Chew On This!

Stopping the scales, greasiness and odor of seborrhea in shelter dogs

Is the smell and look of a dog with seborrhea making it hard to get him or her adopted?

Seborrhea in dogs can be caused by underlying skin disease or by a primary skin defect. While not life-threatening, the odor and appearance can make it very difficult to find a home for even the friendliest, most appealing dog. What can shelters and foster homes do to resolve this condition in dogs they're caring for?

On Thursday, May 21, 2015, at 9 PM ET, Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Karen Moriello, will present a free webcast, Stopping the Scales, Greasiness and Odor of Seborrhea in Shelter and Foster Home Dogs.

Get more information and sign up here!

Remember to sign up even if you can't attend, so you'll get a link to the on-demand version as soon as it's ready!

Also of interest:

What to do about ear problems in shelter and foster home dogs

How to stop itching in dogs

How to stop itching in cats

What animals shelters need to know right now about canine influenza

If you are in the animal sheltering field in the U.S., you can't afford not to understand the current outbreak of canine influenza.

No one in animal welfare or veterinary medicine can have missed the news about the outbreak of a new strain of the virus that hit Chicago and nearby communities in the last month. This is the first time this strain has been identified in the United States. 

What does this outbreak mean for the dogs in your shelter?

Please join Maddie’s Institute^® this Thursday, May 7, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time when Dr. Sandra Newbury from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program presents What Animal Shelters Need to Know About the Canine Influenza Outbreak.

Attendees will learn:

• What we know about this outbreak
• What we’re not sure of
• An overview of what’s happening in Chicago right now
• Whether your shelter needs to worry
• How you can protect the dogs in your care
• What to do if this disease affects your shelter

Get more information and sign up here!

Removing Barriers to adoption: How evidence, innovation, and compassion grow pet adoptions

Because people in animal welfare often see terrible things befall pets, and because of genuine concern for the animals, we’ve sometimes gone overboard in terms of regulating, requiring, constraining, screening and even getting in the way of successful adoptions.

After all, even a home that’s good instead of perfect will be better for pets than an animal shelter. A growing body of research is suggesting adoptions done with less intrusive methods of pet-adopter matchmaking are just as effective as, and even more successful than, those with lots of hoops to jump through.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time, presenters from one private and one municipal shelter in Yolo County, CA, will join Maddie's Institute^® to share their community’s experience with Removing Barriers to Adoption: How Evidence, Innovation and Compassion Grow Pet Adoptions. This presentation itself will last around 20 minutes, with 40-45 minutes devoted to answering your questions.

This webcast is the fifth in a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge. Its focus will be on providing information to implement successful strategies that result in lasing, loving adoptions at a greater rate than results from more restrictive approaches.

Register for the free webcast here!

Capacity for care: When less adds up to a whole lot more for shelter cats

How can your shelter save more cats? Take in fewer of them at a time, give each cat more room and care for them better.

That concept seems counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but even those who understand that "less is more” when it comes to moving cats out into new homes struggle to understand the math.

How can you calculate the number of cats your organization can humanely care for? Will lowering that number really decrease incidence of stress and illness? How much square footage do cats need? And how do you deal with community members, volunteers and staff who are sure that bringing the number of cats on hand down at any particular time will mean saving fewer of them over the course of a year, rather than more?

Those were the struggles that faced Ollie Davidson, Director of Programs at Tree House Animal Shelter in Chicago, as well as Kathleen Olson, Executive Director of the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County in Washington State, which serves seven jurisdictions as an open admission shelter and has an annual intake of over 12,000 animals. How did they navigate them? And did they, in fact, end up saving more cats?

Tree House had its "aha moment” in 2004, when they had 350 cats in their shelter and did around 300 adoptions a year. In 2014, having lowered their capacity to 150 cats, they did 1,400 adoptions, and were able to triple intake.

The Tacoma shelter saw intake rise in the first year they implemented capacity for care-related changes, but they had more adoptions and less respiratory infections in their cats, and for the first time in their history did not pull any cats for space.

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time, Ollie and Kathleen will join Maddie's Institute^® for Capacity for Care: When Less Adds up to a Whole Lot More for Shelter Cats, a free webcast that will last around 20 minutes, with 40-45 minutes devoted to answering your questions.

This webcast is the fourth in a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge. Attendees will learn:

• Immediate changes that can make an immediate difference.
• How to make modifications to cat housing.
• How capacity for care principles can provide better outcomes for community cats.
• How housing cats in roomier environments means more adoptions, and more adoptions mean more strays can be brought in each year.

Register for the free webcast here!

Return to field: Animal shelters and a new approach to healthy unowned cats

What can animal shelters do about healthy unowned cats in their community? One new concept increasingly gaining ground is that, as long as the cats are thriving, the most compassionate, lifesaving approach is to sterilize them, vaccinate them, ear-tip them and return them where they were found.

This approach grew out of community-based trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs, which have been in use for decades. Today, some shelters are altering the cats themselves, while others transfer them to a spay/neuter clinic.

"Return to field is the growing best practice to deal with community cats that enter the shelter and cannot be adopted due to temperament,” says Scott Trebatoski, Director of the Pet Resources Division of Hillsborough County, FL.

On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time, Scott will join Maddie's Institute^® to share real-world experiences and answer your questions about how to make it work in your communities in Return to Field: Animal Shelters and a New Approach to Healthy Unowned Cats. The presentation itself will last around 20 minutes, with 40-45 minutes devoted to answering your questions.

This webcast is the third in a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge. Its focus will be on the benefits in both increasing lifesaving and reducing long-term animal control and sheltering costs. Some surprising real life examples with dramatic results will be highlighted along with key elements to implementation and convincing stakeholders, including legislators, of the benefits of adopting this new approach to handling this population of cats.

Register for the free webcast here!

Managed admission: Giving shelter cats their best chance at a great outcome

Not every cat who is presented to a shelter for relinquishment is in need of immediate admission.

In many cases, simply knowing that help is available and the shelter can take the cat in the near future is enough to allow the community member to opt for an appointment down the road, when his or her cat can be better cared-for by the shelter. In some cases, supportive management may buy the owner enough breathing room that the cat ends up being able to remain in the current home after all.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time, two shelter leaders who have had great success in managed admission approaches, Barbara Carr, Executive Director of the SPCA Serving Erie County, NY, and Kathie Johnson, Senior Operations Manager of the Animal Humane Society in Minneapolis, MN, will join Maddie's Institute^® to share what they’ve learned, including what’s worked and what hasn’t.  Managed Admission: Giving Shelter Cats Their Best Chance at a Great Outcome presentation will last around 20 minutes, with 40-45 minutes devoted to answering your questions.

This webcast is the second in a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge. Its focus will be on providing information and encouragement for establishing a waiting list for cats entering the shelter in order to reduce length of stay, illness and stress due to overcrowding, as well as increase adoptions. 

You can get more information and sign up here!

Alternatives to intake: When the shelter isn't the answer

What if your city wanted to stop euthanizing community cats in the shelter, and decided to try something bold? And what if all the animal control officers, rescue groups and community members came together to make it work?

On Tuesday, April 7, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern Time, Wiley Stem III, Assistant City Manager of Waco, TX, will join Maddie's Institute^® to share his community’s inspiring story of collaboration and lifesaving in Alternatives to Intake: When the Shelter Isn’t the Answer. The presentation itself will last around 20 minutes, with 40-45 minutes devoted to answering your questions.

This webcast is the first in a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge. "Alternatives to Intake” is about many things – programs that provide pet food or veterinary care to low income families, support for community members who bring litters of kittens to the shelter, and helping solve housing problems. And it’s also about what happened in Waco, when a dedicated group of civil servants and animal advocates said "no more” to the deaths of community cats in their shelter.

In this webcast, you’ll learn how they did it and how your community can do it, too.

Learn more and register here!

How the Million Cat Challenge will help your shelter

Sign up now for this five-part series of webinars on how shelters of all kinds across the country are implementing the five key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge to save cats' lives -- and how your shelter can, too!                        

Beginning Tuesday, April 7, and running through May 5, 2015, a line-up of municipal officials, shelter directors, shelter managers, and veterinarians will be joining us for a five-part series on the key initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge, with a focus on actionable tools and tips you can put into practice right away, along with longer-term strategies to success in saving cats’ lives – most of which will help dogs, too!

Get more information and register for the presentations here:

Alternatives to Intake: When the Shelter Isn’t the Answer
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Click here for more info and to register

Managed Admission: Giving Shelter Cats Their Best Chance at a Great Outcome
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Click here for more info and to register

Return to Field: Animal Shelters and a New Approach to Healthy, Unowned Cats
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Click here for more info and to register

Capacity for Care: When Less Adds Up to a Whole Lot More for Shelter Cats
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Click here for more info and to register

Removing Barriers to Adoption: How Evidence, Innovation, and Compassion Grow Pet Adoptions
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Click here for more info and to register

How to help dogs with ear problems

It's hard to think of any chronic health problem that bothers dogs more than itchy, bleeding, painful ears. And that's as true for pet dogs in homes as dogs in shelters and foster homes.

What can you do to help them? Plenty!

In Part 3 of a four-part series on veterinary dermatology in shelter and foster home pets, Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology Dr. Karen Moriello will share important information on dealing with this problem, with a special focus on approaches suitable to the limited resources of shelters and rescue groups, and the role of foster families in the treatment of canine ear problems.

Join us for this free webcast, What to do About Ear Problems in Shelter and Foster Home Dogs, on Thursday, May 7, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern, as Dr. Moriello presents an overview of the common causes of ear problems in dogs and a practical approach for their diagnosis and treatment.

Get more information and register here.

Can't make it? Sign up anyway, so you can get the link to the free on-demand version as soon as it's published!

Assessing your community to save more animals' lives

Do you know what's needed to save the lives of more animals in your community? The answer to that question begins with understanding what already exists in terms of resources, as well as the major issues facing homeless pets in your area and the people who work to help them.
 
On March 19, 2015, at 9 PM Eastern, join Bonney Brown of Humane Network and Maddie's Institute^® for an exciting presentation, Assessing Your Community to Save More Animals' Lives.
 
This webcast will provide a strategy to look at your community in a new way, to assess needs and identify opportunities. You’ll learn how to gather and analyze information and statistics and how to use what you learn to develop strategies to facilitate positive results for the animals.  

Bonney Brown is the president and founder of Humane Network, which works with animal welfare organizations across the U.S. to dramatically improve live release rates for dogs and cats entering shelters by employing sustainable, responsible lifesaving strategies.

Bonney was the Executive Director of Nevada Humane Society in Reno, Nevada, serving all of Washoe County, from January 2007 through July 2013. In 2007 she increased adoption rates by 53 percent for dogs and 84 percent for cats, and increased the save rate by for dogs and cats countywide by 50 percent. 

In 2010 through 2013, Washoe County, Nevada, realized a 94 percent save rate for animals coming into area shelters, making it one of the safest communities in the country for homeless animals. This save rate has been sustained under new leadership. 

Under Bonney’s leadership Nevada Humane Society and Washoe County received Maddie’s Fund’s Community Lifesaving Award. She is a recipient of the 2009 Henry Bergh Leadership Award and 2007 Shelter Director of the Year Award.

Get more information about the webcast and register here.