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Category: KSMP News

  • What does your shelter need to know about controlled drugs and premises permits?

    What does your shelter need to know about controlled drugs and premises permits?




    Register Now to Attend Live or Access On-Demand after 10/11!

    Decoding Compliance: What You Need to Know about Controlled Drugs and Premises Permits in Your Shelter

    Get ready to enhance your shelter’s capabilities! This event is your exclusive gateway to unlocking crucial insights, empowering you to address challenges and navigate the intricate landscape of drug and premises permit regulations. 

    Meet the Experts: Renowned animal welfare legal expert and lead counsel for SF SPCA’s Shelter Pals Program, Bruce Wagman, and animal sheltering visionary Cindi Delany, DVM, Director of Online Learning for Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge at the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, are teaming up to simplify, distill, and deliver the essential knowledge you need and answer your questions. Special thanks to CalAnimals for hosting this live event. 

    Explore the Topics:

    • Understanding Legal Dynamics: Gain valuable access to the inner workings of the legal landscape governing medical and euthanasia services in shelters. Discover the transformative impact of understanding the agencies that impact the type and quality of care you provide.
    • Decoding Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) & Veterinary Medical Board (VMB) Roles: Untangle regulations around controlled substances, enhance your understanding of premises permits, and gain insight into the role of premises permit holders, with a focus on compliance.
    • Strengthen Your Team: Gain insights into the diverse roles of licensed and unlicensed staff in delivering top-tier medical care within shelters. Equip your team with knowledge that will directly amplify care quality.
    • Facilitate Access to Medical Care in Shelters: Explore actionable solutions! Master the art of collaboration with regulatory agencies, opening pathways for advanced medical care for animals in your shelter and in your community.

    Save the Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – 10 AM to 11:30 AM Pacific

    Don’t Miss It! (if you HAVE to miss it live be sure to register so that you get access to the on-demand recording after the event).

    Share with Your Staff:  Forward this info to your staff, or just give them this registration link – www.tinyurl.com/premisespermit 

    Seize this opportunity to empower your shelter’s leaders and staff with the tools to tackle legal challenges to the delivery of veterinary services head-on. Bring your questions for our experts to answer. Elevate the standard for care and secure your spot today for this essential event.

    Questions? Contact us at learniverse@sheltermedportal.com


    Register Now!

  • What Love Looks Like

    What Love Looks Like

    Twenty-two years ago this month, the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program was born, the first of its kind in the world, but luckily not the last.

    One year ago on Valentine’s Day, the KSMP came together with shelters, partner organizations, California changemakers and allies for people and pets to Share the Love and launch California for All Animals, the first state-funded program of its kind to unite and amplify the work of California animal shelters to achieve our shared goal of matching every animal in need with the right outcome through the right care, delivered in the right place and at the right time, and to help communities achieve the state’s policy goal that no adoptable or treatable dog or cat should be euthanized.

    We are thrilled to have awarded over $15 million in grant funding to shelters and animal control agencies in Cal for All Animals’ first year. This February 14, we’re reflecting on what love looks like through a new edition of the #allthenews newsletter:

    A lot has changed in the last two decades of shelter medicine. Our collective commitment to a humane-hearted California that builds well-being for animals and people, inside the shelter and out, has only gotten stronger. Here’s to all we can build together in the year ahead!

    Read the Newsletter
  • Discover the Right Place for At-Risk Animals in a New Course from Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge

    Discover the Right Place for At-Risk Animals in a New Course from Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge

    Registration for The Right Place Is Live!

    Providing the right care and right outcome starts by serving animals in the right place, but how do you determine the right place for an animal at risk of entering the shelter? Start with the newest course, The Right Place, in the Maddie’s®️ Million Pet Challenge Learniverse! In this free SPOT mod (code for Self-Paced Online Training Module), you’ll learn the framework that will help remove decision fatigue and get animals where they need to be—or help them right where they are.

    Subject matter experts from the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program will walk you through guiding principles that animal welfare professionals can use to make decisions, train their staff and engage the public, with the ultimate goal of serving animals in the place that permits the best possible result for the animal(s) and person(s) in the most humane and efficient possible way. Priority is given to keeping animals safe in the community when possible, with shelter intake reserved for those animals who can’t be safely managed by community members (such as owners, finders, concerned caregivers and foster families).

    You’ll learn about a range of programs you can use at your shelter to lead animals to the right outcome while making the best possible use of your resources and reducing the burden on your staff. Plus, you’ll find inspiration in examples of animal shelters that have successfully implemented these programs with positive results.

    Enroll today and discover how to serve animals in the right place—and in turn how to serve more animals and people: savings associated with lower admission and care in the shelter can be redirected to support safety net services and provide care for animals with advanced medical or behavior needs who have no other option but shelter admittance. This short course has been approved for 3.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator (CAWA) continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement (AAWA) and National Animal Care and Control Association (NACA). RACE credit pending approval.

    The Right Place is the first course in a self-paced series that will explore each of the Four Rights, an evolution of the Million Cat Challenge’s Five Key Initiatives and the foundation of Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge. Within the Four Rights, every element works in concert to support one another: animals and people are treated as individuals, empowering shelter staff to make the best decisions for everyone; community safety net services are in place and flourishing; and humane care within the shelter is provided, with appropriate outcomes for the animals that do come in, allowing shelters to deliver the Right Care, in the Right Place, at the Right Time, to the Right Outcome.

    Join us in the Maddie’s®️ Million Pet Challenge Learniverse, an interactive, online learning community found at the intersection of Knowing and Doing. Hosted by a team of animal welfare’s leading experts, it is a space to question, test, and implement innovations in the pursuit of continuous discovery and improvement in animal sheltering. #ThankstoMaddie, The Right Place and other SPOT mods, along with cohort-style, coach-led Bootcamps, are available at no cost.

    Do you have comments, questions, or ideas related to the Four Rights? Join the discussion on Maddie’s Pet Forum!


    Enroll Today!

  • Reach Out to Join Our California Outreach Team

    Reach Out to Join Our California Outreach Team

    Our person

    We’re looking for a seasoned shelter professional who is ready to roll their sleeves up and apply their years of shelter operation and animal care experience to a program that is designed to scale humane, community-centered practices to shelters of every type. 

    If you share our passion for supporting shelters in reaching their goals through inclusion, transparency, organizational wellness, purpose-driven innovation, and barrier-busting programs, we’d like to learn more about your experience and vision for community-based animal sheltering. 

    What your role would look and feel like

    Each member of our outreach team has an area of interest that together allows us to offer shelters well-rounded support. You’ll be lending your operational and animal care expertise to round out a team of veterinarians specializing in data analysis, facility design, housing, behavior & enrichment, infectious disease management, free-roaming cat programming, and Capacity for Care. You’ll be visiting shelters in person, working with shelter personnel through phone, Zoom and email, and participating in our online training courses hosted in the Learniverse.

    Is this opportunity speaking to YOU?

    Do you love working with animals but find one of your superpowers is supporting and mentoring people? Do you know firsthand how satisfying it is to streamline processes and remove barriers for staff, animals, and the communities we assist? Are you ready to take what you’ve learned and pass it along to your California colleagues? Let’s talk about transitioning into the next chapter of your career where you’ll scale the number of animals you help by coaching, supporting, and serving the people that care for them.

    We are committed to a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. 

    Remote work is an option but the candidate must live in California (preference for those with roots and experience in California) or be willing to relocate.

    At least 4 years of experience in organizational operations management (non-profit, government or similar) is required, with some significant experience in animal shelter management/operations.

    To apply or share with a colleague, click here by July 10: Careers (universityofcalifornia.edu)

  • Last Call! Three Things You Don’t Want to Miss This Month

    Last Call! Three Things You Don’t Want to Miss This Month

    The days are getting longer as March is coming to a close: here are three sweet opportunities—a brand new Bootcamp, a big (Big Dog!) virtual conference, and a grant for California shelters—to ring in spring before the month is up. 

    1. Apply by 3/28 for the next Behavior, Training, Enrichment (BTE) Bootcamp

    Developed by Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Director of Online Learning Cindi Delany, DVM, KPA-CPT, this immersive and coach-guided course will do more than help you identify new ways to improve animal welfare and wellness; it will also get you started making those improvements in less than two months, and your coaches will continue to support you on an ongoing basis once Bootcamp is over. And thanks to a generous grant from the Wiederhold Foundation to develop this program and to the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge, you can participate free of charge! Apply by 3/28/22 for the session beginning 4/18/22.

    Apply now

    2. Register for the Big Dog Master Class

    The newly launched Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge and Human Animal Support Services are teaming to bring you a completely FREE, two-day virtual conference March 29–30 to tackle your biggest challenges surrounding big dogs. We’ve got proven solutions and data-driven protocols delivered to you in straightforward, streamlined modules for all levels of animal shelter professionals. We want your organizations to be supported as you learn better dog management, getting more live outcomes, shortening lengths of stay, and creating safer shelters.

    Register now

    3. Calling all California Shelters: Apply for a California for All Animals Welcome Grant by 3/31

    Don’t leave money on the table! All municipal shelters and private shelters holding a municipal contract in California are eligible to apply for a California for All Animals Welcome Grant through 3/31/22. Fill out the super short application, share some data, and claim your money. If you’ve already claimed your $5,000, help spread the word to shelters in your network! We’re here for you: Email data@californiaforallanimals.com if you need guidance on gathering or submitting your shelter’s data or if you need help with the application process.

    Learn more

  • Announcing our Spring 2022 Bootcamp Cohorts

    Announcing our Spring 2022 Bootcamp Cohorts

    Here in the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Learniverse, our online learning world made possible by Maddie’s Fund®, we design Bootcamps around the belief that small steps and big leaps happen when we learn together and from one another. This spring we’re kicking off two Bootcamps and welcoming two new shelter cohorts—and we couldn’t be more excited!

    These community-based, “all teach, all learn” interactive training experiences are facilitated by experts and designed to dive deep. Developed by UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program – Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Director of Online Learning Cindi Delany, DVM, KPA-CPT, the brand new Behavior, Training and Enrichment (BTE) Bootcamp is an immersive, coach-guided course that helps shelter teams review current best practices and innovations in the Behavior, Training and Enrichment space, then assess operations and programs and begin implementing changes to level up your work and maximize animal welfare. This course was researched and built thanks to a generous grant from the John T. and Jane A. Wiederhold Foundation and will be offered on a regular basis thanks to the support of Maddie’s Fund® through the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge.

    Our comprehensive Four Rights Bootcamp offers proven techniques to help you ensure that each animal in your community gets the Right Care at the Right Time in the Right Place to the Right Outcome. Over six weeks, coaches Cindy Karsten, DVM, and Chumkee Aziz, DVM, offer a holistic perspective reset and guide shelters through a journey centered around quitting crisis mode, embracing your capacity, and creating space for lasting change.

    In each Bootcamp, live calls led by coaches set the goals for the week and kick off the brainstorming you’ll do with your own team in between meetings. Experts from both within and outside our industry will provide the framework to build your strategy. Past Bootcamp cohorts will tell you that the content shared in camp transformed their shelter, but the partnerships they formed with their peers are what has sustained it.

    Join us in cheering on these shelters who are coming together to do great work this spring. If your shelter wasn’t selected for this session or if you haven’t yet applied, we encourage you to apply again for upcoming Bootcamps. You can learn more about BTE Bootcamp or Four Rights Bootcamp and express interest in future sessions in the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Learniverse. #ThanksToMaddie and to the Wiederhold Foundation, both of these Bootcamps are free of charge to participants!

    Four Rights Bootcamp Spring 2022 Cohort

    • Ashville Humane Society – Asheville, NC
    • Chula Vista Animal Care Facility – Chula Vista, CA
    • Dallas Animal Services – Dallas, TX
    • Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control – Fort Wayne, IN
    • Humane Society of Weld County – Evans, CO
    • Inland Valley Humane Society and SPCA – Pomona, CA
    • Placer County Animal Services – Auburn, CA
    • Southeast Area Animal Control Authority – Downey, CA

    Behavior, Training and Enrichment Bootcamp Spring 2022 Cohort

    • East Bay SPCA – Oakland, CA
    • Humane Society Silicon Valley – Milpitas, CA
    • Kauaʻi Humane Society – Lihue, HI
    • County of San Diego Department of Animal Services – Bonita, CA
    • San Francisco Animal Care and Control – San Francisco, CA
    • San Jose Animal Care and Services – San Jose, CA
    • SPCA of Texas – Dallas, TX
    • Ventura County Animal Services – Camarillo, CA
  • Join Team KSMP as a Facility Use and Design Veterinarian

    Join Team KSMP as a Facility Use and Design Veterinarian

    Our person

    We’re looking for a veterinarian who shares our mission of making change easier for the shelter leaders who are implementing new or expanded visions. You’d be joining the outreach team dedicated to doing that great work, which is often done virtually—through 1:1 video calls or courses in our online learning portal, Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Learniverse—but likely will include some amount of onsite work as well.  Within that team, we’re looking to expand our facility use, facility design and housing-related offerings, and we’re willing to train the right person if wellness and improved efficiency supported by great design make your heart pitter-patter. 

    What your role would look and feel like

    Each veterinarian on our current team has an area of interest that, all together, allows us to offer shelters comprehensive consultations. You’ll be on the Facility Design team and, as part of that team, you’ll also contribute to our larger shelter outreach team. You’ll be working closely with our resident facility design expert to round out the aspects of our consultations that address environment-supported wellness encompassing animal, staff and organizational needs. Sometimes your consultations will be in tandem with the larger team; sometimes a shelter may specifically be looking for facility design and housing support. We’re looking for someone who doesn’t mind working alone, in pairs, or as part of a 3–6-person team.

    Is this opportunity speaking to YOU?

    Do you love working in population health as a veterinarian? Have you experienced the benefits of a well-designed shelter and seen firsthand improved animal well-being with better housing? Were you part of a construction build-out or redesign at your shelter/clinic and recognized the project was hitting all your marks? Or have you always loved architecture and design but weren’t sure how it might intersect with your career as an animal caretaker? We’re open to all kinds of scenarios to find you, including getting creative about where you live and how you might travel with our team when necessary. Don’t be shy: we want to get to know you and hear how your passion for design might be the catalyst to transitioning into a new chapter in your career! Apply by March 2, 2022.


    Apply now

  • California for All Animals Launches with Grants for Shelters

    California for All Animals Launches with Grants for Shelters

    California for All Animals, a five-year project administered by the Koret Shelter Medicine Program, is aimed at improving the lives of at-risk animals in the state and providing much-needed resources to shelters that serve this vulnerable population. We’re kicking off this historic initiative with two grants focused on making an immediate impact in shelters across the state.

    • $5,000 Welcome Grants are available to all municipal or private shelters with municipal contracts, and the deadline to apply is March 31, 2022.
    • Additionally, all shelters are invited to apply for targeted Portal Grants to retrofit cat and small dog/puppy housing with pass-through portals. Portal Grant applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis and will be prioritized based on need and impact.

    Register for the grant applicants informational webinar and join us on Friday, February 18, at 12 p.m. PT. We’ll walk through each step of the application process and answer your questions along the way.

    California for All Animals exists to unite and amplify the work of California animal shelters to achieve our shared goal of matching every animal in need with the right outcome through the right care, delivered in the right place and at the right time. This unique state-funded initiative was made possible in 2021 when California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed budget legislation that includes $45 million in one-time support for a statewide Animal Shelter Assistance Program, an augmentation to $5 million earmarked earlier that year.

    Whether you’re an animal shelter, an organization devoted to strengthening the safety net for people and pets, or a Californian who believes in fierce compassion for animals and people, you can join the movement! Learn more at http://www.californiaforallanimals.com.


    Learn more

  • Apply to Be Our Learning Coordinator

    Apply to Be Our Learning Coordinator

    Do you have a passion for helping to create and build online learning communities? Do you love both the people in the animal welfare industry and the animals they are trying to help? Does the idea of being on a small but mighty team dedicated to online learning in this space sound exciting? We have created a brand-new position at the Koret Shelter Medicine Program (KSMP) at the University of California, Davis and we’re looking for someone who wants to help imagine, bring to life, and coordinate A+ learner experiences in the online space.

    The UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program Learning Coordinator will have their hands on #allthethings in our online learning program and serve as the point person for learners in our brand-new virtual learning world – the Learniverse. From working with our Online Learning Director and Instructional Designer to plan and coordinate all things online learning, to helping our subject matter experts translate their knowledge into the online world, to helping learners engage with this new community and find their way through their coursework, you’ll play a pivotal role in our online learning Learniverse.

    We’ll also put your scheduling, organization, group facilitation and engagement skills to work, allowing your superstar-behind-the-scenes abilities to shine and make the Learniverse a place everyone wants to explore and engage with.

    If you have awesome communications skills, are a master of online learning best practices, love delving into adult learning theories, are a wizard when it comes to fostering online engagement, super-duper detailed, live for a well-streamlined process, know your way around the back end of an LMS, and love to scale the good in this world, we want to meet you.

    Our team is small but impactful and your voice will always be heard. We offer great benefits and promote work-life balance. Your contributions will serve two powerhouse programs, both with big goals and global reach. Ultimate flexibility: This position has the option to be primarily remote with regular opportunities to meet with the team!

    Apply by January 24, 2022
  • Apply to Be Our Online Learning Designer

    Apply to Be Our Online Learning Designer

    Do you love designing and creating online learning experiences that thoroughly engage and excite busy professionals who are passionate about their work? Are you experienced at developing courses with adult users in mind that don’t feel like required training assigned by your HR department? If this is you, bring your UX experience over here and join our team of DVMs on a mission to change the animal welfare landscape! 

    The world of animal welfare is exploding right now. Our community is driving a revolution that both supports and returns animals safely to their homes or, when needed, finds new homes faster than ever before. If you’re a member of this community or are passionate about this (our dream candidate would be), you know that information is being exchanged at a profound rate, but the platforms we use to share this information can sometimes leave us feeling anything but progressive and the general information overwhelm experienced by our audience is real.

    The Koret Shelter Medicine Program and the Million Cat Challenge are on a mission to change that. We’re moving beyond listserves and webinars to create a learning universe that is designed just for us. Inside this new world, we will offer different types of learning adventures that meet each individual user’s needs and style, all supported by coaches, subject matter experts, and peers that share common goals, digging deep into the cohort learning model. 

    About you: Ideally, you live in California, or are at least in the Pacific Standard Time zone. You are an experienced Instructional Designer with a passion for using your skills to further missions dedicated to making this world a better, more equitable place for us all (especially animals). You have that “world domination” twinkle in your eye, but you’re able to execute sophisticated and interactive online learning projects in phases that meet tight timelines. 

    Why us? Our team is small; your voice will always be heard. We offer great benefits and work-life balance. Your contributions will serve two powerhouse programs, both with big goals and global reach. Ultimate flexibility: This position is remote with regular opportunities to meet with the team!

    Click here to apply by January 3, 2022!