Thousands of dogs spared from torture
In other news: Mission: Accomplished. Lies, Damn Lies & Best Friends Animal Society. Ghost Animals. Another state bans the sale of milled pets. Animals are suffering, too. A “white cane” for blind dogs. Wildlife “management” is a euphemism for arbitrary killing. Misleading claims by companies that kill animals.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Mission: Accomplished
As previously reported, more “shelters” are closing their doors to animals in need. Under a program called Human Animal Support Services, staff are instead telling people who find animals to handle them themselves, turn them loose, or leave them on the sidewalk.
For Good Samaritans who found that a feral mama gave birth in their yard, they had nowhere to turn. So The No Kill Advocacy Center, my organization, stepped up. With the last of the six kittens off to new homes and lives, the mama was spayed and released back to her yard. The Good Samaritans will provide food, water, and shelter.
Once again, these kittens and their mama are a living reminder of the vast disconnect between what Americans want and expect from animal “shelters” and what they too often receive: dereliction of duty at best and, at worst, deadly malfeasance.
Lies, Damn Lies & Best Friends Animal Society
Best Friends says that the number of dogs and cats killed in U.S. pounds dropped by 34,000 in 2025 compared to 2024. They also say that the number of dogs killed in shelters decreased by almost 10% and a record-high 83% of cats were saved. It isn’t true. The data is not reliable and, more importantly, ignores the increasing number of municipal “shelters” and those with municipal contracts turning their backs on animals by restricting admission, even for strays.
Ghost Animals
If achieving a No Kill nation is to have meaning, we must remain grounded in the truth: a placement rate is dishonest if it is achieved through abandonment of the very animals “shelter” staff have a duty to protect. These animals don’t disappear just because Best Friends, Kristen Hassen, and their acolytes running municipal pounds are not counting them. They are still suffering. They are still dying. And they still matter.
Another state bans the sale of milled pets
