Photo courtesy of Best Friends

No matter what angle you approach it from, the story of Best Friends Animal Society is a miraculous one.

Originally founded in 1984 by a group of friends who had come together as do-gooding hippies in the 1960s to start and celebrate their own religion -- it has evolved into one of the world's largest, busiest and most influential animal rights organizations.

Based in Kanab, Utah, the organization's animal sanctuary lies on 30.000 acres and, on any given day, is home to 1,500 to 2,000 animals, the most recent arrivals of which are 22 of the dogs Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick used in a dogfighting operation at his estate in Virginia.

And that's just the latest high-profile outreach effort by the organization, which was the first national group to arrive, and the last to leave after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

Best Friends workers and volunteers -- all part of an ever-expanding nationwide network -- spent 249 days there and rescued and transported more than 6,000 stranded animals.

Efforts like that, and publicity about them, have led to skyrocketing public donations -- they topped $32 million last year -- that allow the organization to pursue its mission of creating a better world through kindness to animals.

The sanctuary, nestled amid the red rocks of southern Utah, is the nation's largest -- home to not just thousands of dogs and cats, but burros, horses, goats, sheep, rabbits and birds.

About 75 percent of those animals end up getting adopted. Those that don't -- those too olds, sick, traumatized or handicapped -- are allowed to live out their lives at the sanctuary.

Each one that dies gets a full funeral service at the sanctuary's cemetery, Angel's Rest, which backs up a sharply rising rock wall and is dotted with wind chimes.

On a tour last month, Barbara Williamson, media relations manager for Best Friends, told me that at every funeral -- whether the wind is blowing or not -- the chimes begin to tinkle.

Best Friends has rescued animals left homeless by war in Lebanon, floods in Mexico, and earthquakes in Peru, and it has become a leader in the no-kill movement. It helped spearhead Utah's No More Homeless Pets, a coalition formed to halt the euthanasia of dogs and cats in shelters.

Best Friends also publishes the bimonthly Best Friends magazine, which reaches 250,000 readers.

The work of Best Friends is also being featured in a new National Geographic Channel program, Dogtown.

Three episodes have been produced, with the remaining two scheduled for Jan. 11 and 18. If the series proves successful, additional episodes will be produced and broadcast.