Providing great customer service is critical to helping animals in our communities. How we support our clients has far-reaching ramifications for good or ill. This course first lays the groundwork for the connection between serving people and helping pets, as well as the elements of great customer service. Then it gives practical advice for developing the skills needed by anyone who interacts with clients or customers.

This course will be useful to anyone working in a shelter or rescue who interacts with the public. 

Keep pets in their homes and out of your shelter or rescue! This five-class online apprenticeship focuses on underutilized aspects of pet retention. The first class in the series also works well as a standalone course in counseling pet owners. All staff members and volunteers who interact with the public will benefit from this material. 

This course has been pre-approved for 2.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement.

cats, dogs, cat behavior, allergies, allergy, lost pets, empathy, intake mitigation, crisis

Industry leaders now recognize pet reunification programming as at least equal in importance to adoption programming. Keeping pets out of your shelter has innumerable benefits to your organization, not least being the trust, goodwill (and donations!) you'll earn from your community. This course will help you build a robust pet reunification program with staff and/or volunteer resources.

This course is the result of a collaboration between between Human Animal Support Services, Michelson Found Animals, and the many shelter and rescue staff across the country and internationally who have volunteered their time to innovate new programs through the Human Animal Support Services working groups.

keywords: HASS, RTH, RTF, community cat, return to home, return to field, animal control, field officer

Through a series of short videos, this course explains concepts underlying dog handling in a shelter setting and demonstrates dog handling techniques. The course begins with fundamentals of dog handling in a shelter setting and then covers techniques for handling dogs who exhibit behaviors commonly seen in the stressful shelter environment. 

Keywords: Training, behavior 

This is a practical course covering treatment and handling of feral and fractious cats. Videos demonstrate handling techniques. This course is authored by Monica Tarant, Chief Innovation Officer: Feline Lifesaving at Cincinnati Animal CARE with The Joanie Bernard Foundation.

keywords: community, cats, medical, treatment, panleuk, URI

This course focuses on both the principles of disease transmission and the techniques of preventing disease transmission in the shelter setting.  

This course has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement.

Organizations across the country are placing the majority of their pets in foster care, where their physical and emotional needs are far better met than in a shelter setting. How do these organizations find and keep foster caregivers? This course covers the most important principles and methods of expanding your foster base and getting foster pets into foster and adoptive homes. This course is authored by Kelly Duer, Senior Community Solutions Specialist for Maddie's Fund®.

keywords: marketing, recruit, recruitment

This course will give you the inside scoop on successful pet marketing. You'll learn tips and tricks for taking great photos and videos and writing social media posts that will help you find adopters for foster and shelter pets. The course is directed to foster caregivers but is equally useful for shelter staff involved in pet marketing. This course was developed in collaboration with HeARTs Speak. 

This course has been pre-approved for 0.75 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement.

open adoption, dog, cat 

Created in collaboration with HeARTs Speak, this course will help foster caregivers as well as shelter and rescue social media administrators successfully market pets on social media to find adoptive homes. 

This course has been pre-approved for 0.75 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement.

marketing, facebook, twitter, instagram, video, photo

Austin Pets Alive! has developed a comprehensive medical program that addresses each animal in a way that allows them to conserve resources so they can help as many animals as possible while also ensuring that every animal receives treatment that meets or exceeds their standards of care. This course will teach you to systematize medical treatment and implement lifesaving protocols in your shelter's medical clinic, balancing quality care with the capacity to care for a large volume of animals. This course is authored by Jordana Moerbe, Maddie's Medical Program Director at American Pets Alive!.

This course has been pre-approved for 4.5 hours of continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and the National Animal Care & Control Association, as well as 4.5 hours of credit in jurisdictions which recognize the American Association of Veterinary State Board's (AAVSB's) Registry of Approved Continuing Education (RACE). 

vet, veterinarian, vet tech, veterinary, ringworm, calici, parvo, panleuk, distemper, RACE