So, hello, friends. Welcome to Cheddar News
. I'm editor over Cheddar studios in New York City
and I make a and June is national adopt a
cat month. Did you know that I did not
? But now I do and which makes today the
perfect time for Cheddar pause. And we have our
good friend Alena Hoffman from Best Friends Animal Society here
with another adorable adoptable kitten. Elena. Great to
have you and introduce you. This is Taho.
Taho is a male. He's two months old and
he came from Pope County and he's available for adoption
at our New York City Center. So cute has
so much energy and is like really turning on for
the also um, all of our cat adoption fees
are waived this month. Thanks to a partnership with
litter robot. Oh, that's amazing. That's such
good news. Ok. So one of the other
things we love about you guys over our best man
. Best Friends Animal Society is you release some new
data looking at some of the numbers of dogs and
cats that entered the shelters every year and the research
that you guys did found that cats like Tahoe are
more at risk at these shelters. Explain what,
what you guys found here. Sure. So what's
really interesting is cat adoptions are actually outpacing dogs.
But kittens like Tahoe are at risk like dogs because
they're so vulnerable and so many kittens are entering the
shelters due to kitten season going on now. And
there's some of the data right there for our viewers
at home and some more data, the report found
that 4.4 million animals entered shelters in 2022. That's
a lot. It's also an increase of 1%.
Alina. Why is that? So that's because the
intake shel the dogs and cats going into shelters are
not being adopted fast enough. Also, industry data
is showing that more people are buying from breeders and
pet stores and not choosing the adoption option. Yes
, gosh. And we know best friends wants to
make all shelters. No kill by 2025. How
does this data sort of reflect how close we are
to achieving this goal or are we still a ways
away? So, right, we have three states
that have reached no kill, Vermont, Delaware and
New Hampshire, which is so great. So congrats
to them, but we're really excited that 57% of
shelters across the country have reached no kill. And
that's an all time high for us. That's great
. So let's say you can't afford to donate or
can't adopt an animal but want to help. What
can you do? You should get out there and
adopt or foster. That's what's gonna take us to
no kill 2025. Especially fostering if you can,
even if it's a week or so because as you
mentioned, intake is just so hard right now because
there's a lot of these places aren't able to bring
in new dogs and cats because they just still have
the previous ones already there. And fostering is no
cost to the person. It, everything is paid
for the vet care food. So it's an amazing
way to really help out and we need the community
to step up. Elena people live in a city
or a state that hasn't banned puppy mills or changed
to no kill shelters. What's really the best way
here to advocate for those animals? Sure. Well
, you can go to best friends dot org and
click on a see. We have a Best Friends
2025 action team that you can join or contact your
local government officials and, you know, help get
bills passed. There's so many things you can do
. Right. And of course, for anybody that
wants to adopt. Little cute Taho, where do
they go? That's friends N Y dot org.
And there's other cute ones available. Our thanks to
our friend Hopman and little there he is and to
foster, adopt or volunteer to help more animal shelters
. Go to best friends dot org.