The Best Friends Podcast

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Reimagining field services: Helping people and pets in Sacramento Apr 15, 2021

Show notes

It’s National Animal Care and Control Appreciation Week!

This week we honor these front-line heroes by sharing a story of how officers in Sacramento, California, are doing their part to save lives - of both the two and four-legged kind. The chief of animal services for the Front Street Animal Shelter, Jace Huggins, tells us about a partnership with their local public health department.

To all of you working in the area of field services, on behalf of everyone at Best Friends, we’d like to say thank you for the work you do every day!

Community-supported kitten care Apr 01, 2021

Show notes

Kitten season has arrived, which means shelters and rescue organizations across the country are starting to feel the crunch. As fluffy and adorable as they may be, this barrage of vulnerable animals stretches even the most well-resourced organizations thin.

Today we hear from the director of animal services in Long Beach, California, Staycee Dains. Their partnership with local rescue organization Helen Sanders CatPAWS is a perfect example of community-supported sheltering. If you’re willing to provide the resources and ask the public for help - they will step up!

Who Wants to Be a Lifesaver? Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

This week we transform The Best Friends Podcast into our version of one of the world’s most beloved game shows!

Players representing four Network partner organizations put their knowledge to the test with questions such as:

What is the only state where every individual shelter has reached the 90% save rate benchmark?
How many eyelids do dogs have?
According to a Best Friends study from 2020, what percentage of adults feel it is very important or essential to have no-kill shelters in their area?

Do you know the answers, or would you need to Ask the Expert, Michelle Dosson from Norfolk Animal Care Center, for help?

Learn how our players did on their way to securing a $1,000 unrestricted grant to help them save more lives as we play Who Wants to Be a Lifesaver?

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL VIDEO

Contestants:

Brittany Pasquale, City of Tracy Animal Services, Tracy California

Jennifer Sigmon, Alexander County Animal Services, Taylorsville North Carolina

Catherine Hoffman, Corridor Rescue, Houston Texas

Jen Clarkson, Dog Aide, Detroit Michigan

When leading requires a push Mar 18, 2021

Show notes

When a community implements lifesaving programs, and the shelter, rescue organizations, and the public all come together as one, it's a beautiful thing! But the road to achieving no-kill can often feel anything but beautiful.

Societal change is challenging. It often requires agitation but in a movement driven by kindness, how do you find the right balance while lives hang in the balance every day?

This week we talk with Jamie Case from American Pets Alive! who shares lessons she learned in her career as both the agitator and the agitated.

Los Angeles now a No-Kill City thanks to NKLA Coalition Mar 11, 2021

Show notes

Launched in 2012, The NKLA (No-Kill Los Angeles) Coalition set out to do what many believed to be unattainable. Bring the combined save rate for Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) across the 90% threshold for a full calendar year.

With a 2020 save rate of 90.49%, it’s now official: Los Angeles is a no-kill community. L.A. is now the most populous, most racially and economically diverse, and largest community geographically to attain no-kill status.

This epic achievement results from ten years of blood, sweat, tears, and collaboration between LAAS, Best Friends, and more than 150 rescue organizations who together made up the coalition. In this episode, we celebrate this momentous occasion in the history of the no-kill movement and share some of the lessons learned in L.A., which can help every community in America still on their quest to achieve no-kill.

Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in animal welfare Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and catalyzed a long-overdue, nationwide conversation about racism, social justice, biases, and privilege. Animal sheltering and animal welfare have long suffered from a lack of diversity, and we know that has negatively impacted both the people and pets in the communities we serve.

Change starts from within, so Best Friends, like many others, set out to understand how to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts. DE&I are foundations of building a strong company culture, one that empowers everyone to do the work and allows us to reach every animal lover—especially those who have historically gone unrepresented in our movement. Best Friends is committed to continuing to work to acknowledge and dismantle the deep-rooted systems in animal welfare that prevent our movement from being truly and deeply diverse, equitable, or inclusive.

This week's episode shares conversations from two recent Best Friends Network Town Halls where we shared our approach to DE&I work and provided actionable next steps you can use for your organization.

Deadly Texas Weather Brings Together Lifesaving Partnerships Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

Right now, hundreds of people representing dozens of shelters and rescue organizations are working tirelessly to help those who need assistance due to the winter storm that devastated Texas.

It was the first time in history that some parts of Texas were under a winter storm warning. Without the infrastructure and resources to handle ice, snow, and bitterly cold temperatures, millions of people lost electricity. Many also had to go without water or were under boil orders as frozen pipes burst faster than the utility companies could fix them. It's hard to believe, but there are still Texans who have not had their power restored.

Even the most well-resourced animal shelters and organizations have struggled through this time, so the resource-strapped shelters, such as those in small, rural communities, are in dire straits. From providing resources to local shelters and pet owners to transporting pets to other communities where they are guaranteed a positive outcome, the collaborative work is once again proving the resiliency of this movement. We always find a way to rise to the occasion - even during those times we never thought could happen.

Julie Castle Returns! Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

Julie Castle, the CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, was the first-ever guest on The Best Friends Podcast, and we were excited to have her back for episode number 52! It's not even been a year since we last spoke, but we had plenty of things to discuss in what has been a very tumultuous year for our field and the country overall.

Even though the last 11 months have been overwhelming, Julie says she's tried to see this moment as one of opportunity. And as we finally face the complex issues that have held our field back including racism, and classism, we hear Julie's perspective on the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion and learn about the progress of the effort to right those wrongs within Best Friends.

She also explains why she believes No-Kill 2025 is every bit as relevant today as when the goal was announced in 2016 and how she handles criticism, even when it's from the harshest of critics.

Serving the Underserved in Rural America Feb 11, 2021

Show notes

The United States Census Bureau classifies 3% of the land in the country as urban, and they say that 80% of the total population lives in that area, which means tens of millions of pet owners spread out across a vast, rural area of the country.

Rural America is as diverse as it is big. It's multicultural. The people and communities span the socioeconomic spectrum, and just as we see in urban communities, there is a lack of services for pet owners. Helping underserved rural communities can be a big challenge, whether it's due to a complete lack of services available or simply logistical issues. How can we create practical programs to connect pet owners with veterinary services if the closest veterinarian is 20, 50, or even 100 miles away?

On this episode of The Best Friends Podcast, we take our first look at this issue of underserved communities in rural America. What is the data telling us? And we learn how the Oklahoma Humane Society is ignoring city limits, listening, and using partnerships to increase lifesaving statewide.

Francis Battista Feb 04, 2021

Show notes

It's the 50th episode of The Best Friends Podcast!

To celebrate the milestone, we sat down with one of the co-founders of Best Friends, Francis Battista. His contributions to the organization are vast, from his discovery in the 1980s of the land for sale, which now is the sanctuary in Southern Utah, to helping develop much of the outreach work that's integral to reaching the Best Friends goal of No-Kill 2025. He is still involved in many areas of the organization, most notably as the board of directors' current chairman.

Along with his wife Silva, Francis built relationships and programs in Los Angeles that laid the foundation for the groundbreaking partnership with Los Angeles Animal Services. That foundation was also critical to the successful launch of No-Kill Los Angeles (NKLA), a coalition of more than 100 rescue groups and shelters working together to make the entire city of L.A. no-kill. He was integral to some of the most notable and transformative projects in Best Friends history, including the response to Hurricane Katrina and saving the dogs from the Michael Vick dogfighting case.

Our conversation ranged from what it took to make Best Friends what it is today, his thoughts on the no-kill movement, and why data, measurement, and partnerships are the keys to lifesaving success.

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