Animal Sheltering magazine September/October 2016: Table of Contents

Trap-neuter-return (TNR) takes time, persistence and a huge amount of patience. It’s worth it, because when done right, TNR works. But if you’re scattering your efforts across a large geographic area, your program won’t have the impact you envisioned. To achieve the promise of TNR—healthier, safer cats and fewer outdoor felines—you need to focus on target areas and engage residents in the project. Learn the basics of targeted TNR in our “101” department, and start working smarter, not harder, to manage community cat populations.

Many rescue groups pride themselves on their all-volunteer identity and low overhead. But sometimes rescues get to a point where adding a paid position or two to their rosters is more beneficial than having overwhelmed volunteers put in 40 hours a week (and still not get all the work done). As some formerly all-volunteer organizations have discovered, a paid staffer can be an investment that pays off in a more effective, higher impact organization that will be around for the long haul.

Allison Summerday’s living room and car are full of shoeboxes, but the Arizona Humane Society (AHS) volunteer couldn’t care less about Jimmy Choos. In November 2014, a fellow volunteer brought a single shoebox into the shelter. “I thought, ‘We need shoeboxes for every kitten and cat!’” says Summerday. “I just sort of went on overdrive.”

Summerday approached several shoe stores and explained her mission. Although not one shoe store turned her away, she now works with just one, Wholesale Fashion Shoes, which was “the most jazzed about it,” she says.

In a facility with cracks, leaks and creaks all over, it can be hard to provide the best care for your animals and keep disease from spreading. But like the saying goes, if you can’t change something, change the way you think about it. So until you get that extreme shelter makeover, take other steps to curb disease. Learn how creative retrofitting and routine maintenance, clear cleaning and disinfecting protocols, and organized traffic flow can help keep the microbes from spreading—even in your leaky, creaky, cracking shelter.

A Chihuahua arrives at a shelter with a jaw-dropping medical condition.

Get (and keep) them outta there: If you’ve got a building that makes animals sick, it makes sense to focus more energy on intervention and pet retention programs that help people keep and care for their pets. Beyond that, fast-track your intake and adoptions, use return-to-field programs for community cats and maximize your foster care programs so that animals don’t stay in the building any longer than they have to.

As many as half a million pets wind up homeless each year because their owners can't find rental housing that will accept them. Download this Mouthpiece to encourage your community to check out the Advocate's Guide to Pets Are Welcome and help keep pets and families together.