A shared quest to save cats and dogs

Gallant knights gathered around a roundtable, fiery dragons screaming through the air, and powerful wizards are all hallmarks of the legend of King Arthur. But the magic of the roundtable wasn’t just in the myth — it was in the idea behind it.

The roundtable offers a shared space where every voice matters and the best ideas can rise together. It works for an order of knights just as it does for those on a quest to save lives in animal welfare. And for a leggy pup named Dasher and a sweet mama cat named Twyla, ideas formed at Rescue Roundtable — a joint program organized by One Tail at a Time and Best Friends Animal Society — helped them move from an uncertain future to one as bright as a dragon’s scales.

At its heart, Rescue Roundtable is a program built on the belief that no one saves lives alone. For communities to achieve no-kill, it’s essential that everyone — animal shelters, rescue groups, and others — collaborates in lifesaving.

Rescue Roundtable brings animal rescue organizations and shelters together to learn from one another, share what works (or what doesn’t), and strengthen the systems that allow them to help more pets. This kind of collaboration is one of the most important ways shelters nationwide are reaching and sustaining no-kill.

“I want everyone to succeed in this industry,” says Heather Owen, founder and executive director of One Tail at a Time, a Best Friends Network Partner in Illinois. “I've been doing this for a long time, and there's certain practices that immediately make a big difference in our ability to save lives. I wanted to spread those practices and ideas to other people because the more successful animal rescues and shelters we have, the easier it’ll be for all of us to reach the same goal of saving more lives.”

The program launched in 2025, starting with support and resources for rescue groups. Over nine weeks, participating rescue groups took part in webinars led by Heather, covering everything from adoptions and foster support to fundraising, transport programs, and volunteer engagement — the nuts and bolts that help rescue groups build the capacity to become impactful lifesaving partners.

Next, each rescue group was matched with a nearby shelter working toward no-kill. Over the next eight months, the 42 rescue groups that participated in Rescue Roundtable set out to take in 40 additional pets (compared to what they did the previous year) from the shelters they were matched with and place them in homes. Best Friends contributed $178,000 in funding to help support these efforts.

How rescue groups and shelters save more pets together

And it worked — in a big way. Since its launch, the program has helped more than 3,400 cats and dogs move out of shelters and into happy new homes.

“Seeing the success of the program has been really inspiring,” says Kayla Riding, a Best Friends staff member who manages the Rescue Roundtable program with Heather. “It’s been exciting to see the impact.”

And for one handsome pup named Dasher, the new program changed everything.

When Shelby Golonka, medical director at Tiny N Tall Rescue, a rescue organization in Illinois that focuses on giant and small breed dogs, met the tall drink of water known as Dasher, it was love at first sight.

“We met Dasher during our visit to Harlan County Animal Shelter to establish our partnership and meet the team,” explains Shelby. "After returning home, we could not stop thinking about him.”

Dasher charmed staff and volunteers at Harlan County Animal Shelter with his handsome visage and extra-large, extra-cute grin. He’s polite. He gets along great with other dogs and people. Despite all that, he wasn’t having luck meeting his match.

So the Tiny N Tall team welcomed Dasher into their rescue group — just in time for a special adoption event.

Grant helps save more dogs in Chicago shelters

Inspired by Rescue Roundtable, Tiny N Tall had been looking for ways to make adoptions easier and more efficient. “During this event, community members could fill out applications on the spot and take a dog home that day,” says Shelby. They also made things simpler for adopters by doing away with their policy that people who had pets at home had to bring their current pets out to meet dogs they were interested in adopting.

Shelby adds, “(The adopter) sat with his foster caregiver and talked all things Dasher, filled out the application during the event, and our big boy went home that day. It could not have been a more perfect scenario for him. We cried. It was finally his moment, and we were all there to see it happen.”

Meanwhile, down in Texas, another Rescue Roundtable collaboration helped hundreds of cats and kittens get their second chances.

“Friends of Rescue Animals does amazing work for the City of Corsicana Animal Shelter,” says Kayla. “They transferred more than 200 cats from the shelter (into their program) in eight months. At one point, every single transport out of that shelter was into Friends of Rescue Animals.”

One of those lifesaving transfers included a sweet tortoiseshell calico named Twyla and her five kittens.

“Transfer partnerships like this allow pets like Twyla and her kittens to get the care they need and land in loving homes much faster,” says Deana Seigler, president of Friends of Rescue Animals.

As soon as the family arrived at Friends of Rescue Animals, they were checked by a vet and then spayed or neutered the very next day. And in no time at all, the kittens and Twyla landed in loving homes of their own.

By pairing animal rescue groups with animal shelters that need support — and giving those rescue groups the tools to grow — Rescue Roundtable turns collaboration into momentum and momentum into more saved lives.

Much like King Arthur’s table, the real magic is in the people gathered around it. It’s in the shared ideas, shared responsibility, and shared goal to find every pet a Camelot of their own.

Our goal at Best Friends is to support all animal shelters in the U.S. in reaching no-kill. No-kill means saving every dog and cat in a shelter who can be saved, accounting for community safety and good quality of life for pets. 

Shelter staff can’t do it alone. Saving animals in shelters is everyone’s responsibility, and it takes support and participation from the community. No-kill is possible when we work together thoughtfully, honestly, and collaboratively.