Category: Resources

Ontario Veterinary College Shelter Medicine Resident Wesley Cheung offers examples of accent discrimination from the veterinary and shelter sector and suggests steps we can take to reduce accent biases, build trust, and accomplish more together.

Panelists Jessica Lopez (Executive Director, The PAW Mission), Miguel Ruelas (Co-founder, Patitas y Palabras Translation Services, and Director of Community Animal Care, Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity), and Suliana Lutin (Managing Attorney, Lutin Law Group, and Founder, Casa Sulis Animal Society, Inc.) discuss how we can partner with current and potential Latine pet owners, community cat caregivers, fosters, and volunteers, to bring and keep more pets and people together and out of shelters.

Monica Dangler (Director of Animal Services) and Kaitlyn Pappas (Pet Support Coordinator) of Pima Animal Care Center in Tucson, AZ share how they nearly doubled RTO after transitioning their lost and found listings to the free Petco Love Lost website. They share their process from research to rollout to reporting the results in this 53-minute presentation.

Kayla Wade, CCDT, Assistant Shelter Operations Manager at the Humane Society of Charlotte and Shonyae Johnson, CPDT-KA, Director of Virtual Programming at Humane Rescue Alliance provide practical solutions for working with large dogs in shelters and share strategies for supporting fosters and adopters who have large dogs. Recorded 02/06/2024.

In the first Cal4All Call of 2024, California Director Allison Cardona takes a look back at the challenges and accomplishments of California shelters in 2023. KSMP Marketing & Communications Director Mandy Newkirk shares the results of the Cal4All Call poll and Allison discusses some changes coming in the new year.

Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity (CARE) presenters Drs. Azalia Boyd, Raye Taylor, and Alina M. Luna give us a sneak peek of their new REDI (Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) course. It’s one key piece of the multipronged effort needed to address the veterinarian shortage and cultural competency gap to make more inclusive and equitable care possible—and work toward easing the shared burden that shelters face as fewer community members are able to access veterinary care outside the shelter or at all.

The CARE team shared that the course can empower any team member whose work revolves around physical and mental animal health, including front desk staff, RVTs, shelter managers, and behavioral trainers, to impact change within their circles, for the animals and people in their shelter and community.

What does it take to positively disrupt a system that’s not working for anyone and to empower staff to do the same?

A willingness to challenge the status quo, step outside your comfort zone, and embrace creativity and growth. In this All Call recording, Outreach Specialist, RVT, and former shelter manager Ivy Ruiz shared how she led her team at a high-volume shelter to create change that dramatically improved animal save rates, returned more pets to their families, and redefined staff and community member experiences.

Minnis presents the results of his study of how shelter visitors make dog adoption decisions. He reveals that behavior is the most common factor and advocates that shelters should move to a Realtor model to increase adoptions.