Petszel Presents: Animal welfare organizations work tirelessly every day to care for animals in their community. For many of these animals, adoption is the goal. But what happens after that pet heads home with their new person? Join us as we take a deep dive into data from nearly 40,000 post-adoption surveys sent to pet parents throughout the United States.
Best Friends Presents: This session explores creative, flexible veterinary relationship models that expand access to care without relying solely on hiring a full-time on-site veterinarian. We will cover practical approaches including regional veterinary partnerships, telemedical support, community-based care, shared-care networks, veterinarian of record models, protocol-driven care, and leveraging non-DVM staff under appropriate oversight. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to bring more veterinary support into their shelter, reduce bottlenecks to lifesaving, and improve outcomes for animals even in resource-limited environments.
JYO Presents: The guided meditations happen every month and typically run 30-45 minutes. All are welcome to these very low-key sessions, with videos on or off, whatever feels most comfortable to you. No speaking is necessary unless you’d like to share at the end of the session.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: This webcast presentation shares findings from a large survey of 484 U.S. animal shelter and rescue organizations on adoption event practices and adopter screening procedures. Participants will learn about common processes in adoption decision-making, the role of implicit bias in these processes, and how organizational procedures can affect both the speed and equity of pet adoptions. The session will highlight areas for animal shelter professionals to reflect on their own adoption practices and consider strategies for reducing barriers while supporting successful matches between people and pets.
NACA/Justice Clearinghouse Presents: Natural disasters can strike any moment, and it’s crucial to ensure the safety of human lives and our beloved animals during these events. Evacuating large animals is a complex and often under-discussed aspect of disaster preparedness. This webinar will examine the essential steps and strategies for safely evacuating large animals and establishing an evacuation site during emergencies.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Join us each Monday at 11am PT/2pm ET to receive support and learn about innovative ideas other organizations across the country are seeing success with. If you registered prior to July 2025 or are new to these meetings, please use this link to register:
https://maddies.fund/CommunityConversationsRegistration2025
Open Door Veterinary Collective Presents: Animal welfare work is rewarding – and often emotionally intense! In this 30-minute webcast, we’ll explore how to support each other in ways that strengthen connection without adding emotional strain. You’ll learn practical tools for peer debriefs that allow space for processing difficult experiences without “trauma dumping”, including strategies to listen with care, respond with empathy, and keep both the speaker and the listener/supporter resilient!
PPG Presents: Join Laura Cassiday and Joanna Wachowiak-Finlaison as they chat with Marci Koski about paths to becoming a feline behavior consultant.
IAABC Presents (fee applies): What’s going on in an animal’s head (even when they’ve decided it’s a great idea to stick their head in a wasp’s nest) is a complex, fascinating, and vital part of understanding their behavior! Your instructor, Dr. Kristina Spaulding, CAAB, will guide you and your fellow students through exercises and discussions designed to engage and excite you about this ever-growing field of research.
The UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Shelter Learniverse Presents: Are you ready to take your career in animal sheltering to the next level? The Shelter Care Specialist Certification Program empowers frontline animal shelter workers to provide exceptional care, grounded in best practices, with a focus on improving outcomes for animals and communities. Apply for the next session—it’s currently free, #ThanksToMaddie!
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Join us each Monday at 11am PT/2pm ET to receive support and learn about innovative ideas other organizations across the country are seeing success with. If you registered prior to July 2025 or are new to these meetings, please use this link to register:
https://maddies.fund/CommunityConversationsRegistration2025
CalAnimals Presents: San Francisco SPCA’s Shelter Policy and Legal Services program is ready to start 2026 off with a bark and a purr and fill you in on all the new laws passed last year that become effective on January 1, 2026. Learn about the expanded potential for RVTs and VAs to do more in the shelters; about the expanded ability to have RVT-run vaccination clinics to help public animals across the state; and several more bills that continue to improve the lives of California animals in the shelters, and in their new homes.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Understanding and respecting an animal’s signals during interactions can significantly enhance their welfare and improve the human-animal interactions. In this presentation, Dr. Amir Sarrafchi will discuss his research on how dogs respond behaviourally when allowed to choose or refuse human contact. Drawing from his work on animal agency and consent, Dr. Sarrafchi will explore how these concepts can be practically applied in everyday animal care, shelter environments, and adoption programs.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Join us each Monday at 11am PT/2pm ET to receive support and learn about innovative ideas other organizations across the country are seeing success with. If you registered prior to July 2025 or are new to these meetings, please use this link to register:
https://maddies.fund/CommunityConversationsRegistration2025
Shelter Playgroup Alliance Presents (fee applies): Don’t miss out on this hands-on workshop to build essential skills for safely working with dogs in the shelter over four days at Berkeley Animal Care Services. You will work in small groups along side experienced, certified coaches to build your skills in a supportive and constructive environment. Join us January 13-16, 2026, and you will earn a Certificate of Completion, as well as the confidence and skills to improve the lives of the animals in your care.
CalAnimals Presents: In this practical webinar, Dr. Kate Hurley from the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program will cover the specifics of how to calculate the right target number to maximize life-saving while optimizing animal health and welfare – and staff sanity. Annette Ramirez, Interim General Manager from LAAS, along with members of her team, will share their agency’s experience of going from severe crowding to attaining, and more importantly maintaining, a population pretty close to their Capacity for Care. It’s a pretty inspiring example and we hope it will be a useful one for many shelters facing similar challenges.
JYO Presents: The guided meditations happen every month and typically run 30-45 minutes. All are welcome to these very low-key sessions, with videos on or off, whatever feels most comfortable to you. No speaking is necessary unless you’d like to share at the end of the session.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Join us each Monday at 11am PT/2pm ET to receive support and learn about innovative ideas other organizations across the country are seeing success with. If you registered prior to July 2025 or are new to these meetings, please use this link to register:
https://maddies.fund/CommunityConversationsRegistration2025
UC Davis KSMP Presents: Behavior might have felt like a blip on the vet school radar, but in the shelter it’s a critical skill to develop and essential to helping animals cope. Care for an animal’s mental and emotional state is a part of a shelter veterinarian’s daily workload and one of the most important aspects to supporting whole animal health. As a shelter vet, only you can determine when a medical issue is behind behavior changes, legally diagnose conditions, and prescribe treatments, and you’re uniquely positioned provide guidance on balancing human and animal health and safety to staff, volunteers, adopters, community members, and colleagues caring for animals who need behavior support. Join Drs. Cindi Delany, Emilia Gordon, and Sarah Mantovani on this episode of Shelter Med Live to explore the shelter veterinarian’s impact and often overlooked role in shaping and managing dog and cat behavioral and emotional health.
Maddie’s Fund Presents: Pain and discomfort are often under-diagnosed in dogs with behavioral issues. This presentation will highlight why this happens, and reviews cases where pain was the cause of the behavior issues or made behavioral issues worse. This is happening in young dogs and dogs who may not show any typical signs of pain/discomfort, but rather express it as aggression and/or anxiety.
