The Best Friends First Home Forever Home campaign focuses on all aspects of helping people make and honor a lifetime commitment to their pets.

Millions of companion animals die every year in crowded shelters because their families de­cided to let them go for some reason. Through education, intervention and action, First Home Forever Home provides guidance and resources to help people care for their pets and keep them as loved members of their families.

The goal of First Home Forever Home is to help individuals and families understand that bringing a pet into one’s life requires commitment of time, energy and resources to ensure that the animal has the quality of life he or she deserves. We create awareness about the need for careful consideration of the lifetime care required when someone gets a pet. We promote ac­cepting responsibility for providing for pets’ needs, and we offer help and support for handling a wide variety of potential challenges. This campaign is designed to help people and their pets stay together happily.

How is Best Friends helping to keep pets with their families?

We work with individuals and families, shelters and rescue groups, and a variety of other orga­nizations that provide information, services and care for animals to create an easily accessible network of information and resources to promote the concept of people keeping pets in a loving, forever home.

Best Friends First Home Forever Home networks in communities across the country to create model projects  to help people keep the pets they love. We support local efforts, offer assistance, and share available resources. Our vast, nationwide network of Best Friends volunteers provide on-the-ground assistance in their own communities.

We promote education and responsibility. We encourage indivduals and families to see their pets as part of the family, and we provide resources and tools to help them help themselves when faced with unexpected difficulties. Resources are made available through the First Home Forever Home campaign via our Best Friends Network community at foreverhome.bestfriends.org, through our on­line resource libraries (www.bestfriends.org/the animals and www.bestfriends.org/nomorehomelesspets/resourcelibrary  and outreach programs offered through our Humane Education Department.

 How can you support First Home Forever Home?

• Educate yourself, your family members, your friends and acquaintances about the impor­tance of making a lifetime commitment to pets.
• Before getting a pet, do some research to ensure that you choose the right pet for your life­style. You’ll want to consider what each type of pet needs to be happy and how to provide the proper care.
• Adopt a pet instead of buying from a pet store or breeder.
• Help control pet overpopulation the responsible and humane way: Spay or neuter your pets.
• Provide needed veterinary care.
• License, ID and microchip your pets.
• Seek help if you encounter behavior or medical challenges: Consult Best Friends’ online resource libraries, contact Best Friends’ No More Homeless Pets help line, work with a trainer or your veterinarian.
• When you move, plan ahead to find secure, pet-friendly housing.
• Foster a pet for a family in temporary need because of military deployment, medical issues, domestic violence or home foreclosure.
• To keep up-to-date on campaign action items, join the Best Friends Network’s First Home Forever Home community at foreverhome.bestfriends.org
• Donate to support the First Home Forever Home campaign. 

• The animals need your voice. Share your knowledge and help provide information and resources to others.

For more information

If you want to know more about First Home Forever Home, email elleng@bestfriends.org.

First Home Forever Home is part of Best Friends’ mission to bring about a time when there are No More Homeless Pets.