Resources: Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge webinars, videos, and other resources cover everything from where we’ve been to where we are now, to how we can keep moving into the future of sheltering.

Featured Resources

Four Rights Bootcamp

Learning how to quit crisis mode, embrace your capacity, and create space for lasting change is the core of Four Rights Bootcamp, a transformative six-week journey charted by us, and the time for your shelter to join is now. We’ve taken the initiatives that powered over 1500 shelters to save over 3.5 million cat lives…

Shelter Consultation Mentorship

Are you ready to increase your observation skills, research capability, knowledge of shelter operations guidelines, communication skills, animal data interpretation, and analysis of shelter systems to help make shelters more efficient, safer, and better at helping animals and their people? You bring the motivation and we’ll bring an immersive training experience! Thanks to the generosity…

Focused Shelter Consultation

Are you ready for your organization to make changes, but you aren’t sure how to get started? Could you use an expert to help you analyze and prioritize your issues? Could you use support in implementing new approaches? Then a Focused Consultation is tailored just for you! Thanks to the generosity of Maddie’s Fund®, the…

Team Wellbeing Support

Are you ready to offer your staff increased wellbeing support and build a more caring organizational culture, but you’re not sure where to start? You bring the commitment and we’ll bring the expert training! Thanks to the generosity of Maddie’s Fund®, The Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge is offering organizations a variety of learning opportunities, including live…

Comprehensive Shelter Consultation

Is your shelter looking to improve operations and boost lifesaving, but not sure how to get started? If you’re ready to address issues around intake policies, housing/enrichment, community cat program management, budgeting, access to spay/neuter and veterinary care, and more, then a Comprehensive Shelter Consultation is right for you! Thanks to the generosity of Maddie’s…

Veterinary Clinic Consultation

Are you ready to open a veterinary clinic with a focus on increasing access to care or take your existing clinic to the next level but not exactly sure where to start? You bring the desire, we’ll bring the team of experts! Thanks to the generosity of Maddie’s Fund®, the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge is offering…

Shelter/Clinic Community Combination Consultation

We’re excited to announce a new opportunity where we’ve expanded our team and focus to include combined shelter and community veterinary services consultations for dogs and cats. Is your community ready to implement sustainable veterinary services and increase access to care? Is your shelter ready to take your lifesaving to the next level? Thanks to…

Behavior, Training, & Enrichment Bootcamp

UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program Director of Online Learning Cindi Delany, DVM, KPA-CPT, developed this brand new Bootcamp to help your shelter assess and consider how you can level up your Behavior, Training, and Enrichment (BTE) program. This immersive and coach-guided course will do more than help you identify new ways to improve animal…

Population Management and Daily Rounds Bootcamp

Get to efficient and effective daily population management rounds in just six weeks! The impact on your team and your work will be big: You’ll improve animal health and welfare, increase the number of animals and people you can help, and decrease staff workload and burnout, length of stay, and the number of animals waiting…

The 4 Rights:

The foundational principles of the Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge, the Four Rights, are the Right Care, the Right Place, the Right Time, and the Right Outcome.

Access to Veterinary Care:

All pets and people should have access to veterinary care, yet a recent study found that nearly one-third of pet owners couldn’t afford to obtain that care. Another researcher estimates that 66 percent of pets in families who live in poverty have never seen a vet. And lack of the ability to afford veterinary care for a pet is a leading cause of shelter surrender. The Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge is focused on creating access to veterinary care for pets in the community, and these resources will help your organization be part of that safety net.

Fear Free Shelters:

The goal of the Fear Free Shelter Program is to improve the experiences of animals by providing a free online educational program to shelter, rescue, and animal welfare employees and volunteers. Its aim is to empower those who work with shelter and rescue animals to apply key strategies and techniques designed to reduce the negative emotional states that are commonly experienced by shelter and rescue animals—including fear, anxiety, stress (FAS), and frustration—and increase their enrichment opportunities.

HQHVSN/TNR:

The Veterinary Task Force to Advance High-Quality, High-Volume Spay/Neuter states, “High-quality, high-volume spay/neuter (HQHVSN) programs are efficient surgical initiatives that meet or exceed veterinary medical standards of care in providing accessible, targeted sterilization of large numbers of dogs and cats in order to reduce their overpopulation and subsequent euthanasia.” These resources are intended to help spay/neuter programs operate at their highest level of quality and efficiency to help as many animals as possible.

Transformational Sheltering:

Most pets enter shelters because of a lack of resources or housing, In traditional sheltering, those animals are housed while awaiting adoption. In the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) model, a safety net for people and pets helps pets stay in their homes and communities. The shelter’s goal is to keep people and pets together whenever possible, taking in only those animals for whom there is no community solution. The videos and other resources we’ve assembled can help make that transformation happen in your organization and community, too.

Click here to play Transformational Sheltering video

Million Cat Challenge:

The Million Cat Challenge was a shelter-based campaign to save the lives of one million cats in North America over the course of five years, a goal its 1,500 participating shelters met in less than four years. The core strategy of the Million Cat Challenge was centered on five key initiatives that offered every shelter, in every community, practical choices to reduce euthanasia and increase live outcomes for shelter cats. These strategies have now evolved as the basis of the Four Rights, which underlie Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge. Use these resources to learn where we’ve been and how we can keep moving into the future of sheltering.

A collaboration of UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Program at UF, Open Door Veterinary Collective, and Team Shelter USA.

Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge is creating transformative “communities of practice” that deliver access to care through humane, community-centric programming—inside and outside of the shelter—to achieve the right outcome for every pet. Our consultative mentoring services are holistic, deep and practical, and delivered by the proven team who brought you the Million Cat Challenge, in expanded partnership with Open Door Veterinary Collective. This program is made available at no cost to participants, #ThanksToMaddie