Shelter medicine saves lives

To pinpoint where your shelter needs the most support, we’ll send Best Friends staff (most often a veterinarian and a vet tech) to do an on-site, multiday assessment. They’ll ask what areas you want to focus on: program efficiency, staffing, disease prevention and management, healthy housing, population management, and/or animal health. 

After the assessment, they’ll meet with shelter leadership and your medical staff to help identify priorities and find the resources you need to target those areas. Ongoing follow-up can include staff training, help with protocol design and implementation, and targeted programs that address medical populations.

Who should enroll?

If you are a veterinarian or a technician/assistant working in a shelter surgical program with little-to-no previous high-volume experience, or if you plan to start a program, this workshop is for you. We also welcome those wanting to increase their surgical capacity from moderate to high-volume, using improvements in surgical and/or program efficiency.

This four-day workshop focuses on surgical techniques for veterinarians. We also offer an optional technician training component on HQHVSN anesthesia, surgical support, and clinic flow. Workshop attendees will earn 20 hours of RACE-approved CE credit. 

The current workshop venue is the Best Friends Lifesaving Center in Houston; however, future workshops may be available at our center in Northwest Arkansas or Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. On-site training at your own shelter may be available in California, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Utah, or New York. Please inquire directly about training in those states.

What shelters should enroll?

If your shelter’s goal is to increase lifesaving capacity or start a basic shelter medical program, we can certainly help. Our program is targeted toward improving efficiency, reducing infectious disease, and expanding proactive population management. 

Are you a solo veterinarian who wants to bounce ideas off another experienced shelter vet? This mentorship is for you. 

Would you like to begin a ringworm or parvo program, but don’t know where to start? We have the resources you need. Sign right up! 

Our virtual mentorships are geared to address the challenges at your shelter: capacity challenges, length of stay, pet health, and adoption and transfer outcomes. 

We’d love to help you tackle population management, program implementation, lifesaving medical programs and more. On-site support may also be available. Just ask!

Who should enroll?

Shelters trying to improve medical programs or start new medical programs will benefit from our virtual mentorships, where we explore your needs and help create lifesaving improvements. If you want to get proactive with population management, you can request on-site support to help get that program going. 

We’ll help you address animal flow and daily population rounds. Targeted advice can really streamline the process and save more lives! 

Are you seeing more sick pets than usual? Are your pets showing more severe clinical signs? We know a lot about best practices for outbreak response and general management. We’ll help you solve the very real challenges posed by infectious diseases that affect pet health and happiness in your shelter.

Who should request these services? 

If you suspect an outbreak of infectious disease in your pet population, please consider an expert consultation. We’ll help you use your limited resources most effectively and thereby achieve the fastest resolution to the outbreak. If you want to decrease infectious diseases in general and aren’t sure where to start, we can help!

Just a few short years ago, cats and dogs were killed in staggering numbers in this country simply because shelters didn't have the community support or the resources to save their lives. That number is now less than half a million per year, but there’s still work to do to ensure a bright future for every dog and cat in America.

Best Friends operates the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals and is committed to saving the lives of homeless pets by working with shelters and passionate people like you. Together, we will bring the whole country to no-kill in 2025. Together, we will Save Them All.