Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Shelter Consultation Mentorships

Are you an experienced shelter professional interested in gaining skills to share your expertise with other animal shelters via professional consultation? Have you wanted to understand the best approach to an unbiased assessment of your own organization? Are you a veterinary specialist in training, looking for experiences to meet your credentialing requirements? Maddie’s® Million Pet Challenge Shelter Consultation Mentorships may be a great choice for you and your organization!

You bring the motivation and we’ll bring an immersive training experience!

Phase 1: The Foundational Course

Training begins with the Foundational Course, in which mentees complete an online self-study program, required reading, and the Fear Free Shelters Program, and is available to anyone free-of-charge. Trainees who complete the Foundational Course are eligible to apply for one of the limited number of positions in the Advanced Course. 

Phase 2: The Advanced Course

Mentees admitted to the Advanced Course will participate side-by-side with shelter medicine faculty and expert consultants in a professional assessment of a client animal shelter. Mentees will develop an understanding and appreciation for the challenges shelter leaders face while working to meet the needs of animals and their families inside and outside the shelter.

Mentees will then participate in an on-site visit to the shelter and collaborate in designing practical recommendations designed to optimize shelter operations, including recommendations on topics such as sanitation, environmental controls, nutrition, medical and surgical protocols, animal handling, transport,  facility design, housing, preventative health care protocols, and infectious disease control. 

Are you ready to increase your observation skills, research capability, knowledge of shelter operations guidelines, communication skills, animal data interpretation, and analysis of shelter systems to help make shelters more efficient, safer, and better at helping animals and their people?