Button had been at the Kansas City Pet Project for about a month, and he wasn’t doing well. He was displaying alarming signs of kennel stress, including pacing, spinning, vocalizing and jumping up and down over and over. The shelter has an excellent enrichment program that includes play groups, walks, puzzle toys and more, but… Learn More

Do animal shelters need to be stressful places for pets? Leading shelter medicine and behavior experts say no, and they’ve created a free online course to show staff and volunteers how to make the process from intake to adoption a happy one. The course is part of Fear Free, an educational company originally founded to… Learn More

Looking to start or expand a low-cost shelter enrichment program for dogs? We have the resource for you! In case you missed this valuable post on Maddie’s Pet Forum – one of our Innovation grantees, Far Side Journey, used their grant to develop the Boredom Buster Program, a low-cost shelter enrichment program for dogs. They piloted the… Learn More

Does your organization have a hard-to-adopt cat? Ann Dunn, founder and executive director of Cat Town, a non-profit adoption center in Oakland, CA, has found a way to place scared, aggressive, old cats into loving homes. Many cats just don’t do well in a shelter environment, no matter how hard staff and volunteers help. In this… Learn More

Ever wish there was a place you could go to share your dog or cat wisdom with others? Or maybe you have an issue at your shelter or rescue organization and you’d like advice from someone who has been there before? Maddie’s® Pet Forum is an excellent resource for organizations looking for encouragement and guidance.… Learn More

Dr. Julie Reck  got a frantic call from her team at the vet hospital late one night. Someone had abandoned a dog in a crate in their alley — and the pup was terrified and wouldn’t come out of the crate. When Reck arrived at the clinic, she put patience and her Fear Free handling… Learn More

It was the Fourth of July, and both of the shelters run by Maricopa County Animal Care & Control were full. Fireworks displays, a notorious trigger for canine anxiety, were scheduled in the areas surrounding both buildings. Worse, history had shown that the packed shelters would take in large numbers of dogs during and after… Learn More

When shelter staff and volunteers talk about clicker training for cats, it’s mostly as a way to get the kitties to put their best paw forward for adopters. But what if it can be something more — even a tool to fight suffering and disease? That was the theory of researchers at Colorado State and North… Learn More

What if you could sprinkle magic fairy dust to reduce fighting between cats in a family? That would certainly help keep cats in their homes, and encourage people to adopt multiple cats, so we wish we could tell you magic anti-cat fight fairy dust was a thing. What we can tell you is there’s something… Learn More

Do you have a dog in your shelter who could use some time away from the noise and activity levels of the adoption floor? How about a dog who just needs a staycation? With some creativity and a little bit of extra space, you can create your own “relaxation station” for a stressed-out dog! The… Learn More