Animal Welfare Professionals

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  • 1.  Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 26 days ago

    Who doesn't love kittens?!?!

    Whether or not you work with kittens, this Maddie's Community Conversation with National Kitten College team @Marnie Russ (founder) and @Meredith Hippert (Chief Operating Officer) is still for you!  This session is ideal for adoptions and foster staff & volunteers ans well as veterinary professionals (veterinarians, vet techs, support staff).

    If you'd like to earn a certificate of attendance, please view this webcast on Maddie's University. 

    There is nothing cuter than a kitten and we want to help them develop into healthy adults.  When shelters, veterinarians, foster programs, rescue organizations, and community partners work together, they create a stronger, more responsive system that saves more kittens than any organization could alone. By contributing data across organizations, we can identify trends, measure what works, recognize emerging challenges, and develop evidence-based solutions that improve kitten care nationwide. Each organization's experiences, successes, and challenges contribute to a growing body of knowledge that advances shelter medicine and helps every community provide better care for its most vulnerable kittens. 

    Don't forget! Maddie's Fund will be awarding up to $10,000 in grants each month! Let us know each time you attend a webcast or watch it on demand during the month by completing the monthly grant awards entry form.

    Please note: Views expressed on these calls are not necessarily endorsed by Maddie's Fund.


    About our speakers:

    Marnie holding up an adorable white and grey kitten

    Marnie Russ is the founder and visionary behind National Kitten College, a groundbreaking program dedicated to advancing the care and survival of neonatal kittens across the United States. With decades of experience in animal welfare, Marnie has become one of the nation’s leading experts in neonatal kitten care, working tirelessly to educate shelter staff, rescue organizations, and fosters on best practices for saving the most vulnerable feline lives.

    Under her leadership, National Kitten College has grown into a nationally recognized training model, offering comprehensive education, hands-on mentorship, and strategic support to animal welfare professionals and volunteers. Marnie’s work has directly contributed to a significant increase in neonatal kitten survival rates and has reshaped how shelters approach infant kitten care.

    Passionate, compassionate, and driven by data and impact, Marnie continues to lead transformative change in the animal rescue community—ensuring that even the tiniest lives are given a fighting chance.

    Meredith Hippert with her dog


    Meredith Hippert currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Kitten College. For over a decade, she has led operations for large-scale veterinary and TNR programs across the U.S. and internationally. Her extensive background includes overseeing shelter operations, managing veterinary services at a high-intake municipal shelter, and training veterinary teams in high-volume techniques. In addition to coordinating wide-reaching TNR and preventative care campaigns, Meredith provides expert consulting to help shelters strategically scale their lifesaving programs.

    #AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
    #CommunityPartnerships*
    #Conferences,WorkshopsandWebcasts
    #EducationandTraining
    #FosterPrograms

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    Alison Gibson
    Media Projects Manager
    Maddie’s Fund
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  • 2.  RE: Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 20 days ago

    Thank you to everyone who joined us on our Community Conversation today!  I wanted to reshare the links we went over, because there were a lot.  

    First, we would love to invite you to join the Kitten College Community and become a network partner.  You can enroll here:

    https://kittencollege.org/campus-application/

    We have two self paced courses that are very popular - Taking the Fear Out of Bottle Feeding and Basic Kitten Care was referenced several times in the webinar today.  You can find that here:

    https://university.maddiesfund.org/products/taking-the-fear-out-of-bottle-feeding-and-basic-kitten-care

     Kitten College: Transforming Tiny Lives Through Innovation can be found here:

    https://university.maddiesfund.org/products/kitten-college-transforming-tiny-lives-through-innovation

    The Living Library Flip Book can be found here:

    https://kittencollege.aflip.in/livinglibrary

    Applications for our Online Instructor Led Course, Developing Your Own Kitten College,  can be found here:  (applications close on August 23)

    https://university.maddiesfund.org/online-instructor-led-courses

    We look forward to working with all of you!



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    Marnie Russ
    Founder, CEO
    National Kitten College
    www.kittencollege.org
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  • 3.  RE: Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 20 days ago

    Hi guys,

    We were able to get to most of the questions at the end of the program today.  There were a few that were left and I will answer them here.

    1. Any quick tips on helping fosters get comfortable with neonatal kittens?

    In my opinion the most important thing you can do is offer support and patience to new kitten fosters.   Let them know they are not doing it alone and that you are prepared for any outcome.  Use resources that do not expect too much from them and overwhelm them.  (tracking input, output, etc). A healthy kitten will gain weight every single day. Stressing over how much and how often a kitten eats is only an issue if they aren't gaining weight.    We like to say that a healthy kitten isn't going try to "punk" you into giving them more food,  If they want a bottle, give it to them.  Recognize the importance of sleep to this population.   We focus all our resources in not scaring fosters.  You can find helpful information at kittencollege.org or you can reach out to us anytime.



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    Marnie Russ
    Founder, CEO
    National Kitten College
    www.kittencollege.org
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  • 4.  RE: Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 20 days ago

    There were a few questions about what data is the most impactful as we start looking kitten data.  Here is what we send to our partner programs:

    https://kittencollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Partner-Campus-Data-Collection-Request.pdf



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    Marnie Russ
    Founder, CEO
    National Kitten College
    www.kittencollege.org
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  • 5.  RE: Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 20 days ago
      |   view attached

    Thank you @Marnie Russ and @Meredith Hippert for your truly wonderful webcast!   SO MUCH to learn about and share!  

    In addition to the links you shared above, we're letting everyone know that a copy of your presentation slides is attached here.  



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    Alison Gibson
    Media Projects Manager
    Maddie's Fund
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    Attachment(s)



  • 6.  RE: Community Conversations - 08/19/2026 - Connecting Data, Medicine, and Shelters to Save More Kittens

    Posted 14 days ago

    This session was really informative about the Kitten College program. I'll definitely be bringing the program up to see if we can implement it in the future. We are already dealing with so many kittens, as all shelters and rescues are, so it seems like an amazing idea to bring a community of local fosters together while also joining the Kitten College group for national support!

    I've been lucky in that the kittens I have encountered have been weaned. I need to enroll in the Kitten Care course next for when I inevitably stumble upon kittens who aren't weaned yet. It is a pretty scary concept for those of us without any experience yet, so this program along with the courses available from Maddie's are amazing resources. 

    Thanks so much to everyone involved in hosting! And for all the kitten lives you are already saving. 🐈



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    Andrea Nassar
    Executive Director, Grants Specialist, & Program Specialist
    One Acre Microsanctuary, AnimalKind, & LEAP
    HUDSON
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