Shelter + Rescue Operations

Adoptions

While we work hard to drive people to adopt, the majority of pets still come from other sources. Here you'll find the tools you need to attract more pet adopters, find new audiences for pet adoptions and create successful adoption experiences.

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Animal control/field services

Animal control officers and humane investigators have a shared mission of helping animals and bringing abusers to justice, which takes flexibility, compassion and courage. Learn best practices, new tools and techniques, and how animal care and control leaders can promote our work through positive interactions and collaboration with their communities.

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Cruelty + neglect

Neglect, a failure to provide basic needs for an animal, makes up the vast majority of cruelty cases that animal control officers respond to. Neglect often includes hoarding, lack of shelter or veterinary care, tethering and abandonment, as well as other forms of abuse. Direct abuse is, for example, someone beating or physically attacking an animal. Organized cruelty includes dogfighting, cockfighting, and often go hand in hand with other crimes.

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Disaster prep + response

Hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, large-scale hoarders—these are just some of the natural and man-made disasters that animal welfare groups have to deal with. If something happened, would your organization be prepared? We have resources to help you develop your disaster preparedness plan.

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Fundraising/grants

The success of your shelter or rescue operation goes hand in hand with the success of your fundraising approach. Learn how animal care organizations raise the money needed for everything from basic necessities to ambitious, innovative programs through events, grants, donor care and more.

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Shelter design

As you strive to create a state-of-the-art animal shelter, take time to assess your community’s growth rate as well as your shelter’s animal data and programs to help determine your future needs. Read stories from shelters that have maximized their space and begin plans for your own shelter facility, whether you're retrofitting to maximize your current capacity or starting from scratch.

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Shelter medicine

Very often what we see as neglect from pet owners is actually the result of their inability to access veterinary services and other pet wellness resources. For example, there may be a free, local spay/neuter clinic but it’s on the other side of town and transportation is a problem. Or the $400 dental cleaning simply isn’t affordable. Identify what obstacles are preventing people in your community from providing wellness care for their pets and present ways to overcome them in order to make sure people can keep their pets happy, healthy and in their homes.

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Staff/volunteer management

Volunteers are an essential part of nearly every animal protection organization. Well-run volunteer programs amplify our reach and increase our capacity to care for animals and the number of lives saved. Here, we offer managers of volunteers materials and resources to design and build the volunteer program that will best support the staff in meeting the organization’s mission, and provide them with opportunities for ongoing learning and professional development.

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Transfer and transport

Improve and increase adoptions—discover new adoption marketing ideas, best practices in transfer, inspirational stories of unlikely adoptions, resources to improve the adoption process and more.

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