Simplifying Shelter Behaviour

In this episode, Tom is joined by Jessica Powell of Proud Paws Dog Training, a certified professional dog trainer based in Los Angeles with years of experience in a shelter behaviour department. Jessica explains why behaviour categories matter, starting with safety and clear, objective communication. When a dog has passed through animal control, medical staff and intake before anyone reads their notes, vague labels like “scared” or “aggressive” don’t help anyone know what to expect.

Jessica walks through the categories she has used, from the most basic split between easier and more challenging dogs to programmes like Blossoming Wallflowers for nervous dogs, staff-only, walking and playgroup categories. She and Tom discuss how to stop a category becoming a label: choosing kind, neutral names, keeping categories fluid as dogs change, and using them to spot stress and behavioural decline during longer stays. Jessica also makes the case for not forgetting dogs in quarantine or protective custody, who can be in the shelter for months.

The conversation then turns to the people side. Jessica and Tom talk about training volunteers without creating red tape, getting new volunteers involved early through enrichment and Click for Quiet, and building skills step by step. Jessica’s advice for getting started is to look at your population, your space and your staff’s capacity, use free education like Fear Free Shelters training, and begin with two simple categories, building from there at a pace that works for your shelter.

About Jessica Powell

Jessica (Jesse) Powell is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer and Behaviour Consultant, and the owner of Proud Paws Dog Training, serving the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. British born and raised, she helps pet parents begin, improve or repair their relationship with their dog, using a compassionate, reward- and games-based approach that gives owners insight into their dog’s personality and choices, along with practical, long-term training tools. Before going independent, Jessica worked in a shelter behaviour department, and she still volunteers at a local shelter today. She is also keen to support shelters and rescues through consultancy.

Find Jessica

• Website: proudpawsdogtraining.com
• Instagram: @proudpawsdogtraining
• Facebook: Proud Paws Dog Training
• LinkedIn: Jessica Powell

Mentioned in this episode

• Fear Free Shelters free online training
• Our earlier episode with Kelly Dunbar on Open Paw

In this episode, Tom is joined by Harleigh Garcia, founder of Border Tails Rescue in Chicago, to talk about the rescue’s partnership with the Chicago Wolves hockey team. Harleigh explains what the Wolves’ Season of Giving has meant for Border Tails. The support helps them say yes to the medical cases they’re passionate about, and it covers everyday costs like rent. She also explains why, for her, the partnership goes far beyond the donation.

The conversation then turns to Adopt-a-Dog Nights, where adoptable dogs meet fans at home games and go home with their new families the same night. Harleigh talks through how the team chooses dogs who will cope with the noise and crowds. She explains why the adoption process stays exactly the same as at the shelter, and why returns from the nights have been so rare. She and Tom also discuss returns as useful information rather than failure, and the role volunteers play in championing each dog.

Finally, Harleigh and Tom look at the bigger picture. They discuss how events like this build a community around a rescue, even among people who can’t adopt, and how they help change the idea that adopting is difficult. They also cover the other ways the Wolves support the rescue, from website features to the annual player calendar. Harleigh’s message for other shelters is to look at what’s possible locally, because community partnerships can make a real difference, even when they don’t start with a large donation.

About Harleigh

Harleigh Garcia is the founder of Border Tails Rescue in Chicago. In six years, she has built it into a rescue caring for up to 150 dogs, supported by a growing foster network and volunteer community. Border Tails has a particular focus on medical cases, taking in dogs who need long emergency stays, costly medication or surgery. The rescue is now in its fourth season of partnership with the Chicago Wolves, taking dogs to Adopt-a-Dog Nights and featuring them in the team’s annual player calendar.

Links

• Border Tails Rescue website: bordertailsrescue.org
• Border Tails Rescue on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok: @bordertailsrescue
• Read the blog, Adopt-a-Dog Nights: What a Hockey Game Can Teach Us About Rehoming: [blog link]
• Related reading, Evaluating Factors for Returning Dogs: simplifyingshelterbehaviour.com/return-shelter

In this episode, Tom is joined by Samantha Wayland of Samantha Wayland Dog Training, co-founder of the Rescue Dog Care Network (RDCN), to explore how rescue staff, volunteers and trainers can better support people adopting dogs from overseas. Drawing on her experience fostering 60 to 70 dogs, Samantha shares why preparing adopters before their dog arrives is so important, particularly when it comes to setting realistic expectations and helping experienced owners recognise that every dog is different.

They discuss how we can help adopters understand their individual dog's needs, encourage them to offer choice and go at the dog's pace, and empower them to advocate for their dog. Samantha and Tom also reflect on the value of being a sounding board for adopters overwhelmed by conflicting information, building trusting relationships so people feel able to ask for help early, and why investing time upfront saves time, and placements, later on.

about Samantha

Samantha Wayland is a dog trainer and rescue behavioural consultant based in Thurrock, Essex, and co-founder of the Rescue Dog Care Network (RDCN). Her journey began in 2015 when she and her family started fostering overseas rescue dogs, and as more fearful and shut-down dogs came into their care, Samantha immersed herself in canine behaviour, trauma-informed training and fear-free approaches. Today she specialises in nervous and shut-down dogs, supporting both dogs and their people to build trust and confidence at their own pace, and works with rescues to deliver pre-arrival sessions for adopters of overseas dogs. Her approach is force free, science led and non-judgemental, and her own rescue dog Zylvie, who arrived completely shut down, remains the inspiration behind her work.

Links

Supporting overseas rescue dogs with Toby Craze https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wNuKRbYkY6jMNghSCJXA4?si=92deb75fe500420a

Rescue dog care network

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.facebook.com/groups/997555108739648/&ved=2ahUKEwjjz57zhKaXAxXJVfEDHYRpCagQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Xk9WuSnRtOO_UEpAwYjmL

Samatha Wayland

https://www.samanthawaylanddogtraining.com

This week Tom is joined by Amy Fitzsimmons from Dog Possible Austin for a really practical chat about life for dogs in shelters. Amy brings along plenty of real dogs she has worked with, and it's their stories that shape the whole conversation, showing how small, simple changes can make a big difference to how a dog copes in kennels.

Tom and Amy talk about getting more out of the time dogs spend with staff and volunteers, why every dog doesn't need the same thing, and how slowing down can actually be better for both the dog and the person holding the lead. They also chat about the social side of shelter dogs, and why there is so much more to it than whether or not a dog can go to playgroup.

Along the way they touch on shelter culture, being open to change, and why trying the easy things first often makes the most sense. If you've ever felt there just isn't enough time in the day, this episode is full of ideas you can try tomorrow.

To find out more about Amy's work, visit dogpossibleaustin.com or follow @dogpossible on Instagram.

About Amy

Amy is a Certified Behavior Consultant Canine (CBCC-KA) through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers and a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) and Certified in Shelter Behavior (CSB-D) through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

She is also a Fear Free Certified Trainer (FFCT), a Pet Professional Guild Canine Training Professional, and holds several certificates in ethology, animal learning, and behavior from the Ethology Institute. Prior to transitioning to dog training and behavior modification full-time, Amy was a long time public educator, working in at-risk early childhood education and serving as a teen and family crisis mentor.

Her passion for providing humane, effective behavior modification and improving quality of life for dogs in homes and in shelters has only grown during well over a decade in the field. She also loves getting to work with the amazing humans who share that passion, whether for their own dogs or dogs they’re trying to help find their way home.

Amy is dog mom to elder muppet/luckdragon mix Monkey and honorary house coyote Socks!

In this episode, we're joined by researcher Lauren Powell, whose work looks at why people get pets, what they expect from them, and why so many end up back in shelters. The conversation moves through four threads: the genuine benefits pets bring to our lives, the gap between what new owners expect and what actually happens, how that gap drives relinquishment, and the specific behaviour problems that push cat owners to give up their pets.

A recurring theme in Powell's research is that people go into pet ownership more optimistic than the evidence supports. Her 2018 study of nearly 3,500 prospective dog adopters in Australia found that almost everyone expected big upsides: 89% expected more happiness, 89% expected more walking, and 74% expected less stress. Fewer people anticipated the costs, with only half expecting behaviour problems and just 64% expecting more responsibility. The counterintuitive finding is that experience didn't make people more realistic, it made them more optimistic. Current owners were less than half as likely as people who'd never owned a dog to expect increased responsibility or training difficulty. Ironically, the group with no ownership history at all turned out to have the most accurate expectations of anyone.

This matters because that gap between expectation and reality is one of the quiet drivers behind relinquishment. Powell's paper opens by citing relinquishment and euthanasia figures to make the stakes clear, and a related Dogs Trust study by Holland and colleagues backs this up: potential owners consistently reported more aspirational motivations for getting a dog than current owners did, describing companionship, health benefits and helping a dog in need at far higher rates than people already living with the reality. The takeaway Powell and her colleagues push for is straightforward: prospective owners need honest education about the day-to-day demands of pet ownership, regardless of how much prior experience they have, because that experience doesn't appear to inoculate people against unrealistic expectations.

Taken together, Powell's research paints a picture of relinquishment less as a story about difficult animals and more as a story about mismatched expectations set long before the pet arrives home, and the practical, unglamorous fix is better information given earlier.

About Dr. Lauren Powell

Dr. Lauren Powell is an Assistant Professor in Animal Welfare & Behavior and the Director of the Powell laboratory. She also serves as a faculty member for the Master of Science in Animal Welfare & Behavior program and an elected board member for the International Society for Anthrozoology. Dr. Powell received a Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Bioscience (First Class Honors) and a PhD of Public Health from the University of Sydney.

https://www.vet.upenn.edu/research/research-laboratories/powell-laboratory/https://www.vet.upenn.edu/directory/lauren-powell/https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-powell-a29448142/

About This Episode

In this episode, we're chatting with Dr. Ly about animal welfare and how research into one welfare, is changing how we think about supporting animals. We dig into the reasons why animals end up needing care, what affects whether owners can reclaim them, and the real challenges faced by caregivers looking after them. Understanding how we support owners over and above relinquishment is, in my opinion, essential to the future of our industry and I loved getting Dr Ly's view on things!

About Dr Ly

Lexis’ research focuses on ways we can use data to support One Welfare principles in animal shelters and multispecies communities. Her work supports efforts to support vulnerable human-animal bonds, help animal shelter services provide equitable services, and reduce intake to shelters. Current areas of research interest include owner relinquishment, self-rehoming, pet adoption processes, links between human and animal vulnerability, community-based support services, and access to pet care.

Lexis also has a strong interest in teaching and pedagogy. She has been a teaching assistant or co-instructor for numerous classes in the program and facilitated workshops about pedagogy for graduate students. She was honoured with the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in 2025.

In this episode, Lorenzo JW Fox and I explore coregulation, how a calm human nervous system can help a stressed dog settle and why it matters so much for shelter dogs. We talk about the quiet power of presence and touch, how Constructional Affection builds a fearful dog's comfort with people by handing them control of the interaction, and why Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed pairs so well with a coregulation approach through predictability, rhythm, and choice. The throughline is agency: helping dogs feel safe enough to regulate, then handing that skill back to them.

About Lorenzo JW Fox

He/They

Lorenzo’s childhood on a Kentucky petting zoo and cattle farm meant he was always surrounded by animals—from camels and coatimundis, to arctic foxes and water buffalo. After earning his BA, Lorenzo spent nearly a decade working with people in challenging situations like juvenile incarceration and crisis centers. Eventually, he turned his skills toward animals, specializing in resolving tough behavior issues like aggression and anxiety.

When he’s not busy working with pets, you’ll likely find Lorenzo hiking, climbing, or doing dog sports like agility, tracking, nose work, and dock diving. He’s also dedicated to caring for his diverse animal family, which includes a cockatiel, a boa, and baby tarantulas!

Me-
tiktok: 
@lorenzojw_x
ig: 

@lorenzojw_x

@summer_and_yoshi_and_rufio
Synergy Veterinary Behavior-
www.synergybehavior.com
ig & facebook:
@synergybehavior

This episode really got my brain turning! The amazing Adrian Ray-Avalani brought their linguistic background to the table and spoke to us about a parent-child communication framework that helps us support owners in our conversations, and helps owners in the conversations they have with their dogs!

Episode Summary

In this episode, Tom Candy and Kelly Dunbar to talk about Open Paw, the training and enrichment programme reshaping how rescue centres care for dogs and cats. Co-developed in the US in 2000 by behaviourist Kelly Gorman Dunbar and, British behaviourist and author Dr Ian Dunbar, Open Paw has spent over two decades proving that shelter animals don’t have to be “unlucky inmates” waiting out their stay, they can be active “students” building the social and life skills that make them irresistible to adopters.

•     What Open Paw is, a structured enrichment and training programme for shelter dogs and cats, designed to maintain good habits from previous homes and teach new ones that help animals settle into new families faster.

•     The shift in shelter philosophy, moving away from viewing animals as inmates serving time, toward treating them as students at a “university of life skills.”

•     Minimum Mental Health Requirements, how the programme sets enrichment standards to keep animals calm, stimulated, and ready to learn while in care.

•     The four-level training programme:

◦     Level 1 – Hand-feeding kibble at the kennel front, regardless of the dog’s reaction, so dogs learn to enjoy people approaching

◦     Level 2 – Calm behaviour when people enter and exit the kennel, including lead handling

◦     Level 3 – Basic commands, manners, handling, and play

◦     Level 4 – Calm, loose-lead walking, even around people and other dogs

•     Why first impressions matter, research shows potential adopters spend roughly a minute at each kennel deciding whether to meet a dog based on calm, front-facing behaviour, then make a final decision within about eight minutes of meeting them.

•     Ditching the food bowl, how feeding meals through Kongs, treat balls, and dog mazes turns mealtime into mental stimulation instead of a five-second event.

•     Toilet training and spot cleaning, how scheduled toileting breaks let kennels be spot-cleaned daily rather than fully hosed out, preserving familiar scents and freeing up staff time for training.

•     The early results, calmer, quieter dogs within 24 hours of the pilot, most clean in kennels within days, and happier staff and dogs

Kelly Dunbar is a respected behaviourist who co-founded the Open Paw programme in the United States in 2000 alongside her husband, Dr Ian Dunbar. Open Paw has since become a proven model for shelter enrichment and training, now adapted for both dogs and cats.

With 30+ years in professional dog training, and deep roots in puppy development and shelter dog programs, I now focus primarily on dog trainer mentorship, plus a limited amount of highly personalized work with dogs and households. 

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I teach dog training as a craft, not a doctrine. I’m pro-dog, anti-dogma, and I’m here for trainers who want clear standards, practical skill, better judgment, and a broader view of the work. 

My work helps dog trainers bridge the space between education and real-world practice, where handling skills, training methods, client communication, program design, and professional judgment all have to come together.

•     Open Paw at NAWT: https://www.nawt.org.uk/open-paw/

•     Before & After video — Open Paw for Dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5jmGEstyQ

•     Before & After video — Open Paw for Cats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e342PUjhX74

•     Kelly Dunbar https://www.kellydunbardogtraining.com

In This Episode, We CoverGuest BiosResources & Links

In this episode Tom is joined by Dr. Karen Griffin to discuss quality of life in shelter dogs and how her current research project is exploring this topic. Focusing on adapting Maslow's Hierarchy the research group aims to better understand QoL in dogs pre and post adoption