June 2025 Maddie's Monthly Behavior Connection
Leadership through Lifesaving and Euthanasia Process
Difficult lifesaving decisions can divide an organization and jeopardize team spirit. Strong leadership is essential to navigate these decisions and gain buy-in from staff and volunteers. At Cincinnati Animal CARE, they have found a way to bring their team along and allow them to become part of the process from beginning to end. Through transparency, open lines of communication, clear action items, and an "everyone's welcome" attitude, they have developed a supportive and respectful culture that has resulted in a 95% live release rate since 2020, even as a municipal shelter with more than 4,000 dogs and 4,000 cats arriving each year. The buy-in from staff, volunteers, and foster caregivers has resulted in more efficiency from a more united team. The CAC team is now focused on lifesaving rather than criticizing and fighting. This presentation will look at how they developed their culture even when decisions are difficult.
Guest Speaker: Meaghan Colville
Meaghan Colville is a founder and the Director of Shelter Operations at Cincinnati Animal CARE (CAC) and an instructor in Southern Utah University’s Animal Services degree program. CAC was founded in 2020 to transform animal services in Hamilton County, Ohio and remarkably achieved no-kill status overnight at the county shelter. In CAC's young, almost-five-year existence, Meaghan has led a dedicated and scrappy team of staff and volunteers committed to applying contemporary and creative lifesaving strategies and programming. Prior to CAC, Meaghan was the Shelter Director at Clermont Animal CARE just outside Cincinnati and Shelter Manager at Ohio Alleycat
Resource and Spay/Neuter Clinic (OAR). She began her career in animal welfare in 2010 in Los Angeles as a violence-prevention humane educator in L.A.'s most in-need communities and eventually as a volunteer coordinator while also volunteering in trap-neuter-vaccinate-return efforts in L.A. County. In 2020, Meaghan was part of the second cohort of the Best Friends Executive Leadership Certification program, a collaboration with Southern Utah University to develop leaders in animal welfare, and she was a 2019 graduate of Dogs Playing for Life Level 1 and is a certified humane agent in Ohio. Meaghan holds a certificate from the University of Texas, Austin in Nonprofit Management and holds a master’s degree in education from Canisius College and a bachelor’s in education from The Ohio State University.
Register here: https://maddies.fund/MonthlyBehaviorRegistration
About Maddie's Monthly Behavior Connection:
Join us on the fourth Thursday of every month as we talk about dog and cat behavior - supporting pets in our community and animal shelters. Each month, we hear from speakers about topics of interest to our group, such as behavior medications, modifying animal behavior, assessing and improving animal welfare, and how organizations successfully provide behavior support to dogs and cats. Webcasts hosted by Board-Certified Veterinary Behaviorist, Dr. Sheila Segurson
All recordings and resources shared during the webcast will also be available on the Maddie's Monthly Behavior Connection page in Maddie's Pet Forum - https://maddies.fund/monthlybehaviorconnectionMPF
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