Five Timely Topics from the No More Homeless Pets Conference

What happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay in Vegas: Five timely topics from the No More Homeless Pets Conference that will save lives!

The No More Homeless Pets Conference is so loaded with ready-to-use information that it’s a challenge to pick out the top five, but I’ll give it a go:

1. Who is your customer?  Betsy Saul and Liz Neuschatz, the brains behind Petfinder.com, one of the world’s top 100 trafficked websites, have polled members of the public who use their great service to adopt their new best friends and they’ve asked them questions about their experience with adoption. This look in the mirror offers some really valuable information that isn’t always pretty, but will help you understand your “customer” better in order to be more effective in your adoptions and generate more referrals and support from adopters who had a great experience.

2. Increasing Adoptions!  And while I’m on the subject of adoptions, Bonney Brown, as a piece of her two part session on Building A No-Kill Community, shares some of her adoption secrets that helped to turn Reno into a no-kill city and will dramatically increase your group’s adoption results.

3. Training that Saves Lives: We’ve all had that great dog for adoption who is just out of control when he or she is on a lead. Leash aggression is a very common problem that can have a seriously adverse effect on a dog’s adoptability...from where and when she can be shown, to who is a good candidate to adopt the dog. Aimee Sadler of the Longmont Humane Society in Colorado will show you how to tell whether the behavior you are seeing is simply leash aggression - and how to fix it -  or a more basic, deeply rooted behavioral problem. Aimee’s presentation - From Monster-on-a-Leash to Go-Anywhere Good Citizen: Training that Saves Lives – delivers just what it promises.

4. Vet bills got you down? URI ruining your kitten season, kennel cough log -jamming adoptions? Welcome to Ah-choo! Disease Prevention for Rescues and Fosters, presented by Dr. Michael Dix, Medical Director at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and one of the featured vets on the Dogtown TV series. Dr. Mike will lay out some very practical protocols and rules of thumb that will cut down on disease that is often spread from shelters to foster homes or that can turn a group transport to new homes into a group trip to the animal hospital.

5. Heading up a spay/neuter clinic in your community:  Low cost and free spay/neuter is one of the basics of No More Homeless Pets, but finding the know-how and funding to get an effective spay/neuter clinic or program off the ground is easier said than done. Quita Mazzina, founder of Humane Alliance, is not only sharing the Humane Alliance model, she will be discussing a new project with Petsmart Charities that will be rolling out spay/neuter clinics around the country.

That’s my top five! There’s a lot more happening at the conference that you can take home and put to immediate use for the animals and share with your team. What happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay in Vegas!