Happy Anniversary to us! We’re celebrating by continuing our hard work in the community, saving one animal at a time.

July 2015: Friends of the Holbrook Animal Shelter, 501(c)3 non-profit formed.

This year is our 3-year anniversary, and we’ve come SO FAR. Before we started working with Merrill, the Holbrook ACO (short for animal control officer), had a really tough job. Although our brick-and-mortar setup only has 12 indoor dog kennels, 14 indoor cat kennels and 6 outdoor dog kennels, Holbrook Animal Control used to take in hundreds of animals a year. With nowhere to go, the overcapacity of animals would force Merrill to euthanize animals to maintain shelter space.

Merrill estimates a kill rate of 80-90% at the shelter prior to the formation of the Friends group. Today, we use social media to get the word out about lost neighborhood animals who are thankfully reunited with their owners. We also highlight our adoptable animals, enabling a huge uptick in adoptions out of the shelter. And lastly, we work with the ACO and a passionate network for dozens of regional rescues and no-kill shelters to transfer out the majority of our animals to specialty groups and higher population centers where the animals who originally arrive at the Holbrook Animal Shelter can find life-long, loving homes throughout the state of Arizona, the southwest United States (and even Canada) and all over the world.

Before the Friends: 90% kill rate

Since the Friends: Live outcomes of over 95% (2016), 96% (2017), and 97% (2018)