Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

Red-rock canyon, 1,600 rescue animals, free tours

⏱ 1.5-3 hours👤 All agesFree

Best Friends grew from a group of about thirty friends who settled in Angel Canyon in 1984 and built a home-between-homes for animals other shelters could not place; the founders even routed roads around trees rather than cut them, which is why some of the sanctuary lanes wind. The canyon had a screen career before that, as a location for Westerns and TV including The Lone Ranger, Lassie, Gunsmoke and The Outlaw Josey Wales, and the sanctuary's so-called Disney barn started life as a set for a 1973 Disney Western. It became the anchor of the national no-kill movement, and the Kanab sanctuary remains the organization's home base. The design spreads care across different areas — Dogtown, Cat World, the Horse Haven, Piggy Paradise and the bird area among them — each staffed by caregivers who know the residents' stories. Tours explain how animals arrive, how they are rehabilitated and how many go on to adoption, and guides are frank about the challenges of rescue work.

For families, the visit lands differently than another overlook: kids meet animals up close (where allowed), learn about care and responsibility, and leave with stories. For dog lovers, the volunteer program is the real draw — sign up in advance, attend a short orientation, and you may spend a morning hiking a canyon trail with a shelter dog who rarely gets out. Some visitors even arrange sleepovers with a sanctuary dog or cat at their Kanab lodging; ask the Welcome Center about current programs, which change over time. Be ready for weather: tours involve outdoor transport between areas. Leave time for two quieter places: Angel Village Café, where staff, volunteers and visitors gather for lunch with a view up the canyon, and Angels Rest, the sanctuary's pet memorial ground of wind chimes, red-sand paths and shaded benches, which many visitors find unexpectedly moving. Animal lovers who want to stay close can book the sanctuary's own pet-friendly cottages, cabins or RV sites, or the Best Friends Roadhouse and Mercantile in Kanab, opened in 2019 with a fenced pet park and pet wash; all of them fill well in advance.

Practicals: from Page, take US 89 west to Kanab and continue about five miles north to the Angel Canyon turnoff. Tours are free; book online in advance and arrive early to check in at the Welcome Center. Animal care areas require a tour or volunteer reservation. Tours are occasionally canceled for weather. Pair the visit with the Coral Pink Sand Dunes or Pipe Spring National Monument for a full Kanab-area day, or use it as the gentle stop on the way to Zion.