This short course introduces the Human Animal Support Services model, which strives to keep pets and families together with the help of the entire community. The course prepares students for further learning on specific elements of the Human Animal Support Services model. 

This course is the result of a collaboration between between American Pets Alive!, Human Animal Support Services 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, community, animal control, field officer

The foundation of the Million Cat Challenge rested on Five Key Initiatives, refined and adapted to shelters of every size and type throughout North America, which together represented a holistic approach that addressed the “before, during and after” for any cat at risk of shelter entry. These initiatives were proven by over 3.5 million more cat lives saved by over 1500 Challenger Shelters.

Now, #ThanksToMaddie, we’re thinking bigger. 

With the Maddie’s®️ Million Pet Challenge, the Five Key Initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge have expanded to include other species at risk in shelters and evolved into the Four Rights.  

Within the Four Rights, every element works in concert to support one another: animals and people are treated as individuals, empowering shelter staff to make the best decisions for everyone; community safety net services are in place and flourishing; and humane care within the shelter is provided, with appropriate outcomes for the animals that do come in, allowing shelters to deliver the Right Care, in the Right Place, at the Right Time, and to the Right Outcome.

Join the co-founder of the Million Cat Challenge and one of the inspirations behind the Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge in imagining and creating a world in which every single shelter is able to provide every animal at risk with the Right Care in the Right Place at the Right Time to the Right Outcome.

After completing this class, view the in-depth, four-part webinar series.

As part of the Maddie's®️ Million Pet Challenge's Learniverse program, subject matter experts from the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program will discuss guiding principles that animal welfare professionals can use to make decisions, train their staff and engage the public. 

Keywords:  4 Rights, Right Place, Right Time, Right Care, Right Outcome

PLEASE CONTACT:  learniverse@sheltermedportal.com if you have any questions or concerns about this course.

This short, self-paced course has been approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator (CAWA) continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by National Animal Care and Control Association. 

This course has been approved for 1 hours of continuing education credit in jurisdictions that recognize RACE approval. Upon completing the course and passing the quiz, upload your certificate to https://CEBoker.com. This is the broker used by the AAVSB to track your continuing education credits. 

Learn more about  Maddie's®️ Million Pet Challenge Learniverse.  #ThankstoMaddie

You can also join the discussion about these concepts over on Maddie's Pet Forum in the 4 Rights Discussion Group.

We have a dedicated discussion group on Maddie's Pet Forum to discuss the 4 Rights of Animal Sheltering.  Bring your questions, comments, thoughts, and suggestions, or just see what others are thinking about these ideas.

To keep shelter environments clean and welcoming and pets healthy and safe, we need to know the risk factors that contribute to infectious diseases.

This program takes participants through a review of the risk factors that contribute to infectious disease transmission and offers up-to-date information regarding the best practices in sanitation.

Presenter: Chumkee Aziz, DVM

Maximize In-Shelter Welfare, Increase Live Outcomes, Animal & Population Management, shelter medicine, medicine, disease, disease control, samination, cleaning, disinfection,

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. 

The adoption process is the final step in finding new homes for shelter pets. It begins with getting to know the pet, writing a narrative and posting photos/video, continues to making a match with a potential adopter, and ends with sending the pet home with an adopter and providing support.

This course provides guidance for navigating the adoption process, with an emphasis on adoption counseling. The course demonstrates the general adoption counseling process and then dives into adoption counseling for pets with behavior or medical conditions. Text content is supported by videos, infographics and exercises. All videos are shareable and all infographics are available for download so you can use them in training. 

This course is eligible for 2.0 hours of credit from the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement (AAWA) and the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA). 

This course will teach you everything you need to know in order to place 50% or more of shelter pets into foster homes. You will learn to utilize the seven guiding principles of foster programs to set your organization up for foster success; create a year-round, comprehensive foster recruitment plan that extends the invitation to foster to all members of your community; create a community culture of fostering to make foster the standard of care; create a process for marketing and adopting pets from foster care; and utilize staff and volunteers to assist with management of foster care. 

Note: This course was previously titled A New Model for Shelter Care: Replacing Kennels with Foster Homes.

Human Animal Support Services, HASS

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 

Did you know healthy neonatal kittens do NOT need to be fed every two hours? Learn about the latest guidelines for kitten feeding and other kitten care in this course. The course was developed by the Kitten College at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington in Arlington, VA to help their foster caregivers raise happy, healthy kittens. The first kitten nursery of its kind, Arlington went from saving 92 kittens a year in 2016 to over 1500 kittens in 2023. Since its inception, the Kitten College program has been implemented in a growing number of shelters and rescues across the country.  

Watching kittens grow up and become ready for their own homes is a rewarding experience. Kittens are vulnerable and require special care and daily monitoring, which you'll learn about in this course.

After successfully completing this course you will be able to:

• Prepare for the arrival of your kittens
• Monitor your kittens' health
• Provide age-appropriate housing
• Bottle feed and syringe feed
• Stimulate your kittens to eliminate
• Wean your kittens 
• Bathe your kittens
• Socialize your kittens

The course was authored by Marnie Russ, National Kitten College Program Administrator, a recognized expert on caring for at-risk kittens. In 2023, Marnie assisted UC Davis and the University of Wisconsin in updating their neonatal kitten guidelines for mass distribution.

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.

keywords: foster marketing, Pet marketing tips for foster caregivers, effective pet photography for adoption, writing social media posts for pet adoption, shelter pet marketing strategies, HeARTs Speak pet marketing course, how to take great pet adoption photos, promoting foster pets on social media, engaging social media for pet adoption

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