The Best Friends Podcast Episode 97
As this new year gets underway, we’ve been thinking about what lies ahead for 2022. Of course, the last two years were a good reminder that even the best prognosticator can’t see everything coming, but that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about the future.
We asked the experts and settled on a “top five” list of areas that are most likely to be affecting you in one way or another in the weeks and months ahead (if they’re not already!). By no means an exhaustive list, today’s episode focuses on community-supported sheltering, staffing, foster programs, cat lifesaving, and the veterinary resource crisis. So what is happening with these issues, what may lie ahead, and what can you do about them?
We sat down with Best Friends regional director Stacy Rogers to talk through the issues impacting shelters and rescue organizations across the country.
Click here to check out all the episodes from the podcast.
Resources from this episodeCommunity-supported sheltering
- Best Friends Town Hall: People, Pets, and Policies: Towards Community Supported Animal Sheltering guideand the accompanying town hall
- Best Friends Town Hall: Keeping Families Together
- Best Friends network: Adoption Barrier Study, Best Friends Research
- Best Friends network: Animal Welfare Should Tear Down Walls to Pet Ownership
- Best Friends network: Shelters Closing Access to Care Gap for At-Risk Communities, program spotlight
- Best Friends network: Outdated Policies Prevent Shelters from Partnering with Public
- Best Friends: Removing Rescue Roadblocks
- Best Friends network editorial: Help! We Just Can’t Keep Up!
- Best Friends network research: New Normal, New Data
Cats
- Best Friends Network editorial: Onset of Kitten Season Combined with Shelter Limitations Leads to Creative Solutions
- Best Friends Community Cat Handbook
- Best Friends Editorial: The Dilemma of the Friendly Outdoor Cat
- Community Cat Programs Handbook: Strays and Ferals
- To Return-to-Field or Not?
- Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) Essentials
- Solutions to Cat-Related Issues
- Caring for Abandoned Kittens
Fostering
- Best Friends network playbook: Foster Programs Training Playbook
- Best Friends program spotlight: How to Keep New Fosters Engaged Post-Pandemic
- Solutions to Cat-Related Issues
- Caring for Abandoned Kittens
Veterinary Resources
- Best Friends Editorial: The State of Access to Veterinary Services Today – An Interview with Aimee St. Arnaud
- Best Friends Editorial: The paradox of adopting out unaltered animals
- Best Friends Editorial: Exploring Ways Shelters and Rescues Can Close Gaps to Accessing Care
Staffing
- Best Friends Network: Getting Out of the Staffing Shortage Rut
- Best Friends Network: Staffing Shortage Survey Data
- Best Friends podcast : Keeping Families Together
Guests this week
Stacy Rogers
regional director, Great Plains and Midwest Regions, Best Friends Animal Society
Stacy Rogers is the Midwest Regional Director for Best Friends Animal Society. In this capacity, she works with shelters and rescue organizations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia to end the killing of dogs and cats in shelters.
Before joining Best Friends, Stacy was the Executive Director at Almost Home Humane Society in Lafayette, Indiana. She began her career in the kennels of Almost Home at a time when the organization's save rate hovered near 30 percent and witnessed the dramatic changes in animal welfare that resulted in the no-kill movement coming to her community. After an inspiring visit to the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Conference in 2012, Stacy led Almost Home to no-kill by focusing on gap analysis, working creatively with a small budget, and collaborating with human service agencies to keep pets out of the shelter.
Stacy lives in rural Indiana with her husband and their menagerie of pets, including three dogs, four cats, and three llamas.
Episode Transcript