Best Friends Animal Society, founded in its present form in 1993, is an American nonprofit 501 animal welfare organization. The group does outreach nationwide with shelters, rescue groups and members to promote pet adoption, no-kill animal rescue, and spay-and-neuter practices.
History
The group originated in Arizona in 1971, developing from The Foundation Faith of the Millennium, a religious group formerly known as the Process Church of the Final Judgment. The Foundation church relocated animals from its Arizona ranch to property in Kanab, Utah, in 1984. In 1991, the church was renamed Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which became a tax-exempt, nonprofit charity, and in 2003 renamed Best Friends Animal Society.
Animal sanctuary
After the Foundation church moved to its current grounds in 1984, the founders eventually began informally calling it "Best Friends" until 1991 when it began formally operating as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, a no-kill shelter located in Southwestern Utah in Angel Canyon near Kanab. The sanctuary is on with an additional leased from the United States Bureau of Land Management near Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon's North Rim, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Lake Powell. The sanctuary is home to around 1,500 homeless animals. National Geographic Channel's DogTown series was filmed at the sanctuary.
In August 2011, the city of Los Angeles contracted Best Friends to operate and manage its Northeast Valley Shelter, which the city could no longer afford to run. Under the contract, Best Friends was to provide adoptions for shelter animals and spay and neuter services for the community.
Magazine
The group publishes Best Friends, a bimonthly magazine about animals, animal welfare, news events, and activities at the sanctuary. The magazine, which is distributed free to members, has 200,000 subscribers. Originating as Foundation magazine in 1975 with its interview of Charles Manson referred to as the "death" issue, the first edition of Best Friends magazine was published in 1993, two years after the religious group became an animal sanctuary.
Best Friends teams entered the hurricane disaster area on September 2, 2005, and stayed eight months in and around New Orleans. Best Friends did not have a significant presence doing animal disaster rescue or recovery work until Katrina. The organization's official role post-Hurricane Katrina was that of a primary animal rescue organization. Also after Katrina, Best Friends helped Pets Alive, an animal shelter in New York state, and rescuing around 800 cats from an institutional hoarding situation in Nevada. Best Friends also assisted local animal rescue groups following the Peruvian earthquakes of 2007.
In 2007, Best Friends took in 22 of former NFL quarterback Michael Vick's 47 fighting dogs after petitioning the state of Virginia to save the dogs seized from the Bad Newz Kennels dog fighting investigation. The dogs, once owned by NFL Quarterback Michael Vick, were expected to be euthanized for fear of aggressive behavior. Seven shelters took in the remaining 25 dogs. The court ordered Vick to pay $928,073 in restitution for the “past, present and long-term care of all the dogs.” The court allocated $5,000 for dogs deemed likely to be adopted, and $18,275 for each of the dogs that went into longer-term or lifetime sanctuary care at Best Friends. In December 2008, Georgia, a former Vick dog, appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show with Best Friends dog trainer John Garcia. The two also appeared on CNN's Larry King Live. Rehabilitation of the Vick dogs appeared in an episode of National Geographic Channel's series DogTown. DogTowns producer, Darcy Dennett, later approached Best Friends about a feature-length documentary on the same story. Released in October 2015, The Champions is a documentary that covers the stories of five dogs and their impact they had had on their adopters and how society looks at pit bulls rescued from fighting cases. The film received the 2015 Zelda Penzel "Giving Voice to the Voiceless" award at Hamptons International Film Festival. The film also features the work of both Best Friends Animal Society and BAD RAP, an Oakland-based animal welfare rescue group. FilmRise acquired film rights in November 2015. It was released through community screenings and became available digitally in March 2016.
