On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization deemed the coronavirus outbreak a worldwide pandemic, and subsequently a nationwide emergency was declared in the United States. During this time, media outlets reported increased interest in foster caregiving and adoption of shelter pets. In this session, the presenters describe our exploration of canine foster caregiving at 19 US animal shelters during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, they focus on key takeaways for foster recruitment, trial adoption programs, caregiving practices, and behavioral support that can be utilized in our post-pandemic world.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenters: Lisa Gunter, PhD, MA, CBCC-KA and Erica Feuerbacher, PhD, BCBA-D, CAAB, CPDT-KA

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association. 

keywords veterinary medicine, shelter medicine, veterinary research, canine research, animal foster care, pet fostering, emergency foster care, pandemic, animal well-being, 022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference, coronavirus, canine foster care, canine sheltering, foster recruitment, trial adoption programs, caregiving practices, canine behavioral support, shelter operations

Teaching animals in our shelter useful skills helps them and our staff. New skills can make that animal's life better as it accesses more rewards and is hopefully developing desirable behaviors for post-adoption; a dog or cat with more desirable behavior can make our staff's lives better by the animal being easier to handle each time they need to interact. In every interaction we have with an animal, they are learning something. This means that anyone that interacts with a dog or cat, whether kennel staff, the adoption team, the marketing team or more can have a positive impact on its behavior, with a little understanding of basic principles and consideration for what the animal is learning from us. In this session, Dr. Feuerbacher reviews the basics of animal learning and focuses on routine examples of how we can easily apply these principles in our daily interactions with shelter animals. This session is especially designed for the non-behavior professional to learn how small changes in our behavior can have big impact for the animals in our care. 

Note: The title of this presentation is also known as The Daily Grind: Using Everyday Consequences to Improve Animal Sheltering

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenter: Erica Feuerbacher, PhD, CAAB, BCBA-D 

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.  

keywords  2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference, animal behavior, animal sheltering, animal interaction, basics of animal learning, non-behavior professional shelter staff

An interdisciplinary team of animal welfare professionals, wildlife experts, veterinarians, economists, and others developed a robust, realistic computer simulation model of free-roaming cat population (FRC) dynamics. The model considered several common approaches: Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), removal for adoption, removal for euthanasia, removal with a combination of adoption and euthanasia, combined TNR and adoption, episodic culling, and taking no action. Costs, based on detailed surveys of public and private agencies, were evaluated for each approach. 

This presentation translates the modeling results into lessons that you can take back to your community to help improve the effectiveness of humane FRC population management in both population impact and cost using a combination of discussion and presentation. Available tools to assist with this effort will also be shared.  Among the findings that we will discuss are:
•  How and why high-intensity, strategic TNR is the most effective and cost-efficient non-lethal approach over time.
•  Why low-intensity TNR, which is commonly practiced, costs a lot more than high-intensity TNR relative to its impact on reducing cat populations over time. 
•  How different management approaches yield dramatically different numbers of “preventable” deaths, particularly of kittens. 
•  Why it is so important to “frontload” TNR efforts and start big, rather than approaching as a small pilot. 
•  The importance of outreach and support to reduce abandonment and immigration of cats and kittens, as this can sabotage the success of any intervention.
•  Why monitoring population numbers is as essential as the population control intervention itself, and how to do it.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenter: Margaret Slater, DVM, PhD

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords veterinary medicine, shelter medicine, TNR, trap neuter return, wildlife, community cats, stray cats, free-roaming cat population, FRC, frontload TNR, high-intensity TNR, strategic TNR, cat management, stray cat intervention, feline population monitoring, 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference

There are widely, although not universally, held potentially inaccurate, perceptions about clients, patients and veterinary practice that ultimately reduce access to veterinary care.  Discussed are the predicted impact of a low-cost veterinary clinic on a full cost clinic in the same community, the general health of pets belonging to homeless individuals and the importance of veterinary communication in this light. The hope is to facilitate reassessment of preconceptions and assumptions across the field so that veterinary care can be more available and rewarding to deliver. 

Presented in this session are results of extensive research work addressing three areas of misconception:  
1) Low cost clinics steal business from full price clinics
A widely-held notion is that non-profit or low cost veterinary clinics steal business from traditional, and full cost clinics.  This has resulted in legal action that makes it difficult for clinics to offer affordable services to underserved pet owners.  To address this question, we used fundamental economic concepts to model what happens when a low cost and full cost veterinary clinic are in the same community. The results show that the two clinics target different market segments. Low cost clinics target pet owners who are unable to afford full-cost services, but are able and willing to wait to receive services. Full-cost clinics target pet owners who are able and willing to pay for veterinary services at full price, and do not want to wait to receive services. In fact, the lower the cost charged at a low cost clinic, the more the low-cost clinic appeals to the low-cost segment and the full-cost clinic appeals to the full cost segment. Ultimately, the greater the price difference between the low and full cost clinics, the more pets are able to receive care and therefore, the greater the earnings for each clinic.
2) Pets of homeless individuals are not well-cared for. 

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenter: Margaret Slater, DVM, PhD

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords veterinary medicine, shelter medicine, 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference, access to veterinary care, low-cost clinics, low-cost veterinary care, homeless pets, people without homes, pet caregivers without homes, cost of veterinary care

Programs that support pet ownership in the community not only help animals stay in homes but can improve their well-being while at home. These safety net programs can also help people and support the human-animal bond. But how best to do this? What programs will help and how do you decide which to implement at your organization? How can you tell if you are achieving your objective and making a difference? This presentation includes a description of common safety net programs and research into their efficacy. A strategic decision-making matrix is shared to help organizations decide which programs to implement and how to best determine a program’s outcomes. Supporting pet ownership through community programming is the future of animal sheltering; being strategic and adaptive when selecting and implementing these programs will enable your shelter to successfully achieve the goals of reducing surrenders, maximizing pet retention, improving well-being, and supporting the human-animal bond.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Speakers: Seana Dowling-Guyer, MS 

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference, safety net programs, community outreach, supporting pet ownership, animal wellbeing, human animal bond, community programs for pet support, pet retention, animal shelter operations

Antimicrobial stewardship is a systematic approach to improving the use of antimicrobials in people and animals in order to improve clinical outcomes and minimize adverse effects. In both human and veterinary medicine, the development of antimicrobial resistant organisms threatens to impact individuals and populations. In this session we will review several of the best practice and guidelines documents from other clinical settings to discuss how this work informs our treatment choices in shelters and shelter clinic populations.

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

Presenter: Elizabeth Berliner, DVM, DABVP (Shelter Medicine Practice; Canine/Feline Practice).

This program has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords veterinary medicine, shelter medicine, antibiotics, antimicrobials, animal well-being, 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference

Caring for shelter animals involves making decisions, often challenging ones, day in and day out. Whether you’re working in shelter administration, operations, medicine, or behavior (or all of the above), you’ve likely experienced the fatigue that comes with decision-making and its impacts. Recognize that we aren’t alone and that we can implement strategies to address decision fatigue and support our own well-being, including effective communication techniques, collaborative decision making strategies, and cutting ourselves some slack when we “get it wrong.”

Presenter: Erin Doyle, DVM, DABVP (Shelter Medicine Practice), ASPCA

This presentation was recorded at the 2022 ASPCA Maddie's Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference.

This program has been pre-approved for 2.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association.

keywords veterinary operations, animal shelter operations, shelter medicine, staff fatigue, decision-making, self-care, decision fatigue, communication techniques, collaborative decision-making,