Shelter & Rescue Training

The Michigan Pet Alliance Shelter & Rescue Training Program teaches your management, staff and volunteers how to address the psychological needs and welfare of the animals in your care, while considering the physical opportunities and limitations of your shelter or rescue.

Whether you prefer a one-on-one session with a certified trainer, a small classroom setting, a large seminar or an online webinar, Michigan Pet Alliance offers a variety of engaging instructor-led courses with real-time feedback and real-world assignments so you can immediately apply what you’ve learned through each course.

Canine Training Sessions for Shelters and Rescues

Individuals who successfully complete the two-day, six-course Canine Certification Bundle will receive a certificate of achievement recognizing them as a certified – canine humane caregiver (CCHC).

Canine Certification Bundle:

Canine Body Language (Available online or in person)

Body language is the primary way that dogs communicate. Understanding the body language of dogs in our care is key to being able to develop treatment and behavior modification plans for our dogs. When we know how our dogs are feeling and what our dogs are saying to us, we can learn to interact with them in ways that keep people and animals safe and that can encourage trust and confidence. Making sure that our staff and volunteers have a strong understanding of body language is the best way to offer high-quality care to our dog population.

Key takeaways:  

  • Identify fear, stress and anxiety in dogs
  • Identify comfort and relaxation in dogs
  • Subtleties of dog body language in a shelter or rescue setting
  • Deeper understanding of a dog’s needs
  • Ability to make better decisions for the dogs in your care

Prerequisites: This session is a prerequisite for all other training sessions in the dog training series.

Session length: 2 hours plus an additional hour to view and discuss dogs in person.

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Access to dogs.

Stress Reduction (Available online or in person)

Stress is the body’s way of protecting itself because it activates the fight or flight response. It’s the body’s response to a perceived threat, but the risks and consequences of chronic or prolonged stress can be detrimental to any animal’s physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing. It’s our responsibility to limit and reduce stress for the animals in our care as much as possible. And, the good news is that we can help animals be more resilient to stress.

Key takeaways:  

  • Definition of stress: what it is and what it looks like
  • Consequences of stress on the dog’s body and mind
  • Risks of chronic stress
  • Stress reduction techniques and resources

Prerequisite: Body Language

Session length: 3 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Access to dogs.

Safe and Humane Handling (Available online or in person)

From a dog’s perspective, being handled by strangers is stressful. Lowering stress levels and handling with care are paramount to a dog’s behavior. Body language knowledge, trained staff and volunteers, proper equipment, solid plans, good communication, and people and time resources are necessary to implement a safe and humane handling policy and program.

Key takeaways:  

  • Definition of safe and humane handling and why it’s so important
  • Moving and handling dogs with the least restraint possible
  • Prioritization of comfort and safety when handling dogs
  • techniques for safely approaching and moving dogs
  • Use of safe handling tools
  • Resources to problem solve

Prerequisite: Body Language

Session length: 2 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Access to dogs.

Force-free Training (Available online or in person)

Training programs are a critical component to the success of all shelters and rescues. Equally important is the type of training that’s used. The animal welfare industry is pushing the use of fear, pain and intimidation as a training method out of sheltering and rescue and is welcoming force-free training programs. Transforming and enhancing training programs can be challenging amid the nonstop responsibilities we all have. First, we must understand the basics of how animals learn and how training works to change behavior.

Key takeaways:  

  • Difference between force-free training and balanced training
  • Why force-free training is critical to your behavior program
  • Changing behavior without fear or intimidation
  • How animals learn
  • How training changes behavior
  • Tips and tricks to make training more enjoyable, more effective and efficient
  • Tools to help you problem solve
  • Improving animal welfare for shelter/rescue animals
  • Benefits of enrichment,
  • Specific types of enrichment, implementation and problem solving
  • Force-free methods can be fun, efficient and effective

Prerequisite: Body Language

Session length: 3 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Access to dogs.

Canine Enrichment (Available online or in person)

The benefits of enrichment are many:

  • Improve physical and psychological health
  • Encourage natural behaviors
  • Reduce illness
  • Improve cage behavior
  • Increase adoptability, confidence and sociability
  • Decrease length of stay

Enrichment is easy to do and doesn’t need to cost your shelter a lot of money. An enrichment program can be run entirely by volunteers, if needed. Learning the variety of enrichment and how to offer and document your efforts will make your enrichment program efficient and fun for both the cats and the people providing care..

Key takeaways:  

  • Understand that stress reduction and enrichment are two different things
  • Benefits of enrichment
  • Create and implement an enrichment program
  • Learn to document enrichment efforts for efficiency and success
  • Learn how to engage all senses with your enrichment program
  • Specific types of enrichment and DIY enrichment
  • How to use feeding puzzles
  • How to enrich physical spaces
  • Understand the importance of play and human interaction as enrichment
  • Using kennel breaks
  • Clicker training as enrichment
  • How to use volunteers for your enrichment program
  • Problem solving

Prerequisites: Body Language, Force Free Training, Safe and Humane Handling, and Stress Reduction

Session length: 2 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Canine Behavior Modification (Available online or in person)

Stress, depression and unwanted behaviors in homeless dogs are most often caused by the stress of being in the shelter or rescue environment. We create treatment, management and modification plans to lessen that stress, offer our dogs more control and help them learn ways to cope with that stress while in our care. Understanding that kennel behavior is often not true behavior is important. We must diagnose issues and find resolutions for them through observation and intervention to help our dogs find homes and save lives..

Key takeaways:

  • A process to help make responding to problem behaviors more effective
  • A process to improve training outcomes and communication among staff and volunteers
  • Through daily rounds and input from staff and volunteers, we can discover issues that need attention
  • Learn what behaviors of concern look like and how to treat them
  • Learn to create a system to identify and address common behavior problems
  • Implementation of safety and management plans
  • How to efficiently and effectively change behavior
  • Learn how to write training and management plans to improve communication within your organization
  • Prioritization and prognosis for common behavior problems
  • Ways to work with shy or timid dogs and puppies
  • Understand how to help frustrated dogs
  • How to manage dogs with a lower handling threshold
  • How to identify and treat depression in dogs in the shelter
  • The importance of housing for stress reduction
  • Play therapy and time out of kennel as treatment
  • Simple clicker training as treatment
  • Working with volunteers in your behavior modification program

Prerequisites: Body Language, Force Free Training, Safe and Humane Handling, and Stress Reduction 

Session length: 4 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Additional Canine Training Sessions:

Dog Intros and Playtime (Available in person only)

Dogs are one of the most social species on the planet. The benefits of dog-dog interactions for welfare and enrichment and the downsides to social isolation must be addressed in sheltering and rescue. Playgroups and playtime also provide exercise and additional outlets for built-up frustration and energy. Learn how to safely perform a dog-dog introduction and run a playgroup, as well as alternatives to playgroups for organizations with limited resources or for dogs who are not candidates for playgroups.

Key takeaways:  

  • Play as therapy and enrichment
  • Benefits of social interactions among dogs
  • Perform safe playgroups

Prerequisites: Body Language, Force Free Training, Safe and Humane Handling, and Stress Reduction

Session length: 6-8 hours

In-person session requirements: Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Access to dogs and play yard.

Scentwork in a Shelter or Rescue: Use a Dog’s Nose to Build Confidence, Minimize Stress and Calm Inappropriate Behaviors to Increase Adoptability (Available online or in person)

Unfamiliar environments, like an animal shelter or foster home, can be very overwhelming, which can exacerbate an already anxious dog and bring out undesirable behaviors. Certified dog trainer and author Laurie Horn will show your staff, volunteers and fosters how engaging a dog’s most powerful sense, their sense of smell, can make the dogs in your care more adoptable. In this session, you will learn how to easily establish a scentwork program with minimal effort and zero budget.

Dog looking at treat under mini cone

Benefits of Scentwork in your shelter or foster homes:

  • Build confidence in fearful and timid dogs
  • Calm the over-stimulated dogs
  • Reduce behavioral issues
  • Slow the cognitive decline in seniors
  • Minimize stress
  • Decrease length of stay

Session includes (in-person only): A scent kit and copy of the book, “Scent 4 Shelter Dogs” by Laurie Horn, CPDT-KA (not included with online session)

Session length: 2 hours for in-person presentation and hands-on participation (time can vary depending on size of group and facility); 90 minutes for online presentation.

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall. Dogs, various sizes of cardboard boxes, tennis balls and a variety of treats.

Scent 4 Shelter Dogs - Book Cover

Feline Training Sessions for Shelters and Rescues

Individuals who successfully complete the two-day, six-course Feline Certification Bundle will receive a certificate of achievement recognizing them as a certified – feline humane caregiver (CFHC).

Feline Certification Bundle:

Feline Body Language: Understanding Cat Body Language from Tail to Nose (Available online or in person)

Understanding the body language of cats in your care is key to being able to develop treatment and modification plans, best housing, care and best outcomes for your cats. When we know what our cats are saying to us, we can learn to interact with them in ways that keep people safe and that can encourage trust and confidence. Making sure that your staff and volunteers have a strong understanding of body language is the best way to offer high-quality care to your cat population.

Cat laying down in front of laptop

Key takeaways:

  • Learn the subtleties of cat body language in a shelter setting
  • Learn how to safely care in your population
  • Deeper understanding of your cat’s needs
  • The ability to make better decisions for your cats

Prerequisite:  This session is a prerequisite for all other training sessions in the cat training series.

Session length:  2 hours, ideally with an additional hour to view and discuss cats in shelter (depending on the number of cats in shelter).

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Stress-free Basic Cat Care: Basics of Providing Low Stress Care for Your Cat Population (Available online or in person)

Offering low stress care and handling to the cats in your cat population has many benefits, including lower illness rates, more confident cats with more predictable behaviors and reduced length of stay. This course will cover housing considerations for lower stress, appropriate cage set up and housing for specific behaviors and what to consider when using group or communal housing. We’ll talk about out-of-cage time, healthy social interactions and some basics of physical care that can all lead to a healthier, happier cat population.

Key takeaways:

  • An understanding of how to set up housing that reduces stress
  • Know the benefits and downfalls of group or communal housing
  • How to organize cage breaks and out-of-cage time appropriately
  • Learn how and why to offer consistency in physical care
  • Learn some tips for caring for cage-aggressive cats
  • Understand why spot cleaning is preferred over full cage cleaning
  • Learn some minimal handling techniques to keep staff safe and cats happy

Prerequisites:  Feline Body Language

Session length:  2 hours, ideally with an additional hour for in-shelter walk-through to evaluate and offer tips (depending on size and quantity of cat housing).

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Feline Enrichment and Stress Reduction: Reduce Illness, Improve Behavior and Decrease Length of Stay for Shelter and Rescue Cats (Available online or in person)

The benefits of enrichment are many:

  • Improve physical and psychological health
  • Encourage natural behaviors
  • Reduce illness
  • Improve cage behavior
  • Increase adoptability, confidence and sociability
  • Decrease length of stay

Enrichment is easy to do and doesn’t need to cost your shelter a lot of money. An enrichment program can be run entirely by volunteers, if needed. Learning the variety of enrichment and how to offer and document your efforts will make your enrichment program efficient and fun for both the cats and the people providing care.

Key takeaways:

  • Understand that stress reduction and enrichment are two different things
  • Learn to document enrichment efforts for efficiency and success
  • Learn how to engage all senses with your enrichment program
  • Find some great ways to create DIY enrichment
  • How to use feeding puzzles
  • How to enrich physical spaces
  • Understand the importance of play and human interaction as enrichment
  • Using cage breaks
  • Clicker training as enrichment
  • How to use volunteers for your enrichment program

Prerequisites:  Feline Body Language

Session length:  2 hours 

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Feline Behavior Assessments: Using History and Observed Behavior to Find the Best Outcomes for Cats in Your Care (Available online or in person)

Through observation, interaction and collecting a detailed history, we can provide our adopters with baseline behavior information on the cats in our care. The days of using formalized assessments meant to predict aggression are gone. It’s time to get to know our cats based on the behaviors they offer, the history we’re able to collect and the progress they make while in our care. This offers us a chance to really get to know our cats, create plans that will help them succeed and offer a more accurate snapshot of who they are to our adopters.

Key takeaways:

  • Collecting the most detailed history possible on cats surrendered by owner
  • Understanding the importance of intake and shelter exams
  • How to gather information from your care staff and volunteers
  • What kind of information to look for
  • Know when to move a cat to adoption and when to offer treatment
  • Learn how to fast track your easier cats
  • Clear steps to adoption for every cat in your care
  • Uncover the benefits of working closely with volunteers

Prerequisites:  Feline Body Language and Stress-free Basic Cat Care

Session length:  2 hours, ideally with an additional hour of in-shelter training (depending on the size of cat population). 

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Feline Behavior Modification and Management: Creating and Implementing Treatment Plans (Available online or in person)

Aggression, depression and unwanted behaviors in shelter cats are most often caused by the stress of being in the shelter. We create treatment, management and modification plans to lessen that stress, offer our cats more control and help them learn ways to cope with that stress while in our care. Understanding that cage behavior is not often true behavior is important. We must diagnose issues and find resolutions for them through observation and intervention to help our cats find homes and save lives.

Key takeaways:

  • Through daily rounds and input from staff and volunteers, we can discover issues that need attention
  • Learn what behaviors of concern look like and how to treat them
  • Ways to work with fearful cats and kittens
  • Understand how to help frustrated cats
  • How to manage cats with a lower handling threshold
  • How to identify and treat depression in cats in the shelter
  • The importance of housing for stress reduction
  • Play therapy and time out of cage as treatment
  • Simple clicker training as treatment
  • Working with volunteers in your behavior modification program

Prerequisites:  Feline Body Language and Stress-free Basic Cat Care. Feline Behavior Assessments session recommended.

Session length:  2 hours 

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Clicker Training and Positive Reinforcement: Increase Confidence, Decrease Unwanted Behaviors and Reduce Length of Stay in Your Cat Population (Available online or in person)

We can use clicker training as a way to enrich our cat’s environment, increase confidence, reduce unwanted behaviors and create a bond with the cats in our care. When using clicker training and positive reinforcement with shelter cats, our goal isn’t to teach them repeatable skills, although that can often be the by-product. Rather, the goal is to create an environment for them where they are free to choose and are rewarded for offering behaviors that we’d like to see repeated, creating more resilient, confident and social cats for our adopters.

Key takeaways:

  • What is positive reinforcement and how can we use it to help our cats
  • Learning the basics of clicker training, using a marker to reinforce a behavior
  • Finding good reinforcers
  • How to deliver reinforcers
  • What to do if you can’t find the right reinforcer
  • How to conduct a clicker training session
  • Documenting training
  • Capturing, shaping and using targeting in clicker training
  • Skills and games for different personalities
  • Tips for working with shy cats and frustrated cats

Prerequisite:  Feline Body Language

Session length:  2 hours, ideally with an additional hour of in-shelter training (depending on the size of cat population). 

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Additional Feline Training Sessions:

Creating and Managing a Well-rounded Cat Program: Keep Your Population Behaviorally Sound and Find Homes Faster (Available online or in person)

Having a defined cat behavior program will serve to find cats homes faster, keep your population behaviorally sound and allow you time to find the best outcome for all of the cats in your care. Through daily rounds, record keeping and the creation of treatment and modification plans, you’ll be able to quickly know which cats in your care are at high risk and which cats can move through to adoption without barriers. It will also reduce your length of stay and ensure that your cats are receiving the behavioral support that they need.

Key takeaways:

  • Learn efficient methods of record keeping
  • Understand the benefits of daily physical rounds of your cat population
  • Find where treatments, modification and assessments can fit in your behavior program
  • Learn how outcome decisions can be made efficiently
  • Uncover the benefits of working closely with volunteers

Session length:  2 hours

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Creating a Successful Barn Cat Program: Saving More Lives Through Non-traditional Placement (Available online or in person)

Barn cat adoption programs are inexpensive to start and can be one of the best ways to save more lives in your shelter. We know that socializing feral or very poorly socialized cats is both extremely difficult and reduces our already thin resources. Euthanasia isn’t the answer. Finding them homes in an environment that they understand and that offers them a chance to thrive is the very best way to increase adoptions and save more lives.

Key takeaways of creating a successful barn cat program training:

  • The difference between return to field, colony release and barn adoption
  • Selecting cats for non-traditional placement
  • How to manage feral kittens that enter your program
  • Discussing social cats as barn cats
  • How your assessment and observations help to decide outcomes
  • Housing of barn cats
  • What medical needs should we focus our resources on
  • Recruiting adopters
  • Adoption requirements
  • Adoption process
  • How to acclimate barn cats
  • Supporting adopters
  • Handling objections to outdoor cats

Session length:  2.5 hours 

In-person session requirements:  Meeting room with screen or projecting wall.

Sessions can be customized to meet your specific needs. Click the Inquire Here button and let’s talk!