Best Friends Animal Society and the Save Them All Campaign

Last updated: May 23, 2026

This article is informational, not institutional endorsement. Best Friends Animal Society is one of several major US animal welfare organizations; this overview presents its mission, programs, and history neutrally. For adopter, volunteer, or donor decisions, evaluate any organization based on documented programs and your local context.

What Best Friends Animal Society Is

Best Friends Animal Society is a national animal-welfare nonprofit headquartered in Kanab, Utah, where it operates the largest no-kill sanctuary in the United States. Founded in 1984, the organization focuses on ending the killing of healthy and treatable animals in US shelters through a national network partnership model, direct sanctuary care, regional adoption centers, and policy advocacy.

The best friends animal society save them all framework is built around a single measurable goal: reaching national no-kill status, defined as a 90% or higher live-release rate at every US shelter. The organization tracks shelter data publicly and partners with municipal and nonprofit shelters across the country toward this measurable target.

Founding and Sanctuary History

Best Friends was founded in 1984 by a group of friends who pooled resources to acquire land in Angel Canyon outside Kanab, Utah, and establish a sanctuary for dogs and cats who had nowhere else to go. The founding group included Michael Mountain, Faith Maloney, and others. The sanctuary grew through the 1980s and 1990s as donations and adoption work expanded.

By the 2000s the sanctuary had grown into one of the largest no-kill facilities in the world, housing thousands of animals at any given time, including dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, parrots, pigs, and wildlife. Best Friends Magazine, founded in the late 1980s, became a major channel for sanctuary stories, adoption marketing, and no-kill advocacy.

The Save Them All Campaign

Save Them All is the umbrella campaign tying together Best Friends’s adoption, policy, and education work. The campaign frames the organization’s mission as ending the killing of healthy and treatable animals in US shelters and replacing population management through euthanasia with population management through spay/neuter, adoption, fostering, and community resources.

Save Them All connects to the no-kill movement’s broader theoretical work, including Nathan Winograd’s No Kill Equation framework. The campaign frames no-kill as an operational target rather than a slogan: 90% or higher live-release rate, sustained over time, achieved through structural changes in shelter operations. See our overview of the no-kill shelter meaning for the underlying definitions. The 90% threshold is widely cited though not universally accepted across the sector; some shelter-medicine researchers argue for outcome-quality metrics alongside the pure live-release rate.

The No-Kill 2025 Goal

Best Friends publicly committed to a national no-kill 2025 goal — every US shelter at 90% or higher live-release rate by 2025. The organization publishes an annual progress report and a public Pet Lifesaving Dashboard showing live-release rates by shelter, county, and state. As 2025 has approached, the data has shown significant progress in many jurisdictions and continued gaps in others.

The 2025 goal is aspirational and tracking-based; reaching it depends on coordinated work by thousands of shelters, rescues, and communities. Whether or not the exact 2025 number is met, the framework has changed how many US shelters operate, measure outcomes, and partner with rescues. The dashboard remains the organization’s primary public accountability tool.

Network Partner Program

Best Friends’s Network Partner program is the largest no-kill rescue and shelter coalition in the US, with thousands of member organizations across all fifty states. Network Partners receive grants, training, marketing support, and access to the Best Friends adoption platform. The model treats no-kill as a community-level outcome that requires partnership across the local rescue ecosystem.

For adopters, Network Partners are a useful filter when searching for a rescue. Member status is voluntary and self-reported but generally indicates an organization aligned with no-kill principles. Standard vetting still applies: review the organization’s 501(c)(3) status, Form 990 filings, adoption-fee transparency, and post-adoption support practices before committing time or money to a specific rescue.

Regional Lifesaving Centers

Best Friends operates regional Lifesaving Centers in Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Houston, and Salt Lake City, in addition to the Kanab Sanctuary. The centers function as adoption centers, training hubs for partner shelters, and regional operational bases. Each center coordinates with the local Network Partners and municipal shelter system.

Regional centers expand the organization’s reach beyond Kanab and provide visible adoption presence in major US metropolitan areas. They also serve as transport-coordination points for moving adoptable animals from over-crowded source shelters to under-supplied placement markets.

Vicktory Dogs and Cruelty-Case Sanctuary

Best Friends took in 22 of the dogs rescued from the 2007 Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting prosecution in Surry County, Virginia. These “Vicktory Dogs” became one of the most documented case studies in cruelty-case rehabilitation. Many were rehabilitated and adopted into homes; some remained at the sanctuary for lifetime care; some passed of age-related causes after years of rehabilitation.

The case demonstrated that fighting-case survivors are not categorically beyond rehabilitation, while honestly acknowledging that some carry trauma requiring lifetime professional care. The Vicktory case has informed subsequent cruelty-case protocols across the sector — individualized evaluation, foster-based decompression, qualified-trainer behavior modification, and sanctuary placement for dogs who cannot be safely placed in homes.

Adoption and Foster Programs

Best Friends operates national adoption marketing through its website and partner-shelter feeds, regional adoption events, and ongoing transport programs that move animals from high-intake source regions to receiving regions with stronger adoption markets. Foster programs at the regional centers provide short-term home placement for medical recovery, behavior decompression, and adopter matching.

The organization also publishes adopter education content covering decompression, training, medical care, and lifelong commitment. The framing aligns with the broader welfare-org consensus that adoption is a primary pathway alongside ethical sourcing through health-tested hobby breeders.

Policy Advocacy

Best Friends’s policy work covers municipal-level shelter policy, state-level no-kill legislation, BSL repeal advocacy, and partnership with peer organizations on national campaigns. The organization opposes BSL and supports comprehensive owner-accountability dangerous-dog frameworks consistent with the ASPCA, the HSUS, AVMA, AKC, UKC, and CDC findings.

Best Friends does not currently operate a national political-action committee; lobbying activities are conducted within the 501(c)(3) limits and through coalition work. State and municipal campaigns are run by local partners with Best Friends technical and grant support.

Peer Welfare Organization Landscape

Best Friends operates within a landscape that includes major peer organizations with overlapping and complementary missions. The Maddie’s Fund framework provides much of the shelter-medicine and adoption-innovation grant funding the no-kill movement relies on. North Shore Animal League America operates one of the largest no-kill adoption operations from Port Washington, NY. Other major peers include the ASPCA, HSUS, American Humane, and a substantial network of regional rescues.

Differences across peer orgs are documented and largely tactical: scale, sanctuary versus shelter focus, geographic emphasis, and specific policy priorities. Adopters and donors can review each organization’s annual report and Form 990 to evaluate fit, then choose where to volunteer, donate, or partner based on documented programs.

Nonprofit Rescue Versus Municipal Shelter Context

Best Friends’s network model recognizes that no-kill success depends on the partnership between municipal open-admission shelters (which take any animal that arrives at the door) and nonprofit limited-admission rescues (which can be selective about intake). Neither model alone reaches no-kill at community scale; both are needed. The shared-intake framework gives municipal shelters relief on length-of-stay pressure and gives nonprofit rescues access to a steady flow of placement candidates.

For adopters, this context helps explain why Best Friends partners with municipal shelters rather than competing with them, and why local no-kill progress is a coalition outcome rather than a single-organization achievement.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Best Friends founded?

Best Friends Animal Society was founded in 1984 by a group of friends who established the Kanab, Utah sanctuary. The sanctuary has grown into the largest no-kill facility in the US.

What does Save Them All mean?

Save Them All is the umbrella campaign for Best Friends’s mission of ending the killing of healthy and treatable animals in US shelters. The operational target is a 90% or higher live-release rate nationally.

What is the no-kill 2025 goal?

Best Friends publicly committed to reaching national no-kill status — every US shelter at 90% or higher live-release rate — by 2025. Progress is tracked on the public Pet Lifesaving Dashboard.

What is the Best Friends Network?

The Best Friends Network is a national coalition of thousands of rescue and shelter member organizations working toward no-kill in their communities. Member status indicates voluntary alignment with no-kill principles.

Where can I adopt from Best Friends?

Best Friends operates the Kanab Sanctuary and regional Lifesaving Centers in Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Houston, and Salt Lake City. The website also lists adoptable animals from Network Partner shelters and rescues nationwide.