Visit the Best Friends Pet Resource Center!

Located in the heart of Bentonville, Arkansas, the Best Friends Pet Resource Center is a first-of-its-kind, fully modernized facility that reinvents how dogs, cats, and even humans experience animal sheltering.

Our animal companions are an integral part of our family, and the pet resource center was designed with that in mind. It’s a place for the entire community to connect with pets — a place to adopt your next dog or cat, explore resources for guidance or support with current pets, or simply to gather with and enjoy family and friends.

Since opening its doors in March of 2023, the Best Friends Pet Resource Center has found loving homes for more than 5,000 dogs and cats! Read our second-year anniversary report for more information about the impact of the center in Arkansas.

 

Take a 360-degree look at the Best Friends Pet Resource Center!

This 360-degree tour was created for Best Friends NWA by students at Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, Arkansas.

A young woman kneels beside a light brown dog in an orange bandana
Russell Bloodworth

Want to be an ambassador for the animals?

We need your help! As a volunteer ambassador, you'll give tours of the building, greet visitors, and help our team with selling merchandise and signing up new volunteers.
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Connecting pets and people of Northwest Arkansas

The Best Friends Pet Resource Center is more than just a place to adopt a pet. It is a first-of-its-kind, fully reimagined shelter that offers resources and services for both people and pets.

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Meet awesome pets, find your people

Don’t miss these great events.

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Spring into Love
Throughout the month of April, the Best Friends Pet Resource Center is offering 0-fee cat adoptions and $10 dog adoptions! Come visit us and bring love home!
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Community Cat Caregiver Workshop:
Join this workshop with Community Cat Support Network to learn best practices in caring for community cats in your area.
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Dog Food and Down Dogs
Join a fun yoga flow class at the Best Friends Pet Resource Center with Movement Driven Life!
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Blue Buffalo "Make a Best Friend Match" adoption event
Join us at the Best Friends Pet Resource Center for National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day! Enjoy a one-of-a-kind adoption event with a cocktail hour, a live DJ, swag bags, and of course adorable pets. Adoption fees are covered by Blue Buffalo through May!
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Virtual Dog Behavior Series: The Puppy Playbook
Best Friends trainer Dani Rakestraw gets you started out right with your new puppy's socialization and training.

Peek inside the Best Friends Pet Resource Center

The space features open areas perfect for getting to know adoptable dogs and cats, fun activities for humans of all ages, a DIY dog-bathing center, a café where guests can hang out with cats and kittens, a pet food and supplies pantry, and much more.

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Sheltering without kennels: The model of the future

There are no long-term kennels or cages at the pet resource center, just one of the ways we’re redefining what it means to care for homeless dogs and cats.

While the cats in Best Friends' care reside at the center in our two free-roaming cat enrichment rooms, the dogs we take in from area shelters are placed in foster homes in our community. This eliminates the need to house dogs in kennels or cages for extended periods of time. Every day, a selection of adoptable dogs visit the center where they can meet potential adopters and find a family of their very own. 

Shelters can be noisy, frightening places, causing some dogs to become fearful and stressed. But a loving foster home allows them to relax and learn to trust — and that leads to happier, healthier dogs who get adopted more quickly.

Bright skies for homeless pets, thanks to caring donors

Contributors to our pet resource center aren’t simply animal lovers or donors — they’re life changers and history makers.

Community Giving Tree in Northwest Arkansas

Our community giving tree

Created by a local artist, the 6-foot-tall tree features a shimmering canopy of inscribed pet tags as its leaves — each one a symbol of generosity, compassion and kindness to the animals.

After making your gift, you’ll be prompted to add your name, your family’s name, your pet’s name or the name of your organization to your tag. 

Every time the tree’s tags sway in the breeze, visitors will be reminded of your extraordinary dedication to the animals of this community and to homeless pets around the country.

Three tabby kittens on a pink pillow in front of a smiling person

Looking for good news?

Be the first to hear about upcoming events and adoption specials when you sign up for our monthly emails.

Be part of the future of animal sheltering

Check out all the ways to get involved and help save the lives of homeless pets in Northwest Arkansas.

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Adopt a pet

When you adopt a homeless dog or cat from a shelter or rescue group in Northwest Arkansas, you’re making a lifesaving difference for a loving and grateful animal.
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Foster a pet

Welcoming a pet into your home for a short time not only benefits that animal, it helps make room in shelters for more cats and dogs in need.
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Volunteer to help save pets

From socializing shy cats to walking dogs to driving pets to and from our clinic, there are so many fun ways to make a lifesaving difference.

Visit us! 

Location and parking 

Best Friends Pet Resource Center in NW Arkansas
1312 Melissa Dr    
Bentonville, AR 72712

The pet resource center is in the heart of the Bentonville greenspace that will become the 8th Street Gateway Park. Parking is available at the center.  

Pet resource center hours    
11 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week

Phone
(479) 974-1363

 

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