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No, Best Friends Animal Society does not have submitted data from every U.S. shelter. Its annual reporting combines data collected from shelters with estimates for missing entries, using known characteristics to fill gaps in national and state totals. Those estimates help show a broader picture, but they are not the same as a shelter’s reported numbers—and Best Friends says it does not publish estimates as individual-shelter data.
How does Best Friends estimate missing shelter data?
In a May 7, 2026 article, Peter Wolf of Best Friends Animal Society describes a dataset covering roughly 3,900 brick-and-mortar U.S. shelters. The organization says it obtains data from more than 80% of them and estimates missing information for the rest. Its predictors include a shelter’s previous-year data, whether it is municipal or private, and the population of its county. The aim is to estimate missing entries in the larger dataset, not to claim that every shelter submitted a complete report.
The linked dashboard methodology describes related, more detailed modeling. Depending on the outcome being modeled, predictors can include county population, rurality, organization type and CDC Social Vulnerability Index data. It also distinguishes estimates of missing data from projections based on older observations; these are related but distinct tasks.
What does “current data” mean?
Best Friends’ 2025 National Shelter Data Report defines collected and current data as 12 consecutive months within the preceding 24 months. The report says its national dataset includes nearly 4,000 shelters, with more than 80% having collected and current data. The small remainder is estimated using historical and community data, with a method the report says was approved by two independent peer reviews.
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The dashboard methodology lists voluntary submissions through the Shelter Pet Data Alliance, shelter websites and government-provided data among its sources. For data based on older records, it describes stratified regression modeling and adjustments for community characteristics. When a shelter’s current data arrive, the methodology says they replace estimates.
How accurate are the estimates?
Wolf’s article reports a holdout validation exercise: Best Friends trained its model on 80% of collected records and tested predictions against the remaining 20%. For shelter admissions, it reports a correlation coefficient of 0.93 and describes that as 86% of variation in estimates accounted for by variation in collected data.
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Those are figures reported by Best Friends, not an independent verification. The article does not provide raw validation data, enough detail to recalculate the result, or confidence intervals. And a strong correlation across records does not guarantee that each estimate is close to its corresponding actual value: correlation describes how values vary together, not the size of the error for any particular shelter.
Can an estimate be treated as a shelter’s actual number?
No. A collected figure comes from reported data; an estimate is modeled from available information. Best Friends says it uses estimates to complete aggregate reporting, such as national or state totals, and does not report estimated values for individual shelters. At the shelter level, it says, the figures it reports are data it has collected.
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| Question | Collected value | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Where does it come from? | Data collected from a shelter or another named source. | A model uses available predictors to fill a missing entry. |
| What time period does it represent? | For the 2025 report, “current” means 12 consecutive months in the last 24 months. | May draw on historical and community data; the dashboard also describes projections using older observations. |
| Where does Best Friends report it? | At the shelter level when data have been collected. | In aggregates such as national or state totals, not as an individual shelter’s reported number. |
| What uncertainty information is provided? | The article does not give a per-shelter uncertainty measure. | The article reports validation correlation for admissions, but no confidence intervals or per-shelter error figures. |
Why publish a national estimate before every shelter reports?
Waiting for complete submissions would leave gaps in an annual national picture. Estimating missing entries lets Best Friends include more shelters in aggregate totals while keeping the distinction between modeled and collected information. That distinction matters: an estimate can make a total more complete without becoming a shelter’s own reported count.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Keep separate estimates, projections and status predictions
The dashboard methodology describes more than one modeling task. Wolf’s article focuses on estimating missing entries such as admissions. The methodology also describes projections when available shelter data are old, and a separate machine-learning model for predicting whether a shelter meets the organization’s no-kill status definition when qualifying current data are unavailable. Its reported figure of over 85% accuracy applies to that status model—not to the admissions estimates. The methodology also cautions that public data sources may not always be guaranteed accurate.
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For the underlying explanations, see Peter Wolf’s May 7, 2026 article, the 2025 National Shelter Data Report and the pet lifesaving dashboard map methodology.
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