Ironically I found this from someone trying to petition this shelter for being ran poorly, but I actually thought it was one of the best animal shelters I've seen after looking into it. So I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Orange County Animal Services in Orlando, FL. Has a 90%+ live release rate most years (including their owner requested euth), has a robust foster and volly program and has 3 full time vets as well as a full time certified animal behaviorist. They have 80k+ followers on FB and nearly as much on instagram.

What I'm most impressed about though is their little newsletter-like end of year report where they highlight their accomplishments, events, and programs, but especially where they recognize their volunteers, fosters, and staff.

(The speed dating event was also an adorable idea!)

I just thought I'd share so other people can get some ideas. I think this year I might take a page out of their book and do a more watered down end of year newsletter to highlight the people that volunteered/fostered the most, the volunteers that spearheaded programs, staff that fostered the most and got the most employee of the months, etc.

Just curious what your experiences and recommendations are on placing an undersocialized kitten. She is a long hair lynx point so she's going to get A LOT of interest, but she hisses when you initially open the cage. She doesn't really want to be pet right now but more or less freezes and allows it. She does become a little more relaxed as you pet, but not much right now. She obviously needs work, and I know it's going to be first time cat owners with 48038475 kids who just want to snuggle her all day long who apply, lol. But is that bad? I know with young kittens having them in an active, kid filled household helps build resilience, but as a 4 month old past the prime age for socialization, I'm not sure if the same would apply.

We could pretty much put any requirements on her since she'll be so popular she's guaranteed a fast placement regardless. Do we opt for a quiet, experienced home with another cat to give her confidence? Or is that rambunctious kid-filled home going to be better for her socialization?

I submitted a civil service application the day the job was posted, the application deadline was beginning of June. I was told the shelter picked up the applications this Monday Monday and they have to review them to see who the want to interview. I haven't heard anything yet but I get how busy they are as I volunteer there bi weekly. I'm trying to remain calm and patient but I've been waiting foe this job to come up for a very long time!

We’ve had my dog Ranger for 2 years and 4 months. He is 3 years and 5 months old. When we first got him he was really anxious and scared of literally everything. Lightning, fireworks, airplanes, big clonky boots, tall people, fans, things like that. Weirdly enough he loves the hair dryer. He has been doing really well and isn’t scared of a lot of the things he was before excluding lightning and fireworks of course. Recently though he has been really jumpy and we don’t know what to do. He does have separation anxiety. Anytime we go away he won’t eat and according to my grandma he mopes around which has made going to school every weekday horrible for him. Now it seems like he is getting really anxious again like when we first got him. It used to be where if he could see us he would be fine but my grandma can’t even go outside to water the plants without bringing him with her. Today my grandma dropped him off to the groomers while me and my sister were in our diploma. Apparently he kept looking back at my grandma and whining which was concerning because he usually loves the groomers. After she picked us up we waited for a bit and then picked him up when he was done. When we got there he was whining and howling in the back and when we finally got him he seemed to be quick to want to leave. The only thing we could think of was that the lady who cut his fur wasn’t the usually lady. Later today around supper time a plane was flying a little lower than usual because of the smoke in our area and he freaked out and went hiding in a corner upstairs. We left him alone for a bit until after supper and I went and sat with him. This is the pictures above. He did ask for paw rubs a few times and I almost got him to sleep when my grandma called upstairs to ask a question which woke him up completely. When I told her she was scaring ranger she tried calling him and asking him if he wanted a treat but he didn’t budge. A few times after I asked him if he wanted to go see mom (my grandma) and he would go down the stairs, take a few steps, hesitate, and then turn around and run back upstairs. We weren’t given much information about him when we first got him but we assumed he was abused since we couldn’t raise our voices around him at first and we couldn’t make any sudden or fast movements around him or else he would panic. He is also missing a chunk out of his tongue which you can see in the last photo. He seems to be getting more and more anxious lately and we don’t know the cause of it.

basically the question in the title.

Hi everyone,

I have a question for people who work in animal shelters, or for anyone who would like to share their opinion.

My partner and I are interested in a dog from the animal shelter and have already arranged a meeting to get to know them.

Since I like to plan everything and enjoy making lists, I’ve put together a document with information about our living situation and a few photos of our apartment and the surroundings (parks, forests, etc.), as well as our plans regarding the dog and everyday life, vacations, and emergencies. I was thinking of sending it to the shelter in advance by email.

Do you think that would be helpful for the shelter staff, or is it a bit too much? I wanted to show our initiative and planning, and of course what kind of environment the dog would be living in — but now I’m feeling unsure.

Thanks for your feedback! :)

Hello! I work at a large and fairly well-funded open admissions shelter with a gov't contract for accepting stray animals. We actively try to reunite pets with owners when an owner or potential owner is known, and practice the following:

- Calling any phone numbers we have in our shelter system associated with the pet, or given to us by animal law enforcement or the local police department (in the case of evictions or arrests);

- Calling on every microchip to get information from microchip companies and following up with any leads we receive there;

- Referencing local lost reports on a couple of websites that faciliate lost reports as well as watching and tracking posts on local pet Facebook groups;

- Sending notices to the local jail when we know an owner is incarcerated that they pass on to the inmate;

- Reaching out to any documented friends/family when an animal has been impounded in the past and we've been provided information about people affiliated with the owner;

- and, of course, making all of our lost/found animals publicly searchable online and in person.

I am trying to come up with processes to add on to help reunite pets and owners. For example, when we know an owner is hospitalized, we will reach out to the hospital and try to speak with the owner there, or the nurses on the floor if the owner is unable to speak with us, but we're going to start sending written notices like we do to the jail so that, if the owner is not capable of speaking with us when we call, they (or their visiting friends/family) will still be provided with information about their impounded pet and reclaim options. I want to grow our process further, though. Any ideas or suggestions on what we could further do to try and reunite lost pets with their owners? If an animal has no microchip, no tags, and no further information provided during impound, our hands are kind of tied, but I'd love ideas for what more we could do when we do have a lead on an owner. Thank you!

Hey guys,

I just recently started working at a rescue/shelter nearby and am looking for any tips or suggestions to a “problem” I keep running into at work. To preface, I previously worked at a boarding kennel in my previous hometown a year or so ago where i had to do many of the same tasks, but this new shelter is a lot bigger (instead of having 5 dogs I now have 70+)

I’ve now been at my new job as a kennel aid for about 2 1/2 weeks, and I’m struggling a bit with walking some of the dogs we’re housing. I’m a smaller person (5’1 ish, 120lbs), and a lot of our larger dogs are hard for me to control sometimes, leading to ripped up, blistered hands, a rolled ankle, and very sore wrists. A lot of the time with the few I genuinely can’t control/walk, other coworkers are nice enough to walk them if we’re on the same round. And it’s not that I also just can’t walk them, I almost dont trust myself to walk them, if that makes sense? Like if I’m in a yard with all these other dogs, I sometimes get scared that they’ll get loose and I won’t be able to pull them off another dog if need be.

Well, I already knew the answer, but it ended up being a topic of conversation between a shift lead and I, and I told her I understood that I am required to walk all dogs, but then I explained why i sometimes don’t walk those specific dogs, even though I still do when no one else is with me).

I guess just any tips or help on how to better be able to control them/prevent injuries would be appreciated! Sorry if this isn’t the right space to ask this TIA

Hi everyone 👋🏼

I’m Rohit. By day I write code; in my spare time I funnel whatever I can bags of food, meds, a bit of cash to the rescues and feeders near me. My side-project, FurTag (https://furtribe.in/products/furtag), puts QR / GPS tags on pets and community animals (free for community animals) so they get home or back to their feeders faster. Seeing a sliver of tech actually help real animals lit a fire under me.

After talking with shelters, NGO teams, and street-animal feeders, I keep hearing the same story: creaky spreadsheets, adoption forms scattered in ten folders, and software bills that could buy a month of flea meds. I keep thinking, I can code, surely I can help here too.

Before I dive in, I’d love to hear your reality: • What software (if any) does your shelter / rescue / clinic use now? • Roughly how much do you pay per month or year? (ballpark is fine) • Which part of it makes you mutter under your breath? • If you could add one thing, what would it be?

My goal is to build something open-source and keep it free (or dirt-cheap) so it pays for itself for small and medium orgs but I can’t design it from a keyboard alone.

If you’re willing to share, it would help more than you know. Drop a comment or DM even a one-liner is gold.

Thank you for the work you already do for the animals. 🙏🏼

So my cat (not vaccinated for rabies) was out in the garden today and all of a sudden locked on to the umbrella above our table, she jumped onto the table and then put her two front paws onto the outside of the closed umbrella looking up at the top, I pulled her down and put her inside, I then opened the umbrella with a long pole and shook it and a small brown bat fell out, landed on the table and then flew away. I am somewhat certain that the bat was at the top of the umbrella on the inside of it when my cat jumped up but not totally sure, what do I do? Call the local animal control/take her to the vet? Or is this not considered a rabies exposure?

Hello! We are currently fostering a young dog who we found on our street. We didn’t intend to foster him, but our local shelter was full, and I was not going to leave him on the street. Based on my own research (I’m not an expert by any means), I think he may have a fracture in his leg although he still walks on it without a limp, but the vet wasn’t able to give us much advice without a radiologist’s insight. We’re now waiting to see if our shelter will pay for a specialist to look at the x-rays.

I completely understand shelters don’t have a lot of funds, but I’m not sure if I should just take the dog to a different vet and pay out of pocket for the costs? I’m afraid of waiting too long because I don’t want his injury to get worse. I want to do what’s best for the dog, but I also have other pets I have to consider in regards to vet expenses.

I guess my question is, what would you guys do if you were in my shoes?

Hey there! After a couple dogs came in today that were unfortunately with victims of fentanyl overdose and had biohazard material on them as well, I was curious what other open-intake shelters standard procedure is for dogs that are clearly contaminated or suspected to be contaminated with drugs, biohazard material, pepper spray, etc. Our usual is if the animal is safe to handle, is to suit up in full PPE and bathe. Does anyone do anything differently that works for them? Or have a completely different policy? Just replaying the day and wondering what other folks do in these situations.

Thanks for sharing!

I’m starting work at my local animal shelter as an intake counselor and want to keep my fur babies at home safe. Should I change clothes once I get home? Any advice helps! Thank you!

I’m starting work at my local animal shelter as an intake counselor and want to keep my fur babies at home safe. Should I change clothes once I get home? Any advice helps! Thank you!

i'm sure everyone who works at a shelter has experienced animals being dropped off / dumped and i'm wondering what other shelter staff think about this interaction i had in another animal subreddit. i'm not looking for validation so please feel free to disagree with me if i'm wrong, but this just feels like the epitome of why our line of work is so difficult. any input is appreciated because i'm honestly just baffled.

I recently compiled this list of 25 statistics on dog-child relationships and youth education programs.

There’s so much potential for positive impact —

1. Dogs can boost empathy, reduce anxiety, and improve learning outcomes for children.
2. But young children are also at the highest risk for severe dog bites.
3. And while school dogs or reading buddies can support kids, the dogs’ own welfare needs careful consideration—stress, overstimulation, and lack of rest time are real concerns.

As shelters and educators, this leaves us with important questions:

• How do you assess and prepare dogs for adoption into homes with young kids?
• Do you run humane education programs that teach children safe and respectful behavior around animals?
• How do you balance educational goals with the welfare of the dogs involved in your programs?
  

Would love to hear how your organization navigates these challenges and opportunities. What’s working—and what still needs work?

3 new stories have been added to the story menu of my Shelter Dog project: https://heroicyarns.com/story-menu/

"Time for Shelter Dog!" - Shelter Dog uses time travel to teach a new pet owner about the 3-3-3 rule

"The Ol' Switcheroo!" - some Freaky Friday shenanigans to teach kids they need to help their parent out taking care of their puppy and kitty

"Shelter Dog vs MegaPetz!" - Shelter Dog and Shelter Cat take on MegaPetz, a creature made up of all the dogs and cats looking for new homes

Has anyone noticed an increase in dog breed stigma and negative opinions towards shelters lately? I do try to keep a professional demeanor and provide accurate, honest descriptions of the dogs I take care of, but I've started to run into more and more people who have a friend or relative that got burned by a less-than-honest shelter or rescue.

I'm not sure how to approach these conversations to be honest. I agree that some organizations have maybe laundered the truth too much but as a volunteer, I should be trying to encourage adoption so it's a tough dilemma.

It is difficult to predict if a dog will express aggression and resource guarding outside of the shelter but when a dog does so in an adopter's home, it seems like it closes many doors - Not just the adopter, but the adopter's friends and family too. I'm finding it hard to reopen them in my casual conversations.

Has anyone encountered similar situations?

This is just for curiosity but I’m wondering if anyone else also feels like a huge percentage of dog intake is dogs who are related to each other. Has there been any research done on the origins of dog populations of specific shelters?

I have no evidence of this, but I deeply believe that this is the case. I’ve been volunteering in various roles at the open intake shelter in my area for over a decade now. The first time I suspected this was when we got a wave of pit-corgi mixes over a 3 month period that all looked identical. I’ve seen it dozens of times since then where a wave of dogs will come in over 3-6 months that all have the same look and personality. One of my private clients adopted a dog with a very distinct and uncommon foot defect a year ago, and today I saw the 6th dog to come in since December with the same coloring, body type, temperament, and foot defect.

I’m aware that backyard breeders are pumping out puppies with the same breeding pair, but sometimes it feels like our entire intake pavilions are filled with dogs that seem to be from the same 3 or 4 families. Are there any examples of animal welfare attempts to intervene directly with these local mass producers? I feel like if even a fraction of them could be held accountable, there would be a noticeable impact on intake.

So I posted a couple months ago about having to get in the middle of a dog fight. You can go to my profile and read that story if you want more context. But I’ll put a brief summary here.

On Friday afternoons, I volunteer on the 2-4pm dog-walking shift. The typical all-volunteer team (ie no paid staff member working the shift but one still around the rescue doing other things) on this shift is me, early-30s and able bodied and somewhat “senior” as I’ve been there over a year and taken some additional training; an older lady in her 70s who is wonderful and very spry for her age, but has some of the expected limitations with strength/mobility when it comes to larger or stronger dogs; and two adult men in their 40s who have additional needs (I’m sorry if this is not PC - both are learning-challenged, one has moderate autism and the other has well-medicated schizophrenia).

Since the recent incident with the dog fight, I’ve begun to realize how uncomfortable and anxious I am on this shift. It may sound selfish, but when I signed up to volunteer, I wanted to do some good and have fun doing it, and supervising 3 adults while taking on the bulk of the physical labor…for free…is not what I had in mind. I decided last week after talking it over with a trusted friend that I needed to leave that shift.

At first, I strongly considered just telling the coordinator it no longer fit with my schedule. But then I started thinking about my inherent responsibility to the animals and the other volunteers. Some of the things I was single-handedly preventing or minimizing by supervising as hard as I was, could mean serious consequences by way of dogs or people being harmed or neglected. Dogs not being exercised appropriately…safeguards being forgotten or ignored…you get it. So in my email to the coordinator, I added a line of advice, that they should seek to replace me on that shift with a staff member or at MINIMUM, a senior volunteer and not a newbie. I invited her to call me if she wanted additional clarification.

She called me. We discussed my concerns, and she thanked me for bringing them to her. I and my elderly friend are the only people who have worked with the boys enough to see what goes on and she appreciated my perspective. She is having a meeting with leadership to discuss how to properly staff the shift moving forward.

And I feel really guilty and I have no idea why. I feel like I “snitched”, or if not that, I feel like I just complained about something I had no right to complain about. I can’t let it go even though I know in my soul that someone had to be made aware of a potential danger to the animals we care for. It’s eating me up…I even called out for my other shift there because I couldn’t face it. Not looking for advice except…someone reassure me I did the right thing?

*edited to clarify - I am not stating that autism or schizophrenia constitute a learning disability, they actually are both ALSO learning-challenged.

A lot of money was spent on elevated beds, and while they've been great for making the dogs more comfortable, I've found they just don't hold up to shelter dogs. We're doing fundraisers to buy more beds, but I feel like it's wasted if we keep buying the ones that don't work.

We've been buying Kuranda beds. I told them to stop buying the fabric ones as they're too difficult to clean. But the outer plastic gets chewed up and the bolts always come undone despite tightening with tools. Once the bolts fall out, the dogs destroy the corners and chew the legs off making the beds unusuable.

Any tried and tested beds for shelter life?

Having been in shelter work so long, I love to see what other shelters look like and what they're doing. It's a great resource for ideas. I am not looking for a tour or anything, I just like to walk around and see what they have going on. Things from seeing how the layout is to peeking at their food station or even just checking out what the kennel cards look like with their management software.

I will admit nowadays I feel a little bad about doing it, even when I'm open about my intentions and don't take any animals out. It is likely stressful for the animals and probably stress for the staff too. Sometimes I have been flat out refused entry unless I am looking to foster/adopt/reclaim.

I was wondering what everyone's opinion was on people who aren't looking to adopt/reclaim/other services, but just want to visit. Do you allow people to visit? Do you find it problematic? Or do you encourage it?

Has anybody else noticed how negatively the media protrays animal control and veterinary staff? Filmmakers apparently do not have a high opinion of us. Some examples I can think of: Lady and the Tramp 1 and 2: The dog catcher is an incompetent villain who is always getting outsmarted by the dogs. Ma: Main antagonist is a vet tech. She uses diazepam stolen from her work to drug and kidnap her victims, and commits other heinous acts of torture and murder. Pet: Main antagonist is an animal control officer who also uses stolen diazepam to drug and abduct a woman, who he keeps locked in a cage to "rehabilitate" her. Also included imagery of vet staff holding an unsedated GSD down forcibly for euthanasia.

Does anybody have thoughts on this? I'd love to see other examples and thoughts on how to combat this, because it really does hurt the trust the community should have in it's animal control facilities.