To provide the best possible care for animals during their stay at Broward County Animal Care, select staff is participating in the Behavior, Training, Enrichment (BTE) Bootcamp for Shelters offered by the University of California-Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program.
The six-week program allows 10 selected shelters from across the nation to work with experts to identify new ways to improve animal welfare and wellness by creating programs that enrich the animals' stay while at the shelter. It will also help establish initiatives that keep pets in their homes.
"With the training we receive from this bootcamp, our organization will be able to better care for our animals by focusing on the right place, right time, right care, and the right outcome," said Emily Wood, Director of Broward County Animal Care.
Some of the anticipated changes following the bootcamp include:
- Fear Free Shelters Training for all staff handling animals. This training helps pet professionals better understand a pet's emotional and physical wellbeing. The goal is to reduce the amount of stress that pets feel while in the shelter by embedding Fear Free training in all aspects of an animal's stay.
- Better Housing Options to make animals feel at home. This includes removing cages to create more free-roaming rooms for cats, and the use of "real life" rooms that resemble an indoor setting for dogs to help reduce shelter stress.
- Continued Enrichment to enhance positive interactions between the animals at the shelter and their future owners. This includes providing in-kennel enrichment including sense of smell and hearing stimulation, out-of-kennel training and behavior modification exercises, and more playtime.
- Population Management includes working within the shelter's capacity for care. This helps to reduce the length of stay of shelter animals and allows Animal Care to tend to an animal's medical and behavioral issues.
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