Southern Utah University is helping furry friends everywhere through an academic partnership with one of the largest animal rescue organizations in existence. Best Friends Animal Society are champions of the no-kill movement, which protects the lives of countless animals. Through a flexible and efficient curriculum of essential industry skills, SUU is helping Best Friends acquire invaluable animal services expertise.
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is the largest no-kill shelter in the nation, and it’s located just a tennis ball’s throw away in Kanab, Utah. The sanctuary is divided into different areas designed to accommodate a menagerie of approximately 1,600 animals. These areas are nicknamed Dog Town, Cat World, Marshall’s Piggy Paradise, Horse Haven, Bunny House, Parrot Garden and Wild Friends.
While the sanctuary has evolved into a sizable cutting-edge headquarters for the organization, it began in 1984 as a humble collection of hand-built shelters and offices. According to Best Friends’ website, the founders had to teach themselves how to construct the necessary roads and buildings.
“We were building structures for people and for animals,” according to Best Friends’ “Who We Are” webpage. “And we were making it happen. This would be a
theme for the rest of Best Friends’ evolution: learning as we go and figuring out a way to do the impossible.”
While self-taught skills are impressive, there is a perplexing lack of educational opportunities in the animal services field. Animal care professionals often have partial training in certain areas of their field, while lacking other aptitudes that would make their jobs easier. Many animal rescue operations report a similar need to “learn as they go.”
“There are a lot of smart people working down there,” said David Hatch, director of SUU’s master’s in interdisciplinary studies program. “The problem is that there isn’t really a degree for people who are working in animal services, and yet every town has some sort of animal shelter.”
This lack of sufficient educational opportunities leads to increased turnover and decreased job satisfaction in the animal services field, even among the most passionate caretakers. It isn’t easy to manage such a complicated array of tasks without proper training, and that’s exactly what shelter professionals are often expected to do.
“Animal shelter staff experience burnout and compassion fatigue at levels comparable to — or even exceeding — first responders like firefighters, police officers, and nurses,” according to the Best Friends “Animal Welfare Statistics” page. “Burnout reduces the likelihood of shelter staff staying in their roles, according to original research conducted by Best Friends.”
This is where SUU is able to help Best Friends achieve their goals. In 2019, the university began offering online animal services programs through the INDS program, which offers cross-discipline degree plans. Its Contemporary Animal Services Leadership emphasis features courses related to leadership, management and marketing, while also providing dog and cat lifesaving credentials. This unique blend of skills makes the perfect training program for sanctuary caregivers who wish to obtain a variety of skills.
“The job of running an animal sanctuary actually draws on quite a lot of disciplines,” said Hatch. “Because a person has to have some business experience, they have to have some leadership experience, and there’s a lot of marketing involved, because you work with the public. And then, there’s all the stuff that has to do with the actual animals. So it’s a really complicated job. By creating a discipline, we organize what might otherwise be sort of haphazard.”
Collaborating with an industry leader like Best Friends is mutually rewarding. SUU gets to contribute to a compassionate pursuit, while developing new areas of education for future students. Best Friends staff get focused training that will help them obtain degrees or certifications related to their line of work.
Not only do these courses help animal caretakers further their professional careers, SUU’s animal lifesaving courses are contributing to BFAS’ most ambitious goal — every animal shelter nationwide will achieve “no-kill” status by 2025. According to Best Friends, 62% of shelters in the United States were no-kill as of 2023, and that number is only growing.
“No-kill doesn’t mean that if an animal is sick or old, or isn’t going to live or have a good quality of life, it isn’t going to be put down in a merciful way,” clarified Hatch. “What it means is they don’t ever have to put animals to sleep because they don’t have food for them, or have a place for them to be housed.”
In order to be considered a no-kill shelter, 90% of the animals that enter the facility must be saved. The general public can help accomplish this goal by opting to adopt their next pet from their local animal shelter, rather than purchasing an animal from a pet store. Shelter animal advocates often use the phrase “adopt, don’t shop” as an attention-getting and memorable slogan.
“Typically, no more than 10% of dogs and cats entering shelters are suffering from irreparable medical or behavioral issues that compromise their quality of life and prevent them from being rehomed,” explains the Best Friends website. “So that’s how we arrived at the 90% benchmark.”
The partnership between BFAS and SUU is already providing valuable assistance to this unique animal refuge, its devoted staff members and the lovable residents. Thanks to these cutting-edge initiatives, cute critters everywhere are wagging their tails.
Author: Nick Stein
Editor: Heather Turner
Copy Editor: Kayd Johanson
Photos by Nick Stein
eic@suunews.net
This article was originally published in the October 2024 issue of the University Journal