Interview! Juan Martinez, Founder and President, JMart Strategies "Pick one platform, become really good at that platform, before you expand into a second one." With his 20 years of experience in the legislative and non-profit communications world, Juan has keen insight into the importance of storytelling in the world of social media. He notes that social media has made communicating with your audiences much easier, but that it's critical to understand the various social media platforms, their d...
Oct 18, 2016•24 min
Interview! Brianna Lovell, Outreach and Events Manager, at Alley Cat Allies "No action is too big or too small." To commemorate National Feral Cat Day (NFCD), Stacy speaks with Brianna about the origins of this annual event. Originally, National Feral Cat Day was simply a way to celebrate Alley Cat Allies' 10th anniversary, but in the years following that, it's become a catalyst for groups to undertake a variety of projects that educate the community or help cats directly. Brianna notes that ind...
Oct 15, 2016•21 min
Interview! Amy Sandler, Executive Coach, and Certified Breathwork Meditation Teacher "Usually our minds are somewhere in the past or somewhere in the future." In this "out of the box" interview, Stacy speaks with Amy Sandler about how mindfulness and meditation can help decrease the stress and manage the challenges often faced by those in the animal welfare field. Research has shown that mindfulness can increase our focus, resilience, creativity, and performance. It's important, Amy notes, that ...
Oct 14, 2016•21 min
Interview! Hannah Shaw, "The Kitten Lady" "I live and breathe cat advocacy…that's what I do." Little did Hannah Shaw know that the day that she borrowed some shoes to climb a tree and save an orphaned kitten, she would be starting a career that would inform and engage cat lovers around the world. An expert in saving and raising kittens, Hannah teaches workshops, develops programs, and shares compelling (and adorable!) content through her significant social media and web presence. In this two par...
Oct 13, 2016•21 min
Interview! Hannah Shaw, "The Kitten Lady" "I live and breathe cat advocacy…that's what I do." Little did Hannah Shaw know that the day that she borrowed some shoes to climb a tree and save an orphaned kitten, she would be starting a career that would inform and engage cat lovers around the world. An expert in saving and raising kittens, Hannah teaches workshops, develops programs, and shares compelling (and adorable!) content through her significant social media and web presence. In this two par...
Oct 12, 2016•19 min
Interview - Part One! Mary Smith, Executive Leadership Team and Sheila D'Arpino, Director of Research, of Maddie's Fund In this special two-part episode of the Community Cats Podcast, Stacy interviews two leaders at Maddie's Fund, one of the most innovative and results-oriented non-profits helping animals across North America. Through its educational programs, advocacy and grants, Maddie's Fund has been a game-changer for both owned and community cats, especially through its "Million Cat Challen...
Oct 11, 2016•20 min
Interview - Part One! Mary Smith, Executive Leadership Team and Sheila D'Arpino, Director of Research, of Maddie's Fund In this special two-part episode of the Community Cats Podcast, Stacy interviews two leaders at Maddie's Fund, one of the most innovative and results-oriented non-profits helping animals across North America. Through its educational programs, advocacy and grants, Maddie's Fund has been a game-changer for both owned and community cats, especially through its "Million Cat Challen...
Oct 08, 2016•19 min
Interview! Cindy Wiemann, Treasurer of the National Animal Care and Control Association (NACA) Cindy was instrumental to bringing TNR to the small community of Madison, Georgia. She helped research the appropriate ordinances, and ultimately Madison implemented the first 100% government operated and funded TNR program in Georgia's history. As an animal control officer, she promoted about the great contribution that community cats provide: controlling and managing the rodent population. By using t...
Oct 07, 2016•24 min
Interview! Blake and Adrienne Kuhre, Founders of the Furry Foundation Blake and Adrienne are the founders of the Furry Foundation, a non-profit, foster care organization in Los Angeles focused on TNR, cat socialization, and educating the community on proper colony cat care and prevention. After visiting Buenos Aires, Argentina, curiosity led them to an investigation of health and adoption techniques at the Recoleta Cemetery, where a famous large, healthy and friendly cat colony attracts tourists...
Oct 06, 2016•24 min
Stacy LeBaron, podcast host and president emeritus of MRFRS answers your questions. As Community Cats Podcast celebrates its eightieth episode, Stacy and guest host Lisa Finkel discuss how bird lovers and cat lovers can work together to decrease both the number of free roaming colony cats and, subsequently, bird deaths. The financial and social causes of cat abandonment are also points of interest in today's episode, as well as upcoming events and opportunities to support the podcast and the com...
Oct 05, 2016•20 min
Interview! Christie Kamiya, Chief of Shelter Medicine, Humane Society Silicon Valley At nine years old, Dr. Kamiya's first experience adopting a dog sparked a lifelong passion for battling animal welfare issues. A graduate of the University of California's School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Kamiya's focus lies specifically in shelter medicine. She shares her experiences as Chief of Shelter Medicine at the Humane Society Silicon Valley, including her fight against infectious diseases among shelte...
Oct 04, 2016•21 min
Interview! Jennifer Blough, Psychotherapist in Compassion Fatigue and Author With experiences ranging from animal care attendant to animal control officer, Jennifer choose to passionately pursue the subject of compassion fatigue as a psychotherapist after struggling with it herself over the years. She focuses on how compassion fatigue effects those specifically in animal welfare, and has written To Save a Starfish: A Compassion Fatigue Workbook for the Animal Welfare Warrior . She discusses with...
Oct 01, 2016•22 min
Interview! Valerie Ingram and Alistair Schroff, Founders of The Lakes Animal Friendship Society The combination of Valerie's nineteen years' experience in elementary education and Alistair's passion and business experience has led to inspiring changes for animal welfare in their rural British Columbia community. Co-authors of children's books Nobody's Cats and Out of the Cold , Valerie and Alistair discuss their belief that humane education is a key factor in changing the landscape for community...
Sep 30, 2016•24 min
Interview! Holly Putnam, Faculty Clinician, Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program, Cornell University Dr. Holly Putnam graduated veterinary school in 2003, and initially went into private practice for small animals in Albany, NY. After moving to Austin, TX, in 2008, however, she began working at a high-volume, high-quality spay/neuter clinic for low-income neighborhoods and area shelters. Seeing the large number of community cats in these "veterinary deserts" (places with no easy access to veterinar...
Sep 29, 2016•21 min
Peter Wolfe is a cat initiatives analyst at Best Friends Society and a blogger at Vox Felina, where he seeks to fill the void of TNR research and other issues affecting community cats. He says diving into the detail of arguments for and against community cats advocacy helps him in his work at Best Friends, such as proposing policy and giving conference presentations. To access the Community Cats Program Handbook Peter mentions at the end of the episode, visit bestfriends.org/ccphandbook ....
Sep 28, 2016•22 min
Mike's been an integal part of Massachusetts' animal welfare efforts for 22 years. He has extensive experience managing situations where community cats — and potentially their caretakers — have been exposed to rabies, and recounts several challenging situations he's faced, including one where an entire colony needed to be quarantined for six months after exposure to a rabid raccoon. As a result, he's a huge proponent of microchipping community cats so that their vaccination information can be ac...
Sep 27, 2016•23 min
Interview! Taryn Breuer, President, Friends of Jeannette Hunt Animal Shelter (NE) Taryn describes how rural Blair, Nebraska needs its resident cats to help keep rodents from getting into the grain farmed there, but also needs an active TNR effort to keep the numbers of cats in check. Participating in the MRFRS Mentoring Program was the catalyst (pun intended!) to upping Blair's TNR game: after starting with just 150 or so cats in its first year, the program Taryn chairs has now fixed 4000 cats i...
Sep 24, 2016•21 min
Interview! Diane Blankenberg, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant for Humane Network Imagine being on the ground trying to rescue owned and community cats after Hurricane Katrina, as well as the recent flooding in Louisiana. Diane Blankenberg describes her amazing experiences working with Alley Cat Allies to help reunite people and their cats, including working at a "cat rescue camp" as well as assisting with TNR following these crises. She describes how, after Katrina, some owned c...
Sep 23, 2016•22 min
Interview! Mike Phillips, President, Urban Cat League, and Community Outreach Coordinator for the New York City Feral Cat Initiative Even though he had lived in Manhattan for decades, Mike didn't know there were street cats in New York: "I had no idea because I lived on the 43rd floor," he observes. In 1999, he got bitten by the community cats bug while helping deal with a 75 cat colony living behind the historic San Remo building on Central Park West. That colony no longer exists, proving "that...
Sep 22, 2016•25 min
Interview! Tammy King, Founder, Mayport Cats (FL) Mayport Village, a fishing village near Jacksonville, Florida, had become a popular place for people to "dump" cats, both healthy and sick. Enter Tammy King, who brought her persistence and compassion to address the problem. Originally dealing with 200-250 cats, the population is now down to 30-50 and, Tammy notes, "I invite people to come out here and all you're going to see are eartips." She moved on to help address the Community Cats more broa...
Sep 21, 2016•20 min
Interview! Amanda Arrington, Director, Pets for Life Program at The Humane Society of the United States Amanda's childhood interests in both animals and in social justice have led her to a career overseeing a groundbreaking program to help not just pets, but people in underserved areas. She leads he innovative HSUS "Pets for Life" initiative, which is active in 34 communities across the US where there are high poverty rates and little to no access with services for pets. This work is done in a g...
Sep 20, 2016•22 min
Interview! Cheryl Ann Fernandes, Regional Shelter Care Representative, PetLink Drawing on Cheryl Ann's diverse, 25-year career in animal welfare, she and Stacy have a wide-ranging discussion about the challenges of being an urban animal control officer, the persistent challenge of "compassion fatigue" for all of those working in the field, and the innovative idea that microchipping can save the lives of not just pets, but community cats. She explains that, from a colony keeper's perspective, if ...
Sep 17, 2016•24 min
Interview! Merritt Clifton, Journalist and Founder, Animals 24-7 News It would be challenging to find someone with more experience in the animal welfare field than award-winning writer Merritt Clifton. From his childhood ambition to "starting a kitty farm" to taking census of homeless cats during his family's travels, he's dedicated his life and work to humane outcomes for all animals. He was an early proponent of spay/neuter in the 70's when, he notes, "cats were basically a friendly outdoor an...
Sep 16, 2016•28 min
Interview! Andi Kola, Founder Lumen LS, Broward County, Florida Andi is a man on a mission… a mission to eliminate euthanization of cats in his home area of Broward County, Florida and beyond. He recounts his efforts to work with local animal control officials as well as Country Commissioners to pass ordinances mandating return to field programs that have improved live release rates from 50% to 87%. And uses a project- and statistics-based approach to his work, lauding the benefits of public/pri...
Sep 15, 2016•25 min
Interview! Linda Gage, No More Homeless Pets Network Specialist, Best Friends Animal Society Linda outlines the myriad resources that the No More Homeless Pets Network offers to small organizations around the country: ideas on how to get a Community Cats program started, marketing tool kits, grants and financial aid and the opportunity for sharing ideas and connecting with other groups currently engaged in the same activities. "There's no need to reinvent the wheel," she observes. "A lot of grou...
Sep 14, 2016•22 min
Interview! Ollie Davidson of Almond & Olive Ollie has two passions: animal welfare and music. He and his musical partner, Natalie Alms, are about to drop their debut album, and are donating a portion of its sales to the Jackson Galaxy Foundation. Ollie met Jackson (who also plays music in his spare time) a few years ago and they've kept in touch given their shared interests. Ollie has played a number of professional roles in the animal welfare world, involved with programs, shelter operation...
Sep 13, 2016•23 min
Interview! Kelley Bollen, Owner and Director of Animal Alliances Consulting Firm Kelley earned a Master's in Animal Behavior, has taught at Cornell Veterinary School, and now consults with both pet owners and shelters to improve life and outcomes for companion animals. She and Stacy talk all things behavior, and how to make life for cats happier and healthier. Kelley offers some useful tips to help Stacy's rotund cat slim down, a number of great ideas for providing more enjoyment and enrichment ...
Sep 10, 2016•24 min
Interview! Bonnie Geisler, President and Founder, Felines and Friends Foundation (VT) Bonnie's utilized partnerships with many different organizations to contribute to the success of the Feline and Friends Foundation, which has helped 2000 cats in just three years, in one of Vermont's poorest countries. She borrowed her game plan from NY's renowned Neighborhood Cats, built a relationship with an open admission shelter to handle the friendly cats and kittens her group finds, and partnered with a ...
Sep 09, 2016•22 min
Interview! Cameron Moore, Project Manager, Target Zero Given Cameron's contribution to a diverse number of game-changing initiatives, she and Stacy have a wide-ranging conversation about a number of topics related to TNR, abandonment and adoption programs, and helping communities get the support they need to get to the goal of zero euthanasias for healthy dogs and cats. Cameron discusses "community cat diversion": the retraining of people to stop bringing outdoor cats to shelters and, rather, to...
Sep 08, 2016•23 min
Interview! Sherri Gustafson, Spay/Neuter Community Liaison for the Massachusetts Animal Fund Sherri serves as the Spay/Neuter Community Liaison for the Massachusetts Animal Fund, which provides a voucher program for low income pet owners. This program focuses on three main priorities: S/N support for municipal shelters, providing vouchers for low income pet owners, and providing TNR opportunities for community cats. She and Stacy also discuss Animal Control Officer training, rabies control withi...
Sep 07, 2016•20 min
