Intake & Community Services

Working together with our communities, we can better utilize limited resources and increase lifesaving. These resources will help you find ways to engage with your community, keep pets in their homes, improve customer service, and find more positive outcomes for the animals in your care. 

Click here to learn more about community-supported sheltering.

Intake

Community Services

Intake 
 

VIDEOS, WEBINARS, ONLINE COURSES & PODCASTS

• Managed Intake and Admissions, online course
• Best Friends Town Halls
  • Making the Case for a New Tomorrow
  • Out With the Old, In With the New: Switching Gears to Managed Intake
• Saving America's Pets Vlog
  • How to help big dogs in shelters
  • The Best Tips for Reducing Summer Shelter Intake
• The Best Friends Podcast
  • Managed intake programs
  • One Million Cats and Counting

DOWNLOADABLE PDFs, PLAYBOOKS, & SOPs

• Animal Flow Playbook
• Feline Housing and Enrichment Training Playbook
• Intake Diversion in the Field Playbook
• Managed Intake or Admissions Playbook

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & INFORMATION

• Program Spotlights
  • Data Proves Power of Managing Intake
  • Let’s Talk About Managed Intake
  • NACA comes out in support of appointment-based intake
  • Setting the stage for strategic intake

Community Services 
 

VIDEOS, WEBINARS, ONLINE COURSES & PODCASTS

• Best Friends Town Halls
  • Community-Supported Sheltering: Aligning all stakeholders in the welfare of animals in your community
  • COVID-19: Preparing for the Housing Crisis
  • Keeping Families Together: Navigating the Blurry Lines Between Neglect, Cruelty and Lack of Access to Care
  • People, Pets, and Policies: Towards Community Supported Animal Sheltering
  • The Collective Impact of Community Centered Lifesaving
  • The Human Connection: Save more lives by building stronger relationships in communities
  • Times They Are A-Changin'
  • Using transparency to empower and support your community
• Online Course
  • Community-Supported Sheltering
• Saving America's Pets Vlog
  • A new focus on Animal Control Officers
  • How to Encourage Community Support and Save the Lives of Animals in Shelters
  • Keeping America's Military Members and Their Pets Together
• The Best Friends Podcast
  • Access to Care - Shannon Glenn
  • American Pets Alive Piloting Social Services Model of Sheltering
  • Community-Supported Sheltering: Aligning all stakeholders in the welfare of animals in your community
  • Cracking the Code
  • Emergency Planning for Pets and People
  • Finding lost cats with Pet Detective Kim Freeman
  • From Punishment to Support
  • Helping Indigenous People and Their Pets on the Navajo Nation
  • It's Not Rescue if They Already have a Home
  • Keeping Families Together
  • More than 40 Million Pets at Risk of Eviction
  • National Preparedness Month
  • Owner Requested Euthanasia
  • Professionalizing the Profession
  • Removing Lifesaving Barriers
  • Saving lives in rural America with Cole Wakefield
  • Saving Lives in Rural Indiana
  • Serving both ends of the leash in Spokane
  • Serving the Underserved in Rural America
  • Spay It Ain't So!
  • Using transparency to empower and support your community
• Webinars
  • Community Engagement Based Animal Control Programs
  • Community Engagement: The Lifesaving Philosophy
  • Looking into Your Future: Lessons Learned from Shelters that have Already Implemented "New" Lifesaving Sheltering Practices
  • Strategic Animal Control

DOWNLOADABLE PDFs, PLAYBOOKS, & SOPs

• People, Pets, and Policies: Towards Community Supported Animal Sheltering

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & INFORMATION

• Hearts Speak Pet Resource Guide
• How to Host a Vaccine Clinic
• How to Start a Pet Food Pantry
• Pet Food Drive: How to Organize One
• Spay/Neuter Map
• Editorials
  • Animal Welfare Should Tear Down Walls to Pet Ownership
  • Engage with intention
  • Exploring Ways Shelters and Rescues Can Close Gaps to Accessing Care
  • Outdated policies prevent shelters from partnering with the public to save lives
• Program Spotlights
  • Animal Control Officers Lead Change for Shelters
  • Building Bridges on the Navajo Nation
  • Community Powered Lifesaving
  • Finding Pathways to Success for Rural Shelters
  • Keeping Pets with their Families
  • Kitten Kits Help the Public Participate in Lifesaving
  • One Tail at a Time Stretches Role of Rescue with Creative Programming
  • Reflecting on Rescue Roadblocks
  • Removing Rescue Roadblocks
  • Spokane Agencies Collaborate to Bridge Gap between Human/Animal Services
  • Shelters Closing Access to Care Gap for At-Risk Communities
  • Teaming Up to Build Better Animal Ordinances
  • Where, oh where has my little dog gone?