MAC “HOT TOPICS” MEETING:
Community Outreach and Shelter Enrichment
When: Sunday, November 8, 2015
Time: 9 am Light Breakfast; 9:30 am to 2:30 pm Meeting
Where: Agnes Varis Lecture Hall (behind Foster Small Animal Hospital – NOT the Agnes Varis Campus Center), Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, Grafton. (PLEASE NOTE: We are guests at Tufts and dogs are not allowed on campus – in classrooms or in cars.) Campus Map
Registration: Registration: REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. $15 for MAC members; $25 for non-members.
Non-members: Make your $25 meeting registration go farther – join MAC now for $10 and register for the meeting at the member price of $15. Members get special privileges. See our website for details.
Organizational members: there may be free meeting passes available to your organization as a membership benefit. Please email us at [email protected] for information on using organization passes.
More details: There will be a small raffle so bring a few bucks to buy tickets! We will serve a vegetarian/vegan lunch.
About the meeting: Our work has changed so much over the decades. Years ago, animal sheltering was not always in the business of being able to give each animal a second chance. Today, the role of animals in society is changing. Since Massachusetts has such successful spay/neuter programs, we are able to focus on individual animals and on finding them homes. For many reasons, animals stay in shelters longer. They have different needs. We have different resources. This has changed the way we shelter animals.
We are in a unique position in Massachusetts because we are considered a leader and a trendsetter. We are working more with our communities and providing enrichment to either help animals stay in their homes or become more attractive adoption candidates. Come and join us for two informative and exciting presentations that speak to these trends:
How Pets for Life Principles Can Have a Positive Impact on Your Organization: Carmine DiCenso, Executive Director, Providence Animal Rescue League
The Pets for Life Program reaches underserved communities through relationship building and door-to-door outreach, and it also embodies a valuable philosophy. It’s about how to engage people and the animals in their lives. The program challenges many of the traditional attitudes and approaches of Animal Welfare.
Pets for Life principles can be applied to other areas of humane work, like adoptions and surrender, and shape your organization’s culture. This workshop will take a look at how one organization did just that; using these philosophies to welcome adopters, collaborate with surrenders and much more.
Panel on Enrichment of Dogs and Cats in Kennel and Foster Home Settings:
Our panelists will be:
Dot Baisly, Animal Rescue League of Boston
Dr. Terri Bright, MSPCA
Katenna Jones, Jones Animal Behavior
Stacey Price, recently with Gifford Shelter
Enrichment is an important tool to have so that we can save more and more animals previously considered unadoptable or less adoptable. Our panelists will offer their suggestions for enriching the lives of animals in the community cat room and in the kennel environment. They will talk about special tricks and inexpensive products to make or buy. You will walk away with so many ideas that your tail will be wagging!
About our speakers and panelists:
Carmine DiCenso brings almost twenty years of experience in the animal welfare and human services fields to the Providence Animal Rescue League (PARL). With a bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Suffolk University, his proven experience in human services is now applied to strengthening the human-animal bond issues that animal welfare faces today. He believes that working closely and respectfully with people is the best way to help animals in need, and calls upon his experience and training every day at PARL.
Carmine is currently a Board Member of the New England Federation of Humane Society, Secretary of the Ocean State Animal Coalition, and the Rhode Island representative on the HSUS Companion Animal Advisory Council.
Dot Baisly is the behavior and enrichment manager for the Animal Rescue League of Boston shelters. he over sees the behavioral care for all the animals cared for within 3 shelters. Her career in animal welfare started many years ago working for the ARL part time while in college. Since then she has worked many aspects of animal care. She holds a master’s degree in behavioral biology from Tufts University and is a Certified Dog Trainer. Prior to returning to the ARL this year she worked as the behavior coordinator for a large animal shelter in Westchester County in NY. Since coming back to MA she has enjoyed her role working with staff and volunteers in training and helping not only dogs, but all the other animals that can find themselves at the shelter. She truly enjoys her role because she can work so closely with the felines and their advocates. Most recently she has started clicker training not only for dogs in the shelter but cats, too. This provides enrichment and behavior modification for many of the feline residents and the volunteers love it too!
Terri Bright, Ph.D., BCBA-D earned her Master’s of Science degree and Ph. D. at Simmons College in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) with an animal specialty, and she is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) and a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB). She teaches Behavior Analysis at Northeastern University, and lectures nationally on the subject of Applied Animal Behavior Analysis. She is the President of the Applied Animal Behavior Special Interest Group in the Association of Applied Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), and her dissertation research entailed developing an dog behavior assessment and analysis tool that will help to standardize how dog trainers evaluate why problem behaviors happen.
She has been training dogs as a hobby and professionally for many years and has had a private animal behavior practice that includes all manner of behavior issues for over ten years. Her own dogs, all Bull Terriers, have competed in Obedience, Agility and/or conformation, with great results. Her dog Fanny was the top Agility Bull Terrier in the U.S. in 2006 and 2007. Her rescued dog, Pepper, helped to teach Terri how to train and manage human- and dog-aggressive dogs, and Terri’s youngest dog, Radio, is a breed champion and has been the subject of Terri’s research on stimulus equivalence (matching-to-sample training) that garnered Terri a Marian Breland Bailey (MBB) Award from the Association of Applied Behavior Analysis International (ABAI). Terri won another MBB Award from ABAI for her research on the use of errorless teaching to train a Shelter dog to sit at the sound of a bell (“Pavlov’s Shelter”) when she was not in the dog’s sight. She uses evidence-based methods of training.
Terri launched the Training Department at the MSPCA-Boston location in 2007, and, with a phalanx of crackerjack training instructors, has grown the program to over 30 classes a week. She helps to evaluate homeless dogs surrendered at the MSPCA for proper placement, and designs training and enrichment programs for dogs at the MSPCA. She also designs and implements curriculum and teaching for staff and volunteers in the “Safewalk” program, which she created in 2009, and which has increased the adoption rates of Shelter dogs. She is currently the Director of the Behavior Department at MSPCA/Angell, and sees private clients there with their dogs and cats who have behavioral issues.
Through her business Jones Animal Behavior, Katenna Jones provides private dog and cat behavior consulting services, group classes, and seminars at both local and national events. Katenna is the former Director of Educational Programs for the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, Animal Behaviorist for the American Humane Association, and Behaviorist and Investigator for the RISPCA. She has been involved in animal sheltering and rescue since 2000, is a disaster responder, is author of Fetching the Perfect Dog Trainer: Getting the Best for You and Your Dog and has contributed to numerous local and national publications. Katenna earned her Master’s from Brown University where she studied animal behavior, learning and cognition. She is an Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, Certified Cat and Dog Behavior Consultant, and Certified Pet Dog Trainer. She shares her RI home with her husband, two adopted cats, and adopted dog.
Seven years ago, Stacey Price left her corporate career to pursue her passion and work in animal welfare. She brings over ten years of professional experience in business development, finance and marketing to the animal welfare field, in addition to three years serving as Animal Welfare Director for one of the nation’s few open-admission, no-kill animal shelters in Washington State. There, she led the shelter’s initiative to reduce euthanasia from double-digits to a no-kill model, while maintaining quality of care for over 5,000 animals a year. During this time she instituted the shelter’s behavior program for both cats and dogs as well as their community cats program. Her most recent role includes overseeing Gifford Cat Shelter operations, a no-kill cageless cat shelter in Brighton, and creating a volunteer led feline enrichment program.
Price earned her MBA from Clarkson University and her B.S. in Marketing from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Since then she has clocked over 500 hours of continuing education credits focused on various animal welfare topics, including shelter management, behavior, fostering, advocacy and animal health and is a member of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) and BoardSource. In 2010, Price received the national Business Journal’s “40 Under 40 Award.”
A New York native, she returned to Massachusetts in 2013 with her three shelter cats (Gaffney, Tannis and Whitespire) and two dogs (Lucie and Zen).