Best Friends Animal Society is an animal rescue and sanctuary in southern Utah. When news of Hurricane Katrina hit the media, some of the founders of the society and volunteers headed out to Tylertown, MO to set up a home base to do rescue mission in New Orleans. Tylertown was 300 miles from the destruction of the Gulf Coast and was a shelter that Best Friends had helped build back in 2000.

Yeah, I am giving this book 5 stars just out of sentimentality and because the folks of Best Friends kicked ass. In total, they rescued more than 3,200 animals, mostly domestic pets such as dogs, cats, and birds; they also rescued some animals left from at a pet shop and took in animals that wound up at the local animal shelters just prior to the storm hitting. There were vets as volunteers on site, but some of the animals rescued were sent to local docs or flown to animal medical specialists to get life-saving medical care. There were animal groomers, who had the task of washing/shearing the animals to rid them of the dirty, oily flood waters.

The temporary base at Tylertown actually stayed open and running until May 2006, eight months after the storm hit. Animals were then reunited with their owners, adopted by new owners, or ended up at the sanctuary in Utah. There was a lot of cooperation between Best Friends rescuers and the military; seems the two groups got together to avoid dealing with city officials - who had no plans whatsoever in rescue/recovery phase of the emergency response in regards to people, much less than the pets left behind.

Although some photographs show animals in perilous situations, there isn't any gory photos or pictures of animals who died; I could recommend this book for kids as well as sensitive adults. The photographs were taken by Troy Snow, who is a volunteer for Best Friends and decided a book chronicling the first couple of weeks of the rescue would make a good historical document of the operation and fundraiser (all royalties from the sale of this book go to Best Friends Rescue Fund.

I wonder if those of us who have migrated to BL in response to the madness at GR should think of a name for ourselves...there are those who are happy to call us "bullies" but we all know that's bupkis.

I'm pretty good at acronyms, but my brain isn't working for me today.