Virginia animal advocates celebrate no-kill shelters

The Best Friends Animal Society hosted a celebration Feb. 14 at the Virginia State Capitol in recognition of Virginia animal shelters reaching an 84% save rate and other statewide pet life saving initiatives. 

The society is an animal welfare organization whose mission is to end the killing of dogs and cats in animal shelters and establish the entire country as “no-kill” in 2025. As a benchmark, “no-kill” refers to a 90% save-rate factoring in the number of pets that suffer from medical and behavioral issues that compromise their quality of life and prevent them from being re-homed. The percentage of pets in this category is typically less than 10%, hence the 90% benchmark to be considered a no-kill state. 

According to the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, if 100 more people in every district in the state adopted instead of shopped, Virginia would hit the 90% mark and become a no-kill state. 

During the past year, 81 Virginia shelters have achieved or maintained the no-kill status. These shelters, along with 30 state senators, were honored at the Capitol on Friday. 

“I believe the reason why Virginia is much further than many other states in our country is because of the coalitions and the collaboration and the partnerships,” Best Friends' Senior Director of Advocacy and Legislation Laura Donahue said.

One such partnership that was highlighted was Danville Deserves Better. According to Best Friends, Danville has a save rate of 17% – one of the lowest in the country and a stark contrast to Virginia’s statewide rate. The program was focused on engaging the community and building support; during the past year, Best Friends has donated more than half a ton of food to Danville’s pet pantry. 

“More than 70% of animal care, control and sheltering is actually government funded; your taxpayer dollars are going to this,” Donahue said, “This is a critical service to communities, keeping animals safe, mitigating disease, and being a lifeline for when [pet owners], for whatever reason, are forced to surrender their animal. . . regardless of whether or not you have a pet, everyone has a stake.”  

Since 2017, Best Friends has increased the statewide save rate by 7%, resulting in about 78,000 additional pets' lives saved. 

The celebration also included ‘Paws for Virginia’, an interactive experience hosted outside of the General Assembly, during which the public was invited to meet adoptable dogs from the Richmond Animal League and the Richmond SPCA. The SPCA set up a ‘dog kissing booth’ at which people got to play with the available dogs. Additionally, all adoption fees were waived for anyone ready to take one of the dogs home.  

Lexi Dortch, an adoption counselor for the Richmond SPCA, emphasized the lack of funding in rural areas. 

“Rural Virginia just does not have the resources to keep up with the unfortunate demand of dumped dogs, we are so incredibly fortunate to be able to transfer about 70% of our dogs from other shelters and be able to put them back into homes,” Dortch said. 

All of the animals at the Paws for Virginia event were all dogs that had been taken in from the California wildfires.

Best Friends is pushing to have Virginia achieve the 90% benchmark to become a no-kill state by the end of the year, joining states like Vermont, Rhode Island, and Delaware. 

“The answer truly is adoption, if 0.1% of Virginia who were going to acquire a pet in 2025 chose to adopt instead of purchase, we’d be at no-kill,” Donahue said. “The solution lies now within the individual.”