The pandemic stopped many things in our personal and professional lives, including animal welfare conferences. We were lucky to have virtual options to help tide us over, but there's something different about being together in person.

So with in-person travel and meetings starting to come back, there's a good chance you will be attending a conference this year. As it's been a while, you may be feeling overwhelmed at the thought of it all. We know we are! 

We thought we'd ask some of the wisest professionals in animal welfare for their tips on how to get the most out of your conference experiences. 

Are you interested in attending the 2022 Best Friends National Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina? To see the schedule, speakers, travel information, and more, check out the website: bestfriends.org/conference

Helping people and pets in rural America comes with many challenges. For example, how do you offer even the most basic veterinary services when there are no vets who can help within 100 miles, and buying a transport van is a pipe dream? How do you recruit new foster homes when you've already asked everyone in town? Reassigning staff to support new programs can be a valuable strategy, but how can you when overburdened employees already perform several roles - everything from animal care to adoptions, volunteer coordinator, and fundraiser?

What are the best practices in rural shelters, and how do they differ from those in larger communities? And what can we all do to support the lifesaving organizations in those communities? Learning from those who have found ways to overcome the obstacles is a good place to start!

This week, we head to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to speak with the executive director for the Good Shepherd Humane Society, Cole Wakefield, to learn more about what it's like to save lives in the Ozarks.

For more lifesaving resources related to this episode, check out the website for The Best Friends Podcast: bestfriends.org/podcast

Most estimates say that the number of lost pets each year is roughly 10 million. One in every three pets will be lost at some point. These staggering statistics are more than just numbers on a page - each one is a pet with a loving family desperate to find them and bring them home safely.

Unfortunately, the number of lost pets in shelters which make it home is very low. The number of lost dogs getting home has improved in the last few years, but the odds of a lost owned cat in a shelter being reunited with its owner is just 2%.

This week we're focusing on lost cats and how we can improve our strategies to get more of them back home. We spoke with someone who has helped thousands of cats get home, Lost Cat Finder Kim Freeman

To learn more about Kim, check out her website: lostcatfinder.com

You can find resources related to this episode on The Best Friends Podcast website: network.bestfriends.org/proven-strategies/best-friends-podcast/best-friends-podcast-ep-107

Last week we heard all about the Best Friends shelter collaborative program. This peer-based mentorship model pairs up shelters with a track record of lifesaving success with shelters in need of the expertise and support a knowledgeable mentor can offer.

Best Friends is planning to grow the shelter collaborative program this year, but you don’t need to be officially part of this program to pair up and save lives.

This week we hear from Shelbi Waters, the executive director of Souris Valley Animal Shelter in Minot, North Dakota, and Kasey Renteria, the executive director of Ardmore Animal Shelter in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Hear how these two leaders forged a relationship that will save the lives of dogs and cats for years to come.

Check out the website for The Best Friends Podcast: bestfriends.org/podcast

Collaboration comes in many forms. Maybe the most common type of collaboration in our work is through a coalition—an often large group comprised of stakeholders teaming up to achieve a broader, shared goal of community-wide success.

Another approach to working together is the Best Friends shelter collaborative program, where strategic matches are made between two organizations. One shelter that has a proven track record of achieving and sustaining the 90% benchmark is paired with a shelter that is still working its way toward the goal.

It’s all about judgment-free support, driven by the shared goal of saving every pet that can be saved. Next week we’ll hear from two different organizations currently in this program. This week we get the details from Carrie Ducote, the national senior strategist with the shelter collaborative team at Best Friends.

You can reach out to the shelter collaborative team by email: sheltercollaborative [AT] bestfriends [DOT] org

Check out the podcast website: bestfriends.org/podcast

It’s not easy to take risks, especially if you’re someone who prefers the familiar. But believing that change isn’t necessary because “this is how we’ve always done it” can be detrimental to your lifesaving efforts.

Our field is constantly evolving, and to save as many lives as possible, we have to be willing to try new approaches, even when that means going beyond our comfort zone.

This week we’re joined by two risk-takers, Stacy Rogers and Makena Yarbrough from Best Friends. We talk about why it’s so important to take risks and how to do it smartly.

Share your stories with us of when taking risks resulted in success (and failure). You could be featured in an upcoming episode! Email: [email protected]

Check out the website for The Best Friends Podcast: bestfriends.org/podcast

Community-supported sheltering is being talked about a lot right now, but it’s not a fad. Instead, it’s a natural shift in modern sheltering, as we go beyond the walls of our organizations and engage the myriad stakeholders to help us save more lives.

When the shelter, field services, government, rescue organizations, the public, social service organizations, and others come together to save lives, it’s not only a beautiful thing. It’s a recipe that can help you achieve and sustain your lifesaving.

This week we're sharing a recent Best Friends Network town hall that focused on community-supported sheltering, what it is all about, and how you can engage new partners and the public in your mission to save lives.

Register for the next Best Friends Network town hall, "Using transparency to empower and support your community" here: https://bit.ly/3643ZY6

This week is part two from our conversation with Julie Castle, the CEO of Best Friends (if you missed part one that focused on pay inequality, check that out here: https://network.bestfriends.org/proven-strategies/best-friends-podcast/best-friends-podcast-ep-100).

This part of the interview seemed to be especially fitting this week, given the events in animal welfare and the world-at-large, as Julie talks about hope, Jane Goodall, and the power of belief.

This week we're dipping into the archives to revisit one of our earliest episodes, and one that is also one of the most downloaded ever. So if you caught this the first time or not, we encourage you to give this one a listen.

It was June of 2020, and the nation was gripped by racial tension and division exacerbated by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man in Minneapolis. Days of protests and demonstrations in all fifty states demanded an end to police brutality. It underscored the dire need to take action to break down institutionalized racism and the treatment of people of color in American society.

As the focus turned to animal welfare, our industry, arguably for the first time, began looking introspectively at the severe lack of diversity and inclusion, both in our staffing and how we relate to the communities we serve, and how that has impacted our communities, and our organizations.

As our guest James Evans, the CEO of CARE, said, the number of pet-loving people of color is in the tens of millions, and addressing this is crucial to ending the killing of pets in our nation's shelters. Moreover, it is a moral imperative for all of us.

**Check out resources and more related to the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion on the website: https://network.bestfriends.org/proven-strategies/best-friends-podcast/best-friends-podcast-ep-101

It's episode number 100 of The Best Friends Podcast, and we are thrilled to welcome back Julie Castle, the CEO of Best Friends Animal Society.

Our conversation for this episode focused on a new compensation program rolled out at Best Friends, which raises the pay ranges for hourly animal caregiving staff and veterinary technicians.

Julie talks about something she calls the "poverty headspace" and why the entire field must break away from the belief that animal care roles are "front-line" entry-level positions. Instead, she hopes we will all see that providing for sentient creatures' physical, emotional, and medical needs is truly the heart of what we do.

For resources, bios, transcripts, and more check out the website: bestfriends.org/podcast