatments.

The next morning, three Cat World staff members loaded up supplies and headed to the shelter to help. The team deep-cleaned the entire facility, trained staff on panleukopenia testing and disease control, and returned to the Sanctuary with more cats and kittens who’d tested positive for the illness during the visit.

In all, 26 critically ill cats and kittens came to the Sanctuary, and all but one survived and recovered. By the end of the year, 20 had found new homes. Just a few years ago, the shelter would have considered it impossible to stop the outbreak without euthanizing every cat in the building. Now they know it’s possible not only to ask for — and receive — help in a crisis but also to get the tools they need to prevent another one.

Helping the herd

Horse Haven received a call for help on a quiet day at the end of summer. A local animal services officer got the green light to save a pasture full of long-neglected horses and other animals. Now, 20 horses, 10 goats, two donkeys, and a sheep — many little more than skin and bone — all needed a place to go.

The Sanctuary had everything the animals would need, so the rescue mission was on. It took a full day for the sheriff and Best Friends team to get the herd of haggard herbivores to the Sanctuary. Most were not only hungry but also wary of people. Some were in terrible condition. 

Yet all but two of the original herd would survive and recover with the expert care they received at the Sanctuary.

Life started to look up as the large herd grew stronger and healthier every day. A mama goat and her kid went home first, and then a pony was adopted by a family with two little girls who adore her. 

Two of the goats, along with the sheep (wonderfully named Ram a Lam a Ding Dong), got a nice home and a job keeping weeds at bay on 10 acres of land. By the end of the year, 18 of the animals had found homes.