1,000 adoptable dogs and cats in a park: The return of Best Friends Super Adoption
Lights! Camera! Adoption!
It’s baaack … Best Friends Super Adoption returns this weekend on November 4 and 5 in Los Angeles! Over 1,000 dogs and cats from 23 different shelters and rescue groups will be available and ready for adoption at L.A. State Historic Park.
It’s been a while since we’ve hosted a super adoption event — we transitioned it to a virtual event in the early throes of the COVID-19 pandemic — and in the years since, it’s been on pause while we worked behind the scenes to make sure its return is the most exciting and effective yet. The very first Best Friends Super Adoption was back in April of 2000 in Los Angeles at the La Brea Tar Pits. It featured adoptable animals from a handful of rescue groups and the city shelter, as well as a ventriloquist, a fire juggler, a balloon artist who was not actually hired but joined in the fun anyway, face painters, a troupe of giant puppets, and a bunch of psychic readers. It was odd and fun, and most importantly, a couple hundred homeless pets found homes that day!
While we don’t have a fire juggler this year, we do have a handful of exhibitors, demos, food trucks, and a Golden Bachelor Golden Hour. And did I mention the 1,000 adoptable dogs and cats — most of whom have discounted or waived adoption fees, to boot?
One of the reasons why I value super adoption events so much is because they’re comprised of dozens of animal organizations gathering for one common purpose: to get animals adopted and to increase lifesaving. It’s a significant display of collaboration and one that comes at an incredibly needed time across the country, especially in Los Angeles. I wrote recently about the crisis that LA Animal Services is currently facing, rooted in overcrowding, slowed adoptions, and understaffing. It’s an issue plaguing cities and communities nationwide: We’re seeing it in last year’s data as the killing in shelters increased for the second year in a row, and we’re seeing it in the data rolling in this year. It takes all of us, in each of our communities, to course correct — to increase adoptions, to save more wet noses and wagging tails — on behalf of the animals in shelters we so deeply care about.
Now, for the thank-yous, of which there are many … Thank you to the participating rescue groups and shelters: Adopt Me Rescue, Angel City Pit Bulls, Caring Songs for All Creatures, LA Animal Services, Good Dog — Dog Talk, Hollywood Huskies, Homeless to Forever Foundation, LA County Animal Care & Control, LA Pets Alive, Mutt Hut Rescue, No Stray Left Behind, Pacific Pups Rescue, Paws for Life K9 Rescue, The Paw Mission, Wags and Walks, Heaven on Earth Society for Animals, Kitt Crusaders, Kitty Bungalow Charm School for Wayward Cats, Rory to the Rescue, Stray Cat Alliance, The Cat Cove, and The Little Lion Foundation. Thank you to Bounty for presenting and thank you to ABC’s Golden Bachelor for showing love to the senior pets.
I hope to see so many of you this weekend, as we join together to Save Them All.
-Julie
