Louisiana Pets Find Their Forever Homes

Animal welfare organizations unite for statewide event.

From wagging tails to gentle purrs, love found a new home across Louisiana as 25 shelters and rescue groups joined forces for the first-ever Louisiana Loves Shelter Animals Day. This heartwarming event, sparked by a statewide proclamation and powered by community compassion, turned shelters into launchpads for second chances. In just 72 hours, 269 dogs and cats were welcomed into forever homes.

Louisiana Loves Shelter Animals Day is a Best Friends Animal Society initiative inspired by a statewide proclamation issued in April by Governor Jeff Landry, recognizing the vital role pet adoption plays in building no-kill communities. (A no-kill community is one where at least 90% of dogs and cats entering shelters leave alive, through adoption, return-to-home, or transfer to placement partners.)

May 29-31, 2025, animal welfare organizations across Louisiana – including municipal shelters and nonprofit rescue groups – came together to participate in this special adoption event. To encourage families to adopt, participating shelters waived or reduced adoption fees.

The result: 124 dogs and 145 cats found loving homes.

“The event not only brought joy to families across the state, but also helped reduce shelter crowding and advanced our shared goal of making Louisiana a no-kill state,” said Louiza Chan, senior strategist, Best Friends Animal Society.

Several shelters saw their long-stay animals finally find homes – including one dog who had been in the shelter for 494 days.

“When asked, ‘What does adoption mean to you?’ shelter staff across the state were struck by how often the same heartfelt answers came up: ‘Unconditional love,’ ‘Family member,’ and ‘Saving a life,’” Chan said. “Every adoption was met with smiles, laughter and genuine joy, as pets left for their new lives and families welcomed them home.”

Chan noted this type of state partnership is being replicated in other states 15 states. Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Utah, Montana, Virginia, Washington, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Oregon, Connecticut, and Kansas have issued no-kill proclamations in 2024 or so far in 2025, Chan said. “These proclamations set a powerful precedent, inspiring additional states to follow suit and reinforcing the momentum toward a no-kill nation.”

A singular focus

Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS) is a U.S.-based nonprofit animal welfare organization founded in 1991 and headquartered in Kanab, Utah, with offices across major cities such as Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles. BFAS is a national leader in animal welfare, dedicated to saving the lives of dogs and cats in America’s shelters and achieving a no-kill country.

“Our goal is to ensure that every dog and cat in a shelter who can be saved will be saved,” Chan said. “Beyond 2025, we will focus on sustaining and expanding no-kill communities by partnering with shelters, providing grants and resources, and delivering targeted programmatic and advocacy support. We are committed to solving the root causes of pet overpopulation while building a lasting, data-driven framework for lifesaving.”

The nonprofit coordinates the Best Friends Network – a coalition of thousands of shelters, rescue groups, spay/neuter clinics, and animal welfare organizations – working across all 50 states to share best practices, provide training, offer grants and support operations to elevate lifesaving results.

BFAS operates the nation’s largest no-kill sanctuary, which provides lifelong care to animals that are not suitable for adoption. They also engage communities through programs like adoption centers (e.g., in New York City), educational initiatives, and volunteer opportunities to ensure pets find loving homes – or remain safe and cared for within the sanctuary itself.

“No-kill is a community-driven philosophy aimed at saving every homeless dog or cat who can be saved,” Chan said. “While we recognize that some animals may face irremediable medical or behavioral issues, we use a 90% save-rate benchmark as a standard for no-kill. However, our ultimate goal is not the number – it’s to save every pet who can be saved and to continuously push for even greater lifesaving outcomes.”

Best Friends maintains a dataset encompassing information from over 10,000 organizations nationwide. To ensure accuracy, Best Friends collects publicly available data, submits open-records requests and works directly with shelters. Nearly 3,000 shelters have already submitted current data for 2024. The remainder is carefully estimated using historical and community data, validated through independent peer reviews.

“Transparency is critical to achieving no-kill, which is why we created the Pet Lifesaving Dashboard – the only publicly accessible, centralized database of shelter data,” Chan said. “In addition, our Shelter Pet Data Alliance (SPDA) and predictive statistical modeling tools allow shelters to access real-time insights and trends, empowering them to make data-driven, impactful lifesaving decisions.”

Photo credit: Courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society