There’s a new, free self-paced course available at Maddie’s® University, and it’s all about facilitating successful adoptions!

This course provides guidance for navigating the entire adoption process, with an emphasis on adoption counseling. The course demonstrates the general adoption counseling process and then dives into adoption counseling for pets with behavior or medical conditions. Text content is supported by videos, infographics and exercises. All videos are shareable and all infographics are available for download so you can use them in training. 

“This course goes deep on adoption counseling for cats and dogs and spans a number of interconnected topics,” co-author Rachel Jones shares. Topics include:

• Customizing meet and greets for individual animals and their behaviors and medical needs.
• Order of operations when receiving inquiries through different channels
• Using approachable language when discussing different types of behaviors and medical needs.
• Prioritizing counseling topics.
• Important paperwork to consider.
• Helping potential adopters determine whether a pet is a match themselves.
• Setting adopters up for success in the home.
• Fostering a welcoming environment.
• Ways to simplify your own placement processes without sacrificing quality.
• Minor marketing tips.
• And more.

The Adoption Counseling course is eligible for 2.0 hours of credit from the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement (AAWA) and the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA).

NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AT MADDIE’S UNIVERSITY

In Part 2 of this two-part series we continue a fun, interactive journey to demystify California’s legal landscape and discover how California laws and regulations can work in harmony with shelter policy to reduce unnecessary intakes and shorten shelter stays. 

In this series, we will cut through the legalese, distill key takeaways, and provide you with practical, “what does this mean for me and my work?” guidance. If your shelter squad only ever attends one webinar series about how legal guidelines can be used to your advantage let this be the one!

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NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND MADDIE’S UNIVERSITY

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we embark on a fun, interactive journey to demystify California’s legal landscape and discover how California laws and regulations can work in harmony with shelter policy to reduce unnecessary intakes and shorten shelter stays. 

In this series, we will cut through the legalese, distill key takeaways, and provide you with practical, “what does this mean for me and my work?” guidance. If your shelter squad only ever attends one webinar series about how legal guidelines can be used to your advantage let this be the one!

Learn more

When it comes to veterinary care in animal shelters, it’s crucial to make sure the right person does the right job—and the right person doesn’t always have to be a DVM or RVT! Amid staff shortages and other challenges, it’s more important than ever to recognize the potential of every team member, including front office staff, field officers, kennel attendants, volunteers, and fosters.

Is your shelter fully leveraging the veterinary care capabilities of your entire team? Take this quiz to find out:

• Can vaccines be administered during hold periods?
• Who can give a Rabies vaccine, and under what type of supervision?
• If you don’t have a veterinarian on-site, can you use standing protocols?
• Are microchipping and administering snap tests considered the practice of veterinary medicine, or can any team member do these tasks?
• Can an RVT perform emergency procedures on an animal?
• Can an RVT or unlicensed veterinary assistant prepare animals for spay and/or neuter surgeries on pets who are to be adopted out? Which, if any, tasks involved can only be done by an RVT or DVM?

If you’re not sure of the answers, this one-hour webinar is for you!

On February 7 at 10 a.m. PT, join Bruce Wagman, Lead Counsel for San Francisco SPCA’s Shelter Policy and Legal Services (Shelter PALS), to clear up confusion around what must be done by a DVM or RVT and what other team members and volunteers can—and can’t—do.

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of which shelter tasks which team members can perform, from intake-related care and running diagnostics to providing treatment, surgery, euthanasia, public veterinary services and emergency care.

After this webinar, you’ll be ready to maximize your shelter’s options for providing veterinary care while adhering to law and practice act requirements.

Register now and bring your questions for the Q&A!

A new program introduced by the San Francisco SPCA aims to lower the costs of veterinary supplies and other goods for participating animal welfare organizations. The Compassion Collective Purchasing Program is free to join and does not require administrative fees; in order to remain active members of the program, organizations would only need to make purchases at least once every 3 months.

“By creating a buying group, we increase our purchasing power with the aim to qualify shelters and rescues for discounts that may otherwise be out of reach for a single entity,” says Jennifer Scarlett, DVM.

Interested organizations across the country are invited to join the program, which partners with Covetrus to provide discounts on products like flea/tick preventatives, veterinary supplies, medical supplies, and equipment. 

To join or learn more, visit https://www.sfspca.org/compassion-collective/ or contact SF SPCA Supply Chain Director Donna Shiono at dshiono@sfspca.org. Existing Covetrus customers will have the new discount added to their account.

It’s human nature to overanalyze a problem in an attempt to solve it, but the real key to finding breakthrough solutions and generating positive change is studying successes, not failures. The Bright Spots podcast series is all about celebrating shelter wins and encouraging other shelters to copy—or adapt—what works. In every episode, Dr. Sara Pizano of the Million Cat Challenge and Team Shelter USA speaks with some of the animal sheltering world’s brightest stars about their successes and what other organizations can take away from their experience. 

Here are just three bright spots among many featured on the podcast:

• In one year, Stanislaus County Animal Shelter went from a 67% save rate to over 90% AND they are actively helping partner shelters by transferring animals into their shelter.
• Santa Rosa County Animal Services increased their live release rate from 13% to over 93% at record speed.
• Ohio’s Animal Resource Center dropped feline intake from 1,895 cats to 23 and was named Agency of the Year in 2020.

Are you ready to shift your mindset? Want to know how these shelters pulled off their transformations? There are eight short and sweet episodes waiting for you!

Explore The Bright Spots podcast

Need a boost? Try the new mini-podcast series Bright Spots. In each brief episode, Team Shelter USA’s Dr. Sara Pizano talks to shelter leaders and other animal welfare heroes, shining a spotlight on a Million Cat Challenge success story.

For those of you who enjoy binge-watching, we’ve got two under-15-minute episodes already queued up for you:

How two savvy volunteers saved over 1,000 cats in one year

Learn how Lucky Cat Adoptions reinvented their strategy and went from saving just under 300 cats a year to over 1,000.

Once we stopped judging people and realized that the way we were working was not actually making a big impact, the magic happened. It’s now actually difficult to keep our stores filled because most cats and kittens are adopted within a day or two!

Cameron Moore, Lucky Cat Adoptions Co-Founder

Kauai Humane Society embraced change and innovation during the onset of the pandemic. Hear Dr. Pizano chat with Director Nicole Schafer and Director of Operations Erin Olsen about the journey and how their efforts have paid off.

It’s a night and day transformation. […] A lot of people, not just in animal welfare but in life, are afraid to ask for help. Don’t be.

Erin Olsen, Kauai Humane Director of Operations

If you have a bright spot to share, leave a comment on the blog or email  #allthecats@millioncatchallenge.org.

When it comes to bonding with cats, it’s all about the eyes—and a technique called the slow blink. What the heck is a “slow blink”? Give it a try right now (after you read this next sentence). Slowly close your eyes and keep them closed for a couple of seconds, then slowly open them again. That’s all there is to it. Approach a cat slowly and quietly, do a slow blink yourself and the cat may respond in kind (if they’re feeling you).

Research has already shown that initiating this behavior is a way to calm and connect with a cat. According to a new study focused on cats in shelters, cultivating slow-blink behavior may also help cats find homes faster.

Animal behavior researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Portsmouth gathered data from interactions with 18 cats at the The National Cat Adoption Centre (NCAC), the UK’s largest cat rehoming center. The cats were divided into two groups: anxious cats that needed more time with employees and volunteers in order to increase their confidence around humans, and cats in a non-desensitization group.

The study found:

• Shelter cats participate in slow blinking interactions with humans, and cats that showed an increased number of and longer eye closures in response to human slow blinks were rehomed faster.
  
• Nervous cats may spend more time slow blinking than relaxed cats, providing supporting evidence that this behavior may act as both a positive signal and a submissive display.

“Since the slow blink is becoming increasingly recognised as a form of communication employed by cat owners and non-cat owners alike,” the researchers note, “these findings may have practical implications for shelters by introducing strategies to promote positive social interactions between potential adopters and shelter cats, particularly for cats that might be more likely to spend a longer time in care (e.g., inactive cats or black cats).”

In other words, a few (slow) blinks could go a long way in reducing adoption length of stay. Check out the full study, “Slow Blink Eye Closure in Shelter Cats Is Related to Quicker Adoption,” and start purr-fecting your blink.