Medical, Cleaning & Care

Proper sanitation and cleaning protocols are essential to disease prevention in shelters where animals have contact with numerous surfaces, communal living spaces, as well as many people. Keeping the animals in your care healthy gets them one step closer to being adopted quickly. These resources provide guidance on operations for various medical needs and cleaning best practices. 

Medical

Cleaning

Care

Medical   
 

VIDEOS, WEBINARS, ONLINE COURSES & PODCASTS

• Canine Distemper: Management for Shelters, webinar
• Counting All Paws: Mastering Daily Population Rounds, webinar
• Let's Spay Together, The Best Friends Podcast ep. 11
• Managing Feline Upper Respiratory Disease in Shelters Webinar
• Saving the Tiniest Lives: Veterinary Care for Neonatal Kittens, webinar
• The nationwide veterinarian shortage, Saving America's Pets Vlog
• Feline Panleukopenia, video
• Feline Upper Respiratory Tract Disease in Shelters, video
• Ringwork Diagnosis and Treatment in the Shelter, video

DOWNLOADABLE PDFs, PLAYBOOKS, & SOPs

• Canine Distemper Playbook
• Expanding Veterinary Capacity in Shelters
• Feline Herpes Virus
• Heartworm Disease Management
• Infectious Disease Outbreak Response Playbook
• Medical Care for Kittens Playbook
• Puppy Care 101
• Puppy Protocol - Deworming and Vaccines
• Puppy Protocol - Puppy Admission Illness Prevention
• Ringworm Management Playbook 
• National Shelter Medicine Protocols (English)
• National Shelter Medicine Protocols (Spanish)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & INFORMATION

• Cat Health
• Dog Health
• Spay/Neuter Map
• Editorials
  • Are spay/neuter requirements saving lives or standing in the way of lifesaving?
  • Balancing Needs of Shelter Animals, Community in Times of Crisis
  • Help! We Just Can't Keep Up!
  • Is Spay/Neuter an Essential Service During the Pandemic?
  • Managing the Transport of Heartworm-Positive Dogs to Increase Lifesaving
  • The State of Access to Veterinary Services Today - An Interview with Aimee St. Arnaud
  • Why Putting Human Health Above Unlimited Spay/Neuter is the Right Thing to Do
• Program Spotlights
  • Getting a handle on viral outbreaks in your dog populations
  • Media strategy a critical part of response to disease outbreaks
  • Getting past “the ringworm stigma”
  • Making the jump from private practice to shelter medicine
  • Shelters, Clinics Receive Spay/Neuter Stimulus Funding
  • Making more vets

Cleaning   
 

VIDEOS, WEBINARS, ONLINE COURSES & PODCASTS

• Cleaning and Sanitation, online course

DOWNLOADABLE PDFs, PLAYBOOKS, & SOPs 

• Daily Rounds: Planning a Pathway Playbook
• Disease Control - The Role of Sanitation Playbook

Care   
 

VIDEOS, WEBINARS, ONLINE COURSES & PODCASTS

• Dog Behavior and Handling Webinar
• Dog Reactivity Webinar
• Innovative Ways to Work with At-Risk Dogs, Best Friends Town Hall
• Kitten Resources Playlist
• Reducing Length of Stay at Your Shelter, conference session
• Training for Shelter Dogs
• Kitten Minute: neonatal care video series 
  • Making Formula 
  • Bottle Feeding 
  • Bottle Washing 
  • Kitten Gruel 
  • Syringe Feeding
  • Oral Medication
  • Temperature Taking
  • Hydration
  • Fluids
  • Enema
• Saving America's Pets Vlog
  • How to Help Orphaned Kittens with the Kitten Lady
  • Kitten Season: When Cute and Cuddly Meets Lifesaving
• The Best Friends Podcast
  • Community-Supported Kitten Care
  • Hannah Shaw - Kitten Lady
  • Kitten Action Team
• Webinars
  • Cat Behavior & Enrichment
  • From Formal to Functional: Using Comprehensive Information to Effectively Assess Animals

DOWNLOADABLE PDFs, PLAYBOOKS, & SOPs

• Canine Care and Enrichment Playbook
• Caring for Abandoned Kittens: Handout explaining what to do if an individual finds kittens (English version, Spanish version) 
• Dealing with Leash Reactivity
• Diapering Cats
• Fencing Options for Your Escape Artist
• Found Kittens (English)
• Found Kittens (Spanish)
• How to Determine Age of Kittens (English)
• How to Determine Age of Kittens (Spanish)
• Kitten Foster Manual
• Length of Stay Manual
• Muzzle Training a Dog
• Neonatal Kitten Care Playbook
• Positive Reinforcement: Training with Praise and Rewards
• Proven Lifesaving Strategies for Big Dogs Training Playbook
• Weaning Kitten Care
• Why We Don't Use Punishment

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & INFORMATION

• Bottle Feeding Kittens
• Taming canine disease outbreaks in shelters, editorial
• Program Spotlights
  • Got behavior-challenged dogs?
  • Kitten Kits Help the Public Participate in Lifesaving
  • Kitten programs 2.0 part 1: Re-examining medical protocols for neonates
  • Kitten programs 2.0 part 2: Bringing up (a neonatal) baby
  • New videos increase access to dog handling training by Best Friends experts
• Neonatal Kitten Toolkit