Does your animal shelter use tattoo equipment? Or have experience in dealing with heartworm cases in an economical way? Maybe you have shareable ideas about how to increase the visibility of adoptable dogs? All of these topics and more are being discussed on Maddie’s^® Pet Forum! See below for some of the recent threads, and be sure to weigh in if you can. Don’t forget, there’s $3,000 in participation grants given away each month!

Recent discussion threads:

• Tattoo equipment: This post share’s that New York State’s new companion animal care standards law will be taking effect in December and requires that all shelter and rescued animals be tattooed at the time of altering. Can you share where one can find necessary equipment if your shelter has experience in this area?
• Heartworm treatment and prevention: While not a new thread, this one has had recent activity. One person asks how are other rescues that do not have a  large following managing this preventable but deadly disease?
• New rescue funding sources: This person asks if anyone has any recommendations for smaller grant opportunities for a new rescue. Whether you have ideas to share or need them, check out the thread!
• How to increase visibility of adoptable dogs: The author of this post shares that they volunteer to walk some dogs boarded at a vet clinic but the dogs are barely visible anywhere except for adopt-a-pet out of state. Do you have ideas on how to help market them?
• Trainers using Aversive Methods: This post says, “By any chance, is there a publicly published list of trainers who do use aversion methods in their training practices.  We live in NYS and with the Animal Standards Act aversion methods are now legally prohibited within a shelter setting and we would like to ensure we do not unintentionally use one. FYI …. we do not and have not used aversion methods in our trainings.”

These are just a few of the many recent posts on the Forum. Be sure to check them out, weigh in and walk away with an idea or two!