Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi! I'm looking for some input on how different shelters operate their intake teams. For limited intake shelters specifically, do you have specialized intake teams (canine intake, feline intake, foster intake), OR do you have centralized intake where all intakes are done by one team trained on each species? 

#AdmissionsandIntake(includingIntake-to-placement)

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Jenna Hacker
Arizona Animal Welfare League
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We're a rescue that gets transports in as our intake. We have a team that takes care of all of the intake animals, and when they are ready to be adopted they are moved from the intake building to the adoption center. The intake team is full of staffers that also wear many different hats. We don't have a dedicated certified vet, so our staffers coordinate with vets when necessary, such as for CVIs.

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Drew Domalick
Volunteer
N/A
WI
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Thank you for sharing Drew! 

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Jenna Hacker
Director of Customer Service
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2025 02:07 AM
From: Drew Domalick
Subject: Centralized Intake vs Specialized Intake - Limited intake shelters

We're a rescue that gets transports in as our intake. We have a team that takes care of all of the intake animals, and when they are ready to be adopted they are moved from the intake building to the adoption center. The intake team is full of staffers that also wear many different hats. We don't have a dedicated medical staff, so our staffers coordinate with vets when necessary, such as for CVIs.

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Drew Domalick
Volunteer
N/A
WI
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Jenna, 

I work at a municipal shelter so we are responsible for taking in strays, surrenders, bite cases, and court cases. All staff is trained on how to intake an animal, regardless of the circumstance. Our shelter staff is small ( 5 people total) so if someone misses a day, it is important everyone else can fill in.  We try to have managed intake when it comes to surrenders since our shelter is so small and we typically fill up with strays quickly. 

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Rachel Wasserman
Animal Welfare Supervisor
Stillwater Animal Welfare
OK
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Hi Rachel,

Thank you for the response. I appreciate it.

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Jenna Hacker
Director of Customer Service
Arizona Animal Welfare League
AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-23-2025 11:49 AM
From: Rachel Wasserman
Subject: Centralized Intake vs Specialized Intake - Limited intake shelters

Jenna, 

I work at a municipal shelter so we are responsible for taking in strays, surrenders, bite cases, and court cases. All staff is trained on how to intake an animal, regardless of the circumstance. Our shelter staff is small ( 5 people total) so if someone misses a day, it is important everyone else can fill in.  We try to have managed intake when it comes to surrenders since our shelter is so small and we typically fill up with strays quickly. 

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Rachel Wasserman
Animal Welfare Supervisor
Stillwater Animal Welfare
OK
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Hey!! So we are limited intake in so that we only take transports or owner surrenders. Any stray animal has to go to our county animal shelter. We have an intake team that handles all owner surrender intakes. Our medical staff handles all transport intakes. The owner surrender intake team will do behavior and medical assessments to ensure the animal is suitable for the adoption program (we can't take very sick or very behaviorally challenged animals). Our medical team then does a thorough intake exam/vaccines, rabies and microchip. Transport intakes go directly to the medical intake exam.

I hope that makes sense lol!!

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Ginger Shore
Foster Coordinator
Forsyth Humane Society
NC
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