Summer bestsellers: The stories you won't want to put down

Last weekend was the summer solstice, so it's official: Summer has begun.

This time of year, everyone's swapping their summer reading lists: the page-turners, the beach reads, the ones they swear they couldn't put down. My days start a little differently, with as many news articles as I can get my hands on before my coffee's even gone cold, but I've got a list too.

It's a running list of feel-good stories that could top any nonfiction chart — ones that have come up in our weekly staff Zooms, were shared at Best Friends National Conference, or have come through our network partners. And the cast of characters is just as good: mayors, shelter directors, council members, and everyday people like you and me. Throw in a few bottle-fed kittens, and you've got storylines good enough to star on any reading list.

The stories below won't help you finish your Goodreads challenge, but they might leave you feeling pretty good about what's possible for dogs and cats this year. So whether you're headed for the beach or the canyons, grab your gear and settle in for five stories from the no-kill movement that would easily make my summer bestseller list.

On June 10, a tornado tore through Springfield, Illinois, and of all the places it could have landed, it found the fairgrounds and the Animal Protective League shelter. The roof came off the main shelter. The roof came off the spay/neuter clinic next door. The storage shed didn't fare much better. Animals were inside both buildings when it hit.

Miraculously, not a single animal was hurt. By the next morning, every dog and cat had been moved somewhere safe: Sangamon County's shelter offered space, a local cat cafe took some in, and vet clinics across the area opened their doors. Best Friends' emergency response team was on the road within hours, arriving the morning after the storm with a van full of pet crates, just in case.

What happened next is hard to capture in numbers, but here are some anyway: More than 75 volunteers showed up that first day, unprompted, just because they'd heard what happened. People dug trenches to drain standing water. People hauled away fallen trees. People showed up with tools in their car and no plan beyond "tell me what to do." Stores across the city ran impromptu supply drives for food and blankets. And in the first week alone, the shelter received more than 600 foster applications.

They even set up a hotline, staffed by Best Friends, that let anyone text in and get matched right away with how they wanted to help: donate, adopt, foster, volunteer.

And the shelter isn't waiting around for its building back either. They've already got a mobile spay/neuter unit running out of a borrowed lot, a handful of vacant properties offered up at little or no cost while they figure out a permanent home, and a foster team coordinating out of a shared office with a couple of laptops between them. The Animal Protective League is going to rebuild.

The message I hear from this is people: People showed up. And what an empowering way to kick off the summer than to see tragedy turn into triumph.

Next up on our list is a story that’s been years in the making. Best Friends and the ASPCA have teamed up to offer a historic level of funding and support to one of the country’s largest sheltering systems: Los Angeles Animal Services. With six shelters, approximately 60,000 animals entering every year, and a population of about 3.9 million people to serve, Los Angeles has their work cut out for them.

But this is no us-versus-them problem. This is when we double down on the fact that any barrier to saving animals’ lives anywhere is our barrier to overcome together.

So, after two years of meetings and discussions, we may be just days away from our offer to help save lives becoming reality. Thanks to tons of public support and comments from animal lovers just like you, the offer has passed through committee and will be voted on by the full L.A. City Council. The new budget year starts July 1, so we could be a week away from getting the green light to get started transforming L.A. and saving more lives.

This story is still being written. We are seeing history being made right before our eyes, so stay tuned! And in the meantime, while we wait for the vote, be sure to check out my previous blog on this historic union.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “a tiger never changes its stripes.” I certainly had and thought nothing of it until Omar Polio walked onto the stage at Best Friends National Conference this year and changed my entire perspective.

As the director of animal control in Rosenberg, Texas, Omar has seen his fair share of dogs. But when asked what animal came to mind when he thought of implementing lifesaving programs, Omar thought of Tiger.

In Omar’s first month working at the shelter, a dog was brought to the shelter due to his dog aggression. His family had hit their limit and had come to the heartbreaking conclusion that they would have to surrender their dog. “Maybe there’s another family out there for him,” I imagine them thinking.

Tiger loved people and was so social until they walked him by the other kennels. Then, they saw a different side to Tiger as he lunged at each kennel door and saw every dog in his path as a threat. Omar's immediate thought was, “How do we make Tiger more adoptable?”

But maybe changing Tiger’s stripes was the wrong way to think about it. Maybe it was the shelter team’s stripes that needed rearranging. They challenged traditional thinking of how a shelter environment should treat dogs. They pushed themselves beyond where they had gone before to see whether they could make the environment better for Tiger. Because, as Omar says, “he deserved it.”

After months of treatment plans and professional behavioral assessments, Tiger soared. With careful introductions and constant supervision, Tiger excelled in playgroups with other dogs. If you watch the video, you can see Tiger effortlessly fit into a group and finally let his guard down.

Tiger went to a foster home where he continued to excel. And through dog-day-out adventures and one-on-one training in a home environment, they finally saw the sweet boy underneath the fearful exterior.

By networking and sharing his story, after 763 days at the shelter and a long drive to Massachusetts, Tiger was adopted.

Tiger will live out his life with his beautiful brindle stripes staying exactly where they are. And this shelter in Texas will forever be marked by his legacy.

As Omar says, this story is not unique. The real change comes when another animal arrives at the shelter, and they now have a plan in place to make sure every “Tiger” gets to show their stripes and find a home. And by sharing this beautiful story at the conference this year, Omar is creating a road map for any other Tiger out there who finds their way into a shelter.

Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution supporting no-kill and encouraging communities across the country to implement the kinds of programs and policies that save dogs' and cats' lives.

More than 1,500 mayors are now being encouraged to look at what is happening in their own communities and ask what more can be done for pets and the people who love them.

The resolution highlights everything from pet-friendly housing to equitable access to pet care services — in other words, the very real issues that can determine whether people and pets stay together.

That's what makes moments like this so encouraging. More and more leaders are recognizing what animal lovers have always known: Pets are part of our families, and our communities are stronger when people and pets can stay together.

And for those of us who need that feel-good summer beach read, I’ve got just the thing.

Springtown, Texas, isn’t boasting a high population density by any means. They have nearly doubled their population since 2020, and that number still remains under 6,000 people. But that doesn’t stop the community from showing up for their local animal shelter.

While Springtown Animal Shelter’s save rate is hovering right around 90% –– the no-kill benchmark –– they knew there was room for improvement. So with support from Watauga Animal Services Center and the Humane Society of North Texas, Springtown Animal Shelter was able to identify a gap in their services: They needed a program to gather and educate neonatal kitten foster caregivers.

If you haven’t read my recent blog on community cats, be sure to give it a read because there are a lot of misconceptions about caring for cats who live outdoors. But I digress.

Identifying this hole in their services led the shelter to set up a kitten bottle-feeding class. It may sound cute, but this is serious work. Young kittens are some of the most vulnerable pets when they enter shelters. The shelter team picked a day with gorgeous weather, and the people really showed up. Heck, they even got someone to walk in off the street and attend because they were curious.

After the session was done, everyone left with practical tools to use in their community. The people showed up because they’re proud of the work their local shelter is doing and want to be a part of that. Now, the shelter has a whole roster of folks they can call on when the next round of kittens comes through who need bottle-feeding.

It’s not a wild, harrowing tale of adventure, but it’s the calm, steady trust that the community invests in the local shelter that proves the strongest. It’s the folks who are willing to take risks and try something new who will reap the rewards. Fortune favors the bold, especially when you need foster families to bottle-feed fragile kittens.

So there you have it: my summer bestseller list. It may be a busy summer, but don’t let the hustle stop you from pausing to indulge in the good. I hope you enjoyed some of the stories at the top of my mind and heart. I hope these lessons of taking risks and saying “to heck with the status quo” inspire you to do the same for the animals you love in your community. Happy reading.

-Julie

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