New Analysis: Pets With Microchips Are THREE TIMES More Likely to Get Home
It’s long been known that lost pets with microchips have a higher chance of returning to their homes than those without. New analysis from the HASS data team shows that pets with microchips are in fact three times more likely to be reunited with their families as those without—but that the use of microchips could be so much more effective. Read on for tips on what shelters can do to have those chips more effectively work to reunite pets with their families. HASS Data Is Clear—Microchips Work, and They Could Work Even...
Inclusivity in Action: Strategies for DEI in Animal Welfare
[embedded content] The week of Juneteenth, DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—is front of mind. But, how can we take action beyond one week and move toward a more diverse and equitable culture in animal welfare? Tune into this panel discussion with Mia Navedo-Williams, Manager of Multicultural Engagement for Best Friends Animal Society, Rory Adams, Senior Manager of Adoption Initiatives for PetSmart Charities, and Shakela Brown, Director of Community Services for Humane Rescue Alliance. Vincent Medley, Maddie’s®...
People, Pets, and Purpose: Kassidi Jones Adopted a Dog and Became an Anti-Racism Influencer
Kassidi Jones, a Ph.D. candidate studying 19th-Century African American Ecopoetics at Yale studying, always wanted a dog. Early in the pandemic, she visited a local shelter not expecting to adopt right away—and walked out with Ginger, who’d change her life. For a decade, Kassidi has studied race relations. As a Black woman, adopting a dog who most people identify as a pit bull, opened “another door,” she says, about “how else this is playing out every day in ways that so many people are able to gloss over.”...
Why Can’t Vets at Texas Animal Shelters Treat Owned Pets?
My dog Ranger first started having seizures at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. At 5 years old, my happy, healthy, and active little shadow who’d never had an inkling of health issues was suddenly violently convulsing at the foot of my bed and I had no idea what to do or how to help him. That trip to the veterinarian cost me just shy of $3000. I was fortunately able to pay that bill with my limited savings and help from my parents – an unearned privilege that I don’t take for granted. The medicine, bloodwork, and trips to...
From Intake to Outcomes: Managing Summer Space Crises with Animal Case Management
[embedded content] Summer is a challenging time for animal shelters, often coming with high intake numbers and slowed adoptions—that can be a recipe for a space crisis. To get more pets out, shelters are getting creative. Mara Hartsell, Shelter Support Advisor for American Pets Alive!, is sharing how shelters can (and are!) use a case management approach to move more pets through the sheltering system. In this recording, Mara will cover four action categories that can speed up the outcomes process and reduce length of stay for the...
You Should Be Doing Fee-Waived Adoptions This Summer
Intakes have overtaken positive outcomes for shelter pets. With summer coming, the need to increase accessibility and remove barriers to pets going into homes only grows more urgent. We’re diving in over the next few months to see what data and research can tell us about ways to move shelter pets to adoptions more quickly—beginning with this blog on the research supporting fee-waived adoptions. Shelter operations should utilize rapid intake to placement procedures to support pets leaving the shelter as soon as possible...
Navigating Compassion Fatigue in Animal Welfare: How to Combat Burnout and Enhance Resiliency
[embedded content] Human and animal welfare is incredibly rewarding, and also incredibly challenging. Compassion fatigue is a common experience for animal welfare workers, but not one that we have to navigate alone. Hilary Hager, Vice President of Outreach, Engagement, and Training for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), provided this live training, typically given as part of HSUS’s Law Enforcement Training Center, on how to better combat compassion fatigue and burnout. This webinar training covers the causes and symptoms of...
Let’s Talk About Burnout in Animal Welfare
As May is Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s only right that we talk about a topic that hits really close to home for so many of us in the animal welfare space—BURNOUT! Burnout is something that any person working too many hours, under too much stress, and in a challenging environment, is likely to experience at some point in their lives. As a social worker, and particularly a social worker in an animal shelter, I’m often asked if burnout is avoidable. I don’t, unfortunately, have a universal answer to...
Facing a Space Crisis? Here Are 8 Ideas to Try Right Now!
The weather is warming and kennels are getting fuller. (No kidding, right?) Just to lay this on the table: we’re all of us working toward a future where space crises are rarer than they are today. One where most pets are in homes—foster homes, and supported in their family homes—leaving ample room in physical shelters for the pets who truly need to be there. These eight tips and ideas—plus a whole bunch of bonus extras—are aimed at helping mitigate a space crisis today, and preventing one tomorrow, as we...
How I Learned to Love ChatGPT for Shelter Marketing
This blog is for anyone who is curious, and perhaps a little nervous, about ChatGPT’s uses in animal shelter communications. When marketing and communications spaces started exploding with talk about ChatGPT earlier this year, my first instinct was to bury my head in the sand. Most feelings of anxiety in my life can ultimately be traced back to a fear of inadequacy or failure. I was terrified that a machine could possibly do my job—I’ve done marketing and communications for a major metro government shelter, for...
