Ahead of National Dog Day on Saturday, Alina Hauptman from Best Friends Animal Society joined Cheddar News to discuss adopting a dog from a shelter and what the organization is doing to help pets that have survived the Maui fires.

<div class="block">Ahead of National Dog Day on Saturday, Alina Hauptman from Best Friends Animal Society joined Cheddar News to discuss adopting a dog from a shelter and what the organization is doing to help pets that have survived the Maui fires.</div>

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Cheddar Paws: National Dog Day

Tomorrow is National Dog Day and to properly celebrate the holiday. We have, uh, Elena Hopman from Best Friends Animal Society here with us and Jason, the dog, did I put you your name? How do you? Perfect. So, what about Jason? How old is Jason? Jason is 11 years old. He is a sweet and handsome senior dog. He has a slight heart murmur but, you know, that doesn't slow him down at all. It can, you know, a little bit of medication and he is, you know, just a really lovable lap dog. He's a cutie, but he's an older dog and sometimes older dogs have difficulty getting adopted. Right? Why is that? You know, it, it, it shouldn't be. I have a, a super senior, mine is 16.5 and, you know, senior dogs are wonderful. They just, they have so much love to give and they are so incredibly grateful. And if people have like a smaller apartment or, you know, they don't need to be exercised like miles on end, they're just, they're really wonderful. And I think that, you know, once someone spends the time with seniors or opens up their mind to adopting a senior. It's just, it's an incredible thing. There are a lot of senior dogs and dogs in general, but seniors in particular who are homeless right now and they're flooding the shelter systems. Can you quantify that? Yeah. So at Best Friends Animal Society, we collect data and release it every year. And in 2022 over 100,000 more dogs were taken into the shelter system and adoption stalled at around 1 million. And industry data is showing that more people are actually buying from pet stores and breeders. And there are so many dogs out there, any breed, you're looking for any size, any fit for a lifestyle. So people just need to know that if you go to your local shelter or best friends, you can find that job you're looking for and if they don't get adopted, then they'll get put to sleep. Right. So that's the thing. Best Friend Mission. Our goal is to take the country. No kill by 2025 and no kill means that 90% of dogs that enter into a shelter system have a positive outcome. I wanna actually briefly just about, we don't have very much time. So what do you do to help in Hawaii? So we've been working with the organizations that are on the ground in Maui and sending supplies and food and we're just in constant contact with them and how can people help if they can't adopt a dog. What can we do to help Maui or help your organization? So to help Maui, you should help the organizations that are on the ground with monetary donations or you know, in kind donations. So Maui Humane Society, Hawaii Rescue Hawaii Animal Rescue Foundation, the good cat network, just you know, reach out to them and see how you can help. And you know, for best friends adopt foster transport, volunteer share on social. Thank you so much. We really appreciate this and that was from friends society. Look at Jason, he's a cutie.