New Way To Save All Shelter Pets

(NAPSI)—The lives of nearly 733,000 cats and dogs could be saved with the help of caring humans and an innovative Web-based platform introduced this week by Best Friends Animal Society.

Envisioned as a tool to help animal lovers help their communities save more pets, the new community lifesaving dashboard combines groundbreaking data visualization technology with the most comprehensive data set on animal welfare ever published.

Two years in the making, the tool crowdsources, validates and translates complex data about the dogs and cats in U.S. shelters.

It brings an unprecedented level of transparency to the animal welfare movement, unlocking new opportunities for saving pets by providing a detailed picture showing precisely—on a city, state and community level—where cats and dogs need to be saved.

For the first time, anyone with a smartphone or computer will be able to easily access his or her community’s snapshot of how many cats and dogs need to be saved and find tools to help individual shelters save more pets. The organization used independent research, government data and even FOIA requests to create the most comprehensive data set on animal welfare ever published.

Best Friends CEO Julie Castle says the investment in data was necessary to achieve the organization’s goal of bringing the whole country no-kill by 2025.

“Up until two years ago, we didn’t even know how many shelters existed,” she said. “How can you possibly save all the animals if you don’t even know how many need to be saved?

“With this data in hand, our goal to save every savable pet by 2025 is finally within reach,” Castle said.

To explore the community lifesaving dashboard, visit BestFriends.org/2025.

 “The lives of nearly 733,000 cats and dogs could be saved with the help of caring humans and a new groundbreaking Web-based platform that lets anyone with a smartphone pinpoint which nearby shelters have pets that need to be saved. #SaveThemAll http://bit.ly/2ybtoLj”