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About Best Friends Animal Society

Best Friends Animal Society is guided by a simple philosophy: kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us. When Best Friends was founded in the early 1980’s, roughly 17 million dogs and cats were being killed in U.S. shelters every year. What’s more, the conventional belief was that little could be done to lower that terrible number.

Best Friends created a new vision: A grassroots effort to place dogs and cats considered “unadoptable" into good homes, and to reduce the number of unwanted pets through effective spay and neuter programs.  Since then, the number of dogs and cats being destroyed in shelters has fallen to approximately 5 million a year nationwide.  There has been much progress, but there is still much more to do. 

The next phase of this work - bringing the number down to essentially zero.

Our work in Los Angeles
Because the mission of a no-kill city can only be achieved when people come together, Best Friends works collaboratively with animal rescue groups, city shelters and passionate individuals to make this a reality. For many years, Best Friends’ presence in Los Angeles was carried out through its many adoption events, spay-neuter campaigns and partnerships with city and county government.  In early 2012, the Best Friends Pet Adoption & Spay Neuter Center in Mission Hills, California opened to the public.