Are common cat sheltering and animal control policies helping cats? Are they humane? Effective? Not according to Dr. Kate Hurley, Director of the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program.
The time has come, she says, for shelters to consider radical solutions to the suffering, stress, illness and death that are the fate of so many cats in our nation's animal shelters, including an array of positive alternative approaches such as TNR or not taking them in at all if we can't offer a lifesaving outcome.
Please join us on Thursday, June 27, at 9 PM Eastern Time as Maddie's InstitueSM presents the first of a two-part series, Making the Case for a Paradigm Shift in Community Cat Management, Part One.In Part Two, scheduled for July 11th, an expert panel will conduct a Q&A discussion on the information in Dr. Hurley's webcast, answering questions submitted in advance as well as live questions from the audience.
In this free webcast, Dr. Hurley will examine assumptions underlying traditional sheltering practices and compare them to the most recent evidence-based information regarding the health and behavior impacts of stress on sheltered cats and the statistical likelihood of a live outcome for an unsocialized cat taken into a shelter.
Information presented will include:
- Common assumptions on which sheltering programs for cats are based.
- Evidence and data analysis: Are common sheltering policies about unsocial/unowned cats evidence-based?
- Do our current methods of running TNR programs really make a difference to the overall problem of community/feral cats coming into shelters and subsequently being euthanized there?
- As our shelter system moves to a model of capacity planning for humane care and adoption, where do community cats fit into the flow?
- What lifesaving alternatives really work, and how do we implement them?
- When is it appropriate to just not take cats into our shelters at all?
For complete information on both webcasts, to register, to submit questions, and for information on CE credit, click here.