Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi all, I recently decided to start my journey to become a cat behaviorist for my shelter along with my current position. Over the years I have been in the shelter world I have noticed that cats are always overlooked and it seems that way too with training courses. Would anyone know of a course or program to take to boost my knowledge of feline behavior? I have taken many of the Maddie's University courses, currently taking the "Cat Behavior and Retention" course through Humane Pro, and have been searching for more to learn. I am also a member of IAABC if there are any classes in particular that I should take. Thank you all in advance! 

Hi Megan!

I work exclusively with cats in a shelter. My top recommendation would be to take Trish McMillan's Shelter Cat Behavior Mentorship course. She usually offers it once every year and it's a 13-week course packed with cat behavior stuff that applies to cats in the shelter system. Plus, there are weekly meetups with Trish, and she is a great resource and wonderful to have in your network. You have access to all the material for a year after the course ends. Plus, you get tons of resources and materials you can use from other cat folks and from the course itself. On her Shelter Behavior Hub site, she offers other courses as well.  I put in a request and my organization helped me pay for the tuition. It's worth every penny. https://www.shelterbehaviorhub.com/

The other person you should know is Tabitha Kucera. Her website it Chirrups and Chatter. She has various webinars/trainings. Here is a link to her Socializing Feral Kittens Webinar. https://humanepro.org/videos/hiss-purr-socializing-feral-kittens It's on the Humane Society Pro site. She is a certified animal behaviorist that is a wiz with cats. This training not only applies to kittens but to any under-socialized or fearful/shy cat. Everything she says is spot on. Humane Pro also has other offerings as well.

Definitely get onto Maddie's Monthly Behavior webinar train if you aren't already. It's not all cat stuff but there are sometimes cat-centered ones. 

Check out the elearning Center at The National Kitten Coalition.

Also, the ASPCA Pro has lots of training videos - including one from Trish on Cat Body Language: https://www.aspcapro.org/training/webinar/feline-communication-0#video-player

And you probably already are, but if you aren't fear-free certified then definitely get fear-free certified. https://fearfreeshelters.com/

IAABC has Feline Chatty - online get togethers with various people who are working with cats. These are usually pretty fun. IAABC also has some trainings on cats but not a ton. They do have The Science of Cat Introductions (which is very useful to help adopters!) Their annual conference has cat content for sure, and they offer an online option for the conference.

And if you're interested in the training side, Karen Pryor Clicker Training has cat training courses and Grisha Stewart Academy offers Nosework for Cats. When you start getting into the training side of behavior it can be excellent for understanding learning and applying b-mod practices and enrichment that work for cats.  When it comes to addressing behavior in cats, you're doing a LOT of the first 2 steps in the b-mod hierarchy (medical, nutrition, environment/antecedent arrangements) and then desensitization and positive reinforcement, sometimes adding an aversive paired with a positive choice option (a sticky mat on a counter plus add a new perching spot).

Oh! And places like sheltermedportal.com is great for the medical side. It's good to understand things like medicating for behavior, and there are webinars for this. There was one done recently on supplements for cats, but I can't remember who presented it. Understanding behavior from a medical/vet perspective is helpful.  Health and behavior are interrelated, of course.

I hope this helps.  The animal behavior world is still behind in cat content, but it's getting better every day! There is still plenty to keep you busy. I also keep an eye out for the latest cat research being done.

Cheers!

Hi all, I recently decided to start my journey to become a cat behaviorist for my shelter along with my current position. Over the years I have been in the shelter world I have noticed that cats are always overlooked and it seems that way too with training courses. Would anyone know of a course or program to take to boost my knowledge of feline behavior? I have taken many of the Maddie's University courses, currently taking the "Cat Behavior and Retention" course through Humane Pro, and have been searching for more to learn. I am also a member of IAABC if there are any classes in particular that I should take. Thank you all in advance! 

Morning Michelle, 

Thank you so much for all the information!!! I was wondering when Trish would be doing that mentorship again, I have that on my list to do.  I have watched a few of Tabitha's webinars from the Humane Pro site but was not aware that she had courses I will certainly take a look at that.  As for the others you have mentioned I was not as up to date as you are so I will be doing their webinars/courses :) Thank you again for all the help!!! 

Hi Megan!

I work exclusively with cats in a shelter. My top recommendation would be to take Trish McMillan's Shelter Cat Behavior Mentorship course. She usually offers it once every year and it's a 13-week course packed with cat behavior stuff that applies to cats in the shelter system. Plus, there are weekly meetups with Trish, and she is a great resource and wonderful to have in your network. You have access to all the material for a year after the course ends. Plus, you get tons of resources and materials you can use from other cat folks and from the course itself. On her Shelter Behavior Hub site, she offers other courses as well.  I put in a request and my organization helped me pay for the tuition. It's worth every penny. https://www.shelterbehaviorhub.com/

The other person you should know is Tabitha Kucera. Her website it Chirrups and Chatter. She has various webinars/trainings. Here is a link to her Socializing Feral Kittens Webinar. https://humanepro.org/videos/hiss-purr-socializing-feral-kittens It's on the Humane Society Pro site. She is a certified animal behaviorist that is a wiz with cats. This training not only applies to kittens but to any under-socialized or fearful/shy cat. Everything she says is spot on. Humane Pro also has other offerings as well.

Definitely get onto Maddie's Monthly Behavior webinar train if you aren't already. It's not all cat stuff but there are sometimes cat-centered ones. 

Check out the elearning Center at The National Kitten Coalition.

Also, the ASPCA Pro has lots of training videos - including one from Trish on Cat Body Language: https://www.aspcapro.org/training/webinar/feline-communication-0#video-player

And you probably already are, but if you aren't fear-free certified then definitely get fear-free certified. https://fearfreeshelters.com/

IAABC has Feline Chatty - online get togethers with various people who are working with cats. These are usually pretty fun. IAABC also has some trainings on cats but not a ton. They do have The Science of Cat Introductions (which is very useful to help adopters!) Their annual conference has cat content for sure, and they offer an online option for the conference.

And if you're interested in the training side, Karen Pryor Clicker Training has cat training courses and Grisha Stewart Academy offers Nosework for Cats. When you start getting into the training side of behavior it can be excellent for understanding learning and applying b-mod practices and enrichment that work for cats.  When it comes to addressing behavior in cats, you're doing a LOT of the first 2 steps in the b-mod hierarchy (medical, nutrition, environment/antecedent arrangements) and then desensitization and positive reinforcement, sometimes adding an aversive paired with a positive choice option (a sticky mat on a counter plus add a new perching spot).

Oh! And places like sheltermedportal.com is great for the medical side. It's good to understand things like medicating for behavior, and there are webinars for this. There was one done recently on supplements for cats, but I can't remember who presented it. Understanding behavior from a medical/vet perspective is helpful.  Health and behavior are interrelated, of course.

I hope this helps.  The animal behavior world is still behind in cat content, but it's getting better every day! There is still plenty to keep you busy. I also keep an eye out for the latest cat research being done.

Cheers!

Hi all, I recently decided to start my journey to become a cat behaviorist for my shelter along with my current position. Over the years I have been in the shelter world I have noticed that cats are always overlooked and it seems that way too with training courses. Would anyone know of a course or program to take to boost my knowledge of feline behavior? I have taken many of the Maddie's University courses, currently taking the "Cat Behavior and Retention" course through Humane Pro, and have been searching for more to learn. I am also a member of IAABC if there are any classes in particular that I should take. Thank you all in advance! 

Hi all, I recently decided to start my journey to become a cat behaviorist for my shelter along with my current position. Over the years I have been in the shelter world I have noticed that cats are always overlooked and it seems that way too with training courses. Would anyone know of a course or program to take to boost my knowledge of feline behavior? I have taken many of the Maddie's University courses, currently taking the "Cat Behavior and Retention" course through Humane Pro, and have been searching for more to learn. I am also a member of IAABC if there are any classes in particular that I should take. Thank you all in advance! 

#Behavior,TrainingandEnrichment
#EducationandTraining

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Megan Stalb
Adoption Manager
Queen Anne's County Animal Services
Queenstown MD
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