Animal Welfare Professionals

Educate. Responsible. Cruel. Neglectful. Feral. Poor. At-Risk. Hoarder. Poor. Perpetrator. Abuser. 

These are just some of the terms frequently used in animal welfare to describe people and animals and they have potentially negative consequences. In this Friday call, we'll hear from Amanda Arrington, who will talk about how Pets For Life has thought about the power of language, adjusted terms that the program uses and wants to hear from you what other terms may be problematic. 

The goal of this session is to think about how to exercise cultural humility in language and practice which will lead to a broader conversation about how language has shaped our work and what changes need to happen to expand our ideas about what we do and our relationship to our community. We'll be asking you about terms like 'animal control,' and 'behavior dog' and getting your input about whether we need to replace much of our industry language in order to build a better animal welfare future. 

We'll then turn to @Kelly Duer and @Kristen Hassen, who argue that shelter pet marketing should be strictly positive, and avoid negative descriptors that may harm pets' chances of being adopted. (There's a logic to this argument, we promise!). They'll provide a five minute overview and share the resource they've created to provide a guideline for shelter workers. Importantly, they want to know where YOU stand on this issue, as leaders in animal welfare and what concerns you have about keeping positive marketing separate from adoption counseling. 

Of course, as always, we'll hear from our national organization colleagues and our question of the day is maybe the best one yet! Hope you can join us this week for the Animal Welfare Leadership Round Up call!

Educate. Responsible. Cruel. Neglectful. Feral. Poor. At-Risk. Hoarder. Poor. Perpetrator. Abuser. 

These are just some of the terms frequently used in animal welfare to describe people and animals and they have potentially negative consequences. In this Friday call, we'll hear from Amanda Arrington, who will talk about how Pets For Life has thought about the power of language, adjusted terms that the program uses and wants to hear from you what other terms may be problematic. 

The goal of this session is to think about how to exercise cultural humility in language and practice which will lead to a broader conversation about how language has shaped our work and what changes need to happen to expand our ideas about what we do and our relationship to our community. We'll be asking you about terms like 'animal control,' and 'behavior dog' and getting your input about whether we need to replace much of our industry language in order to build a better animal welfare future. 

We'll then turn to @Kelly Duer and @Kristen Hassen, who argue that shelter pet marketing should be strictly positive, and avoid negative descriptors that may harm pets' chances of being adopted. (There's a logic to this argument, we promise!). They'll provide a five minute overview and share the resource they've created to provide a guideline for shelter workers. Importantly, they want to know where YOU stand on this issue, as leaders in animal welfare and what concerns you have about keeping positive marketing separate from adoption counseling. 

Of course, as always, we'll hear from our national organization colleagues and our question of the day is maybe the best one yet! Hope you can join us this week for the Animal Welfare Leadership Round Up call!