(upbeat music) - Best Friends Animal Society's National Network partners and lifesaving centers have become hubs for innovation and inspiration, bringing lifesaving tactics to shelters and rescue groups across the country.

Community Engagement Manager, Pat Theobald, is joining us today with his friend, Hema.

Hi Pat, thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having us.

- So your work is so important, because you literally save these animals that can't be placed.

- Absolutely so, yeah, so what we do is we're trying to help every shelter, every community, in Utah and ultimately the country, reach no-kill.

And one of the things that we do really well is we get data about it.

We try to figure out where the problem is and how we can solve it.

So our new national data set just came out for 2023.

Unfortunately, it showed a little bit of backsliding.

There's about 480 dogs in Utah, unfortunately lost their lives.

They were healthy and adoptable, but didn't make it outta the shelters.

And that's a problem that we can solve.

We can help people go to those shelters, find their next pet.

- [Mary] Right.

- And just like Little Hema here, she came to us- - Oh, Hema.

- From the Tooele County Shelter.

just the other day.

- Okay.

It just kills me that they have to be put down, it kills me.

- Yeah, and that's the thing.

We encourage every shelter to try to do everything they can to, and get any adoptable animal adopted.

Some of them obviously it's, you know, they're at the end of their lives naturally.

But yeah, we just encourage people, if you're looking for a new pet, check your shelters first.

Our numbers actually show about 7 million people are gonna get a new pet this year in the country.

And if just 6% more of them choose to adopt rather than going to a breeder or a pet shop, then all of the shelters would be at no-kill.

- Wow.

- Just 6% more.

- We're very, very close.

- That's not that much.

- Exactly.

- So it's easy to do.

Well, I say easy, but that's great.

Look at this beautiful dog.

- And yeah, some people, you know, think that they have a very specific pet in mind when they're looking, and I just say, check the shelters first, you never know.

Lightning might strike.

- Oh, yeah.

- You know, the vibe is right, and you'll find just the perfect animal for you.

- Alright, well thank you so much for what you do and for saving these gorgeous creatures, so thank you.

- Absolutely, I'm glad to be here.

- And if you'd like to know more about Best Friends Animal Society, just go to bestfriendsutah.org, that's bestfriendsutah.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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