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...
Compassionate Communication: Supporting People and Pets Through Human-Centered Language
[embedded content] Have you ever been scrolling through social media and read through a post calling someone a “horrible pet owner” or worse during a time of need or crisis? The answer is probably yes; we’ve all seen this, and perhaps we’ve even used harmful language ourselves not knowing the full story. The words we use have an impact and can push away the people who need support so we’d like to take the time to evaluate how we can have more compassionate communication. In this presentation, Shannon Glenn,...
People, Pets, and Purpose: Mark Castaneda Lived on the Street With His Dog
[embedded content] These days, Mark Castenada and his dog Jelly Bean share a home in California, where Mark is studying space sciences at the University of the Pacific. Mark has interned with NASA—yes that NASA—and also advocates for bringing healthcare services to communities in need, through his work with CommonSpirit Health. Mark brings a very personal passion, and understanding, to this part of his life. It was only a couple of years ago, that he and Jelly Bean were themselves unhoused, living on the street, and looking...
Learn how to become more community-centric with these free courses on Maddie’s University
Is your animal organization working to become more community-centric and need a little help? Maddie’s® University now offers Human Animal Support Services (HASS) curriculum, covering the most important concepts of the community-centric model. From lost pet reunification, pet support services, intake to placement, and creating a foster-facing medical clinic, the curriculum starts with a brief introduction to the HASS model and then dives into each element. It’s free to enroll and you can take the courses at your own pace....
