Best Friends Animal Society’s June 1, 2026 ranking names North Dakota, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Oregon, Maine, Connecticut, and Idaho as the ten states with the highest percentage of shelter cats saved. The release gives the order, but not the individual state rates or the ranking’s precise measurement period.
Best Friends’ top 10 states for shelter cat save rates
The list below reproduces the order in Best Friends Animal Society’s June 1, 2026 release. It ranks states by the percentage of cats saved, not by the total number of cats saved.
- North Dakota
- Delaware
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- Vermont
- Rhode Island
- Oregon
- Maine
- Connecticut
- Idaho
Read Best Friends’ June 1, 2026 announcement.
What this ranking does—and does not—tell you
Best Friends describes its list as a ranking by percentage of cats saved. The announcement does not publish individual state percentages or specify the exact dates covered by the ranking. That means the states can be reported in the published order, but their rates cannot be independently compared from this release alone.
The ranking also does not show that residents in these states have greater adopter demand, or explain why a state placed where it did. Best Friends discusses community-based kitten fostering, community cat programs, and increased adoption demand from Gen Z as factors in the broader national trend; it does not establish them as causes of any state’s position.
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How Best Friends defines a save rate
Best Friends’ dashboard calculates save rate as net intake minus total non-live outcomes, divided by net intake, and expresses the result as a percentage. In plain terms, it measures the share of animals entering the shelter system that do not have a non-live outcome. Depending on the records available, animals still awaiting an outcome may be included in the live-outcome measure.
Best Friends defines “no-kill” as a 90% save rate for animals entering a shelter. That is the organization’s benchmark; it is not stated as a cutoff for appearing in this cat-specific top ten.
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The dashboard displays data for a specified recent 12-consecutive-month period and compares it with the same months one year earlier. That rolling-window method is described for the dashboard, not confirmed as the measurement period for the June 2026 state ranking.
National context: the 2025 cat save rate
Best Friends reports a national cat save rate of 82.9% for 2025, which it calls a record high. This is a national figure, not the rate for any one of the ten states, and it should not be used to infer their individual results. Best Friends’ data page explains its national and state figures and data collection.
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- This is a donation box not a safe
Why different shelter rankings may not match
State-level shelter statistics are only comparable when they use the same species, measure, geography, time period, and data status. A cat-only percentage ranking, for example, is not interchangeable with a count of cats and dogs, a national annual rate, or a state estimate covering a different period.
Shelter Animals Count maintains a separate state dashboard. It says its state figures combine actual and estimated data from more than 6,000 organizations, and cautions that estimates are more accurate at national than state level. The organization describes state-level figures as subject to greater uncertainty and intended for general informational use. These are caveats about its own dataset, not the source of Best Friends’ top-ten ranking. See the Shelter Animals Count data dashboard.
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Historical Best Friends figures should also be kept distinct. A separate 2024 report said every shelter in Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Rhode Island had a save rate above 90% as of that year. That finding is not the same measure or period as the June 2026 cat-only ranking. Likewise, Best Friends’ April 2026 state progress report covers dogs and cats together, not this cat-only percentage comparison.
How to help shelter cats
A state’s rank is not a substitute for checking the needs of a particular shelter. If you want to make a difference locally, consider adopting or fostering, volunteering, donating, or supporting community cat programs. Best Friends encourages these forms of support, including fostering kittens.
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