Published Sep 14, 2025
Melina Grin / Cats.com
This is good news for cats in America: For the first six months of 2025, American shelters saved 19 percent more pets than they did during the same time period in 2024.
Best Friends Animal Society, a leading animal welfare organization that is working toward ending the killing of shelter pets, released this mid-year data in late summer. Although the numbers show a very promising momentum, we must not be complacent. So many American shelters are facing overcapacity and struggling with inadequate support from community members, according to Best Friends, and that is where we cat owners can step up and make a difference.
“This data shows tremendous progress for dogs and cats on a national scale, but we know that many shelters continue to meet the needs of homeless pets in their communities,” Julie Castle, chief executive officer of Best Friends Animal Society, says in a news release. “There is still much work to be done, and shelters and rescue groups cannot shoulder this burden alone. We need community members to step up and adopt, foster, volunteer, donate, and advocate for pets. Even an act as seemingly small as sharing adoptable dogs and cats on social media can save lives.”
The report resulted from a Best Friends study of 864 animal shelters who reported monthly data from January through June 2024 and 2025. Of these shelters, 41 percent are municipal shelters, 30 percent have municipal contracts, and 29 percent are private nonprofits with no municipal contract.
Kirsten McCarthy / Cats.com
Some encouraging numbers in the report apply specifically to cats: Felines had two record-breaking years in a row, with an increase of 18 percent in lives saved during 2025 compared to 2024. Best Friends attributes this increase to community support for trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) programs. These programs spay and neuter and vaccinate feral cats, who are able to live out their lives outdoors but cannot reproduce and multiply the homeless feline population.
In the report, dogs got a slightly higher rate of lifesaving at 20 percent. This results in the overall average of 19 percent more pets’ lives being saved over last year.
Best Friends is calling on people to step up and help shelters, and we have published many stories about how people can help; also, stories with heartwarming examples of rescuers stepping up to help cats during a crisis, with the support of the community. In January, when wildfires burned around Los Angeles, rescuers worked around the clock to find injured and displaced animals. Teams on the ground, working with organizations including Best Friends and Pasadena Humane Animal Shelter, provided emergency medical care and shelter to hundreds of pets. Members of the Los Angeles community really stepped up to donate money and supplies, and provide foster homes for the hurting animals.
In my recent essay, I share how rewarding it is to foster kittens and cats – something I have been doing in my house since 2007. This is one of the most impactful ways you can help shelters save cats, because they only have so much space. Every foster home that opens up saves the life of a cat or entire litter of kittens, because in a full shelter, there would be nowhere else for them to go. Here, we offer a complete guide about fostering cats.
Kirsten McCarthy / Cats.com
We urge you to step up and help shelters and rescues save more precious feline lives in some tangible way, like donating money or supplies, fostering, and volunteering to help with on-site shelter duties. And, whenever you get your next cat, please consider adopting a rescue. According to Best Friends, if just 6 percent of the 7 million households that will acquire a pet over the next year adopt from a shelter rather than purchase the pet, the entire country could become no-kill!
As Castle puts it in the news release: “Any person in any community can join this collective movement to help end the killing of dogs and cats in shelters. There is strength in numbers, and with more support from people around the country, not only can we take American no-kill – we will.”
