Shelter Crowd Control: Keeping Community Cats Out of Shelters

January 2012

Do you want to stop the tragic deaths of shelter cats, and cut your shelter's cat intake dramatically and almost overnight? Want to practice high-volume, high-quality spay/neuter and disease management on cats? How about learning how to get your community - including municipal government - on board with trap-neuter-return programs? Want evidence that such programs can actually work to reduce the population of community cats, prevent the spread of disease, and save resources and money for local shelters?

Maddie's Institute^SM presents Shelter Crowd Control: Keeping Community Cats Out of Shelters, a free webcast with Julie Levy, DVM, Director of Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida and founder of Operation Catnip, a feral cat spay/neuter program in Gainesville, Florida. The on-demand version of this webcast is now available and can be accessed via computer or on a mobile device.

Click here to register for and watch the Shelter Crowd Control webcast

Dr. Levy will give an overview and analysis of the community cat population and examine the principles and practicalities of humane cat management.

Attendees will learn:

• How to do high-quality surgery in a high-volume environment
• How to get the most out of limited resources without cutting corners on infectious diseases, vaccination, and medical decisions
• How to get your local government on your side, including language that can be provided as sample municipal code
• Evidence that proves TNR works
• The secrets of non-lethal management of community cats, including confinement, neutering, and adoption
• What it takes to get broad-based community support for TNR

Shelter Crowd Control: Keeping Community Cats Out of Shelters is part of an ongoing series of educational programs from Maddie's Institute, a program of Maddie's Fund^®, the nation's leading funder of shelter medicine education. Maddie's Institute brings cutting edge shelter medicine information from universities and animal welfare leaders to shelter veterinarians, managers and staff as well as private practice veterinarians, rescue groups and community members to increase the lifesaving of homeless dogs and cats community-wide.

If you have questions, please contact us at institute@maddiesfund.org.

Maddie's Institute is pleased to be able to offer CE credit to veterinary professionals. In order to qualify for CE credit we ask that individuals attend and participate in the entire program and score 70% or greater on a post-test.

This program was reviewed and approved by the AAVSB RACE program for 1 hour of continuing education in jurisdictions which recognize AAVSB RACE approval. Please contact the AAVSB RACE program if you have any comments/concerns regarding this program's validity or relevancy to the veterinary profession.

This course has been pre-approved for Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits.

About the Presenter:
Julie Levy, DVM, PhD, DACVIM
Dr. Julie Levy is Director of Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida. Dr. Levy's research and clinical interests center on the health and welfare of animals in shelters, feline infectious diseases, humane alternatives for cat population control, and contraceptive vaccines for cats. She is the founder of Operation Catnip, with two university-based feral cat spay/neuter programs that have sterilized more than 45,000 cats since 1994. Dr. Levy has published more than one hundred journal articles and textbook chapters. She is the recipient of the Carl J. Norden-Pfizer Distinguished Teacher Award, Outstanding Woman Veterinarian of the Year, and the European Society of Feline Medicine Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Feline Medicine.