People aren't the only victims of severe weather; pets are also affected. Holly Sizemore of Best Friends Animal Society explains her organization's efforts to save pets from weather disasters.
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00:00Mark your calendars. It's National Pet Day. For more on the joy pets bring into our lives,
00:06we're joined by Holly Sizemore. She's Chief Mission Officer for Best Friends Animal Society.
00:12Hi. Hi. Thank you for being with us. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Holly,
00:17what is the importance of National Pet Day and pets in people's lives?
00:22Well, it is a time to reflect on the joy that pets bring to our lives. And at Best Friends
00:29Animal Society, our mission is to create a time of no more homeless pets. And so pets, of course,
00:36are everything we do and everything we're about. And we know the joy and companionship. And even
00:43it's been proven, you know, pets lower blood pressure, they help us be healthier, happy people.
00:49And at Best Friends, we believe quite strongly that adopted pets bring even more joy, more gratitude
00:57and love. And so we're really advocating for people to choose to adopt their next best friend
01:03rather than to purchase one from a pet store or a breeder.
01:07And how is Best Friends helping in Arkansas after last week's hurricane, after last week's
01:13tornadoes and the current floods?
01:16Yes. So luckily, Best Friends, because we're a national organization with a national goal of ending
01:24the unnecessary killing of all dogs and cats in every single U.S. shelter, we already have a network
01:33of over 5,000 shelters and network groups across the entire country designed to help the everyday
01:39crisis of animals at risk of dying in shelters.
01:42So when a weather incident happens, like the floods, like the tornadoes, like hurricanes
01:48and fires, we are already prepared with our infrastructure and network to really get out
01:54there and ask, first we call, what do you need? What are you experiencing? Because shelters
02:00are often over capacity anyway, every day. And so when a weather event happens, oftentimes they
02:08don't have room to take in animals that were affected by that weather event. And so we work
02:13very hard to remove animals from the shelters that are most impacted so that they can then help
02:19locally the pets and the people that are affected by the disaster. And in Arkansas, we have a pet resource
02:26center. So we work very closely with other partners in Arkansas. Luckily, in Arkansas, many of the shelters
02:33didn't need a lot of help. They were prepared. They weren't directly flooded. In Tennessee,
02:38we helped out a shelter who just needed crates. And you need to get these things quickly to them. So we
02:44got them a lot of crates in quick order so that they could temporarily house pets that were displaced
02:51from the floods.
02:53And also, how has Best Friends partnered to save homeless pets during L.A. riots this year and last year's
03:02hurricane Helene?
03:05Oh my gosh. So again, because we have our extensive network, when the L.A. fires hit, we were able to
03:13tap into our network. And we can't do this without our amazing partners and other organizations like
03:19Petco Love and Wings of Rescue. They all come together to help in these situations. We were able to move
03:25over 1,700 cats and dogs from L.A. shelters so that the shelters themselves, again, could help the pets
03:34and people directly impacted by the fire. And we also, in L.A., we have a center there as well. We
03:40were under evacuation orders or warnings at some point. So our team themselves was impacted, but it
03:47didn't stop them. They got together. We moved to the animals. We set up a pet pantry to help people
03:53and pets who were directly impacted by the fire. You know, a lot of them had to leave their home so
03:57quickly. And we had pet supplies and medical assistance at the ready to help those families
04:03families in need.