How Best Friends Animal Society Endangers Public Safety and Creates Legal Liabilities

• Adopting aggressive dogs to unsuspecting people, leaving strays on the streets, and other dangerous policies promoted by Best Friends Animal Society have resulted in deadly attacks and costly lawsuits.
• Communities have taken notice of the harm caused by the group’s “no-kill” policies and are refusing to put residents and animals at risk by giving in to its pressure.

Animal shelters and communities should think twice about allowing Best Friends Animal Society (Best Friends) to influence or take over animal shelters and animal control operations. The policies that Best Friends recommends endanger public safety, harm and kill animals, and put municipalities at risk of liability and costly lawsuits—and have resulted in tragedies in many communities.

To boost “live release rates,” Best Friends pushes shelters to adopt out dogs with aggressive tendencies and known bite histories. It also encourages shelters to refuse to accept animals from residents who are trying to surrender them (including dangerous dogs) and to leave animals on the streets, which has resulted in rabies-infected animals biting residents. When shelters implement these practices, they flout their responsibilities to protect animals and public safety. This dereliction of duty sometimes has deadly consequences for animals and humans—and many localities have been sued as a result.

Adopters Attacked, Cities Sued

Shelter workers and volunteers, adopters as well as their family members and neighbors, and beloved animal companions have been seriously injured and even killed by dogs released by shelters and adoption groups that are under pressure to increase “live release rates.” Victims of these attacks and their family members have sued municipalities for millions of dollars. For example, a volunteer at a city-run shelter in Los Angeles—a Best Friends partner—was awarded nearly $7 million after a frustrated dog who had been warehoused there and was up for adoption nearly tore off her arm in an attack.

Adopting out dogs who are known to bite frequently results in the animals being repeatedly returned, isolated, shuffled around, and/or caged for life—which is traumatic and confusing and sure to aggravate their aggression. It also harms adoption efforts by making the public leery of adopting any animals from shelters.

Here are just a few examples of how Best Friends’ push for “no-kill” policies has resulted in serious attacks and costly lawsuits:

Austin, Texas

The city shelter in Austin, Texas—which is frequently touted as a “model” by “no-kill” campaigners—has been using “managed intake” for years and even announced that the publicly funded facility. It has also been found releasing dogs with known bite histories to unsuspecting members of the public, and a shelter employee sustained serious injuries after they were attacked by a dog who was reportedly up for adoption despite having “several incidents on record.”

After a 6-year-old girl who was delivering Christmas cookies was mauled by a dog who was reportedly adopted from the facility despite being known to be dangerous, her parents filed a lawsuit against the city and asked city leaders to consider the “human cost” of the facility’s “no-kill” policy. According to a report, “The family believes the shelter is pressured to release dangerous animals into the community to hit the City’s 95% live release rate.” During the attack, the child reportedly sustained severe injuries, including “a concussion, a broken arm, a punctured skull and [she] had to undergo treatment for bites to the head, which included having her ‘skin literally ripped from her cranial tissue.’”

Dallas, Texas

A 52-year old grandmother who had served in the U.S. Army was fatally mauled by a pack of roaming dogs who bit her more than 100 times. Following her death, an editorial by the city’s paper said that the director of the city’s animal services, who was eventually removed, “focused on the shelter’s live release rate—that is, the number of dogs [who] make it out alive—to the exclusion of common sense,” leaving animals on the streets, where they were suffering and attacking people, instead of risking an increase in the shelter’s euthanasia statistics. While Jody Jones managed the facility, Best Friends presented it with an award for its “no-kill efforts.” After Jones was removed from her shelter position, it was reported that she was under criminal investigation over questions related to “how enmeshed” a local “no-kill” group was at the facility.

Detroit, Michigan

In Detroit—where Best Friends had partnered with Detroit Animal Care—three roaming dogs fatally attacked a man as he was walking home from a bus stop. His wife filed a lawsuit against the city’s animal control department, asserting that “attempts by [a] nonprofit and [the] city to avoid euthanasia have created a dangerous environment for Detroiters. The no-kill model is utterly ineffective, reckless, and deadly.”

Hidalgo County, Texas

After Best Friends “embedded” at a facility partially funded with public monies and doing business as Palm Valley Animal Society (PVAS), the facility allegedly adopted a dog to a family without disclosing information about the animal’s aggressive history. According to a lawsuit filed against the facility, eight days after the dog was adopted, the child’s mother heard a scream and found her 6-year-old daughter in the next room with the dog and two siblings. The child was “bleeding out, with half her face hanging off,” according to the suit, which asserted that the dog’s previous behavior had been intentionally withheld from the adopter and that “PVAS covets this ‘no-kill’ status and is willing to risk the health of both people and animals to achieve it.” The case was reportedly settled for $750,000.

Putnam County, Florida

A resident with multiple starving, neglected dogs he admitted that he couldn’t afford to feed tried at least twice to surrender them to the local taxpayer-funded, self-professed “no-kill” shelter, which claimed to be “full” and refused to accept them. Just days later, the dogs escaped from the man’s yard and mauled and killed postal carrier Pamela Rock. Refusing to accept animals, especially if euthanasia might be the only humane and responsible outcome for them, is a practice promoted by Best Friends and other proponents of “no-kill policies” and widely used by shelters that claim to be “no-kill.”

Lubbock, Texas

A resident reportedly tried to surrender his dogs to Lubbock Animal Services, a Best Friends partner, saying that “he could not care for them and keep them secure,” but the facility refused to accept them right away and told the man that he needed to make an appointment. (Appointment-based intake schemes like this one are known as “managed intake,” a policy recommendation pushed by Best Friends.) Two days later, the dogs escaped from the man’s property and attacked an 88-year-old woman in her backyard, killing her. An attorney for the dogs’ owner said that the woman’s death “could have been avoided had Lubbock Animal services officials accepted [the] dogs when he tried to relinquish them.”

Seattle, Washington

A media outlet spoke to “[m]ore than 20 current and former volunteers and staff” members at a publicly funded facility with “no-kill” policies doing business as the Seattle Animal Shelter—a Best Friends partner—who shared concerns about dangerous animals being warehoused at the facility and adopted by unsuspecting members of the public. Allegations and records about cases included those about a dog named Grubauer, who “went to a foster or adoption home and was returned 11 times in total, mostly over bites.” One adopter was so frightened of the animal after a serious attack that she had to call animal control to have the dog removed from her home. According to the report, he was eventually euthanized. An individual who had volunteered at the facility for a decade before leaving said that things had gotten progressively worse when the facility started warehousing animals “for a really long time.”

Millersville, Maryland

According to five former animal control officers and veterinarians for Anne Arundel County Animal Care & Control, a Best Friends partner, aggressive dogs were medicated with drugs that have a sedating effect, like trazodone and gabapentin, and adopted out to unsuspecting members of the public. This was done as part of the shelter leadership’s attempt “to maintain high adoption rates and suppress euthanasia rates,” the former staffers alleged, noting that some of the animals who were adopted after being medicated were returned after scratching or biting their new guardians.

Disease Risks for Abandoned Cats—and Communities

Dangerous dogs aren’t the only risk to communities where shelters have implemented policies pushed by Best Friends and other proponents of “no-kill” policies. Leaving and placing homeless cats (including friendly and social ones) outdoors to roam communities—a practice advocated by Best Friends called “trap, neuter, release” (TNR) and “return to field” (RTF)—endangers residents, the cats dumped because of these “programs,” owned animals, businesses, and others. Residents have also filed costly lawsuits against cities and counties over TNR programs because of disease risks, cruelty, and harm to wildlife.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

A resident sued the city over its Best Friends cat abandonment practice, calling it “a gruesome, inhumane, illegal thing to do to any animal.” After Best Friends pressured the city to abandon rather than shelter lost and homeless cats, a homeless, plague-infected cat was found dead in a residential area, prompting a “fever watch” for residents and animal services employees.

Hillsborough County, Florida

After a resident was bitten by a rabid cat who had previously been trapped, sterilized, and left outdoors by the county’s Best Friends partner shelter, a veterinarian called the county’s TNR program “a very lethal loophole that they’ve created in the rabies re-vaccination laws.” She said the county was “playing rabies roulette” by using TNR in its push for “no-kill” status.

Wantagh, New York

The American Bird Conservancy filed a federal lawsuit against the state’s Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, alleging that cats who had been sterilized and left outdoors (a practice promoted by Best Friends) in a state park were killing federally protected and endangered shorebirds.

Homeless cats left to roam outdoors have exposed numerous people to rabies who required expensive, painful post-exposure treatment. Below are just a few examples of how leaving homeless cats on the streets can threaten the health and safety of residents and contribute to the spread of the deadly virus:

Colorado Springs, Colorado

A family took in a 6-month-old stray kitten who tested positive for rabies weeks later, resulting in 20 individuals having to undergo rabies preventive treatment.

Pleasantville, New Jersey

A resident required post-exposure rabies treatment after taking in a homeless cat, who had bitten him and subsequently tested positive for the disease. Five other cats in the resident’s home may also have been exposed.

Watertown, New York

Three people required preventive rabies treatment after a resident found a wounded stray cat, took the cat to a veterinarian for treatment, and then took the animal home. The cat began showing rabies symptoms and was taken to a veterinarian before dying.

Davidson County, North Carolina

A resident took in an injured kitten they believed was from a litter of feral cats. The kitten began acting strangely and was confirmed to have rabies. Everyone in contact with the kitten had to undergo preventive treatment.

A Countrywide Crisis

The cases above are not isolated incidents. Facilities across the country—particularly those under pressure by Best Friends to achieve or maintain “no-kill” status—have reportedly been releasing animals with dangerous, unpredictable behaviors to the public or leaving them on the streets, as well as leaving cats outdoors, where they can contract and spread rabies and other diseases. Here are just some of the recent headlines about this crisis:

• “‘My Thigh Is Half Gone.’ LA Animal Services Employee Mauled by Dog”
• “Lycoming SPCA Blamed in Lawsuit After Adopted Dog Attacks Cat”
• “Animal Control Officers, Community Members Concerned About YWAC Adopting Dogs With Aggressive Behaviors”
• “NYC Man Sues Animal Shelter After Adopted Dog Mauled Him”
• “Attorney: SPCA Will Pay Amputation Victim in Dog Bite Case”
• “Dog Attacks 2 at Richland County Dog Shelter”
• “Vet Tech Files Lawsuit Against Almost Home Humane Society”
• “Reversal: Shelter Must Face Negligence Suit After Adopted Dog Mauls Girl”
• “Goldstein Investigation: Local Animal Shelter Isn’t Telling All About Some Dangerous Dogs Up for Adoption”
• “Reports Surface of Aggressive Dogs Adopted From Austin Animal Center”
• “Dog Mauls Child, Mother Inside Animal Shelter”
• “Shelter Dog Attacks Woman Walking on Port Aransas Beach”

Some Communities Refuse Best Friends’ Dangerous Recommendations

Communities have started to take notice of the harm caused by Best Friends’ “no-kill” policies and are refusing to put residents and animals at risk by giving in to the group’s pressure. For example, Stephanie Orman, the mayor of Bentonville, Arkansas, explained that the city’s decision to turn down an agreement with Best Friends included concerns about multiple lawsuits against the group and alarm about the city’s potential liability.

An animal advocate in Augusta, Georgia, urged city leaders to refuse to allow Best Friends to “embed” at the city’s animal shelter, explaining that any such arrangement would present an “imminent risk to public safety.” In her testimony, she cited numerous lawsuits against the group. The city turned down Best Friends.

If Best Friends is pressuring your shelter or city to implement dangerous policies, please share this information with decision-makers and urge them to stand firm, for the safety of animals and the entire community.

These pages list examples of “no kill” gone wrong, often directly involving Best Friends Animal Society and sometimes other “no-kill” extremists.