Best Friends Pet Resource Center in NW Arkansas — Attraction in Bentonville

i’ve supported best friends animal society for years. i’ve donated monthly, received the calendars and magazines, and even volunteered countless times. i truly believed in their mission until i attended kitty bingo the other day.

i thought the idea of kids getting to meet and play with shelter cats sounded adorable. i signed up with the same excitement. but when i got there, it was a mess. we were crammed into a small room with tons of loud, excited kids, and only three shelter cats. these cats were clearly scared, likely fresh rescues, and absolutely overwhelmed.

the kids were chasing them, cornering them, stressing them out. one boy even ran toward a cat like he was going to jump on it. the parents didn’t step in, and worse the volunteers and staff didn’t either. they saw it all and said nothing. no one redirected the children, no one asked parents to intervene, no one protected the cats. there were no hiding spots in the room for these terrified animals, and no one took them out or tried to calm the situation.

instead, the volunteers made baby voices and stood around awkwardly while the animals cowered in corners. two women were inside the room, one who may have worked for the shelter and another who was clearly a volunteer, and neither of them stepped up. outside the room, two more volunteers were watching through the big glass doors, and they also ignored everything.

this isn’t the kind, ethical place i thought i was supporting. it broke my heart to see the animals treated like this in a place that claims to protect them. if best friends wants to continue its mission with integrity, they need to train their staff and volunteers better, and take real responsibility for the emotional and physical well-being of...

DO NOT ADOPT HERE. The staff DO NOT CARE about these animals. I have lost my trust in this place and I will never be adopting from this place again. "Best Friends", if you can even call them that...we adopted a cat named Cynthia from them 9 days ago and before we adopted her, they had only checked her health to see if she had anything, virus, bacteria, etc. and all they apparently found was a sinus infection and she'd been there for MORE THAN 21 DAYS. after she'd gotten there to be TAKEN CARE OF AND RELEASED to a good home. When we adopted Cynthia 9 days ago we noticed scabbing on the top of her head and in her ears. We thought it was just cat dander. 7 days later we took her back to Best Friends to have them look at her and see what was wrong and they told us they'd "scan" her and they found that she had ringworms. And to top it off my other cat Pugsley caught her sinus infection and they said they cannot do anything about Pugsleys sinus infection even though it's there fault my other cat is sick because they didn't give Cynthia, the cat I recently adopted from Best Friends, the care and attention she deserved and needed, nor did they hold her to take care of her before letting someone adopt her. Now I am forced to give her back because Best Friends said "we can't hold her to take care of her and then give her back to you, you would have to give her up for adoption." I will add also they Cynthia had NO indication or sign saying that she was sick, on her cage nor anywhere. I am never coming here again and Best Friends Pet Resource Center has LOST my...

I originally loved this place. The staff is great - super nice and has been super helpful throughout this whole process. However…

We adopted the cat Montana and renamed her to Juno. When we got her, we were told her previous adopters got bloodwork done, found out she had feline leukemia, and decided to bring her back due to having other healthy pets.

Jan 18, she had a seizure. We took her to the vet, found out she has low potassium (possibly a kidney issue or dietary). This morning she had another seizure. Went to best friends to ask if we could obtain the previous bloodwork done by the previous owners did because of what’s going on.

She has had seizures. And possibly kidney issues including possibly kidney disease. And I have now found the previous owners review and now know exactly how they felt.

Feline leukemia needs to be a mandated test. It’s spreads too easily in the environment these cats are in and has too many deadly illnesses linked to it to not test.

And if an animal has records showing something like SEIZURES or KIDNEY issues, it needs to be communicated. ALL health should be communicated.

We love Juno so much and wouldn’t ever change our decision to choose her, but all of this is ridiculous. Especially when now we are having to pay 100’s and maybe possibly 1000’s of dollars to provide help to our animal because we didn’t know anything about this before and now the issue is likely...