Animal Welfare Professionals

On Thursday, March 5, 2026, join Maddie's® Monthly Foster Connection at 12pm PT/3pm ET. Ryan Miller, Grants Manager at The Animal Foundation, will be discussing how they empower their community to foster two of the highest-risk groups in many shelters: neonatal kittens and adult dogs. ... See More

Thanks to the 110+ people and paws who joined us on today's Community Conversations call! The recording is now available to watch on-demand. Below you'll find a recap of today's call and the resources shared. Call Recap Welcome from hosts @Miguel Ruelas , Community Resources ... See More

Thanks to our speakers, Dr. @Emily Weiss and Dr. @Mike Greenberg - and everyone who joined us today! We would love to hear from you in response to today's reflection question: What is our organization currently doing to support our adopters in the weeks and months after they've adopted ... See More

Our system sends out an automatic email three weeks after the adoption just to check in. Not everyone does but there are some heartwarming stories. At adoption as part of our counseling, we always inform the adopter to contact us for any questions or concerns and have a hand out in their adoption packet ... See More

You've accomplished an incredible amount in just a few years, and it really shows how committed you are to improving feline welfare in your shelter. That kind of progress, building programs, shifting culture, and creating new structures for cats after more than a century of dog‑focused practices, is ... See More

I'm curious on average how many adopters you have versus how many actually respond. If our shelter did something like this I feel like it would be overwhelming if even half of the adopters responded. I have heard though that post adoption support like this does reduce returns, do you experience that ... See More

Awesome info! Thank you for providing this for us volunteers to use! ------------------------------ C Hayes volunteer ARK of McCurtain County OK ------------------------------ See More

I agree with so much of this, I highly doubt there's any bad intentions behind being reluctant to try new strategies, and I really appreciate everything that has been discussed in this thread already. It astounds me how heavily focused so many shelters, including my own, are with dogs, and to be fair ... See More

This was so helpful! We do 2 day, 2 week, 2 month and 1 year follow ups via text to our adopters. We troubleshoot through those conversations and extend into an in person meeting if needed. Our rescue has a coordinator and 3 additional foster coordinators who facilitate these interactions. We also ... See More