Interview! Pat Brayer, Clinic Director at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona "The adopters that are drawn to the shy feral kittens are the ones that are going to make them blossom the most." Pat Brayer is the clinic director at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona. In her shelter work, she has pioneered some of the field's most innovative programs, such as the Kitten Kindergarten program, which has successfully socialized and adopted out 82 formerly feral kittens brought into the shelter b...
Aug 19, 2017•24 min
Interview! Nathan Winograd, Executive Director, The No-Kill Advocacy Center, Part 2 "We had to come to the realization that just because you work at an animal shelter doesn't mean you are passionate about cats and saving their lives." In Part 2 of this two-part episode, Nathan describes the current animal welfare legislation he is working on—namely the Companion Animal Protection Act (CAPA) and how it has been implemented, in whole or in part, in various cities and counties across the U.S. He al...
Aug 12, 2017•23 min
Interview! Nathan Winograd, Executive Director, The No-Kill Advocacy Center, Part 1 "It's actually the policies and procedures of the shelter that are responsible for whether animals die in shelters." It's hard to name a field of animal welfare that Nathan Winograd doesn't have experience in: his animal advocacy work started while attending Stanford Law School, and since then he has worked in animal control, consulted for and ran animal shelters, written animal protection legislation, prosecuted...
Aug 05, 2017•30 min
Interview! Kate Benjamin, Designer, Blogger of Hauspanther, Part 2 "Not only does the design of the room at the shelter make it very functional and enjoyable, but it's a showcase for what people can do when they get home." In Part 2 of this two-part episode, Kate delves into how user-centered design theory can be applied to shelters, in order to make adoptable cats' personalities shine and therefore be adopted faster. She has great praise for the new trend of cat cafes and open-concept shelters,...
Jul 29, 2017•18 min
Interview! Kate Benjamin, Designer, Blogger of Hauspanther, Part 1 "I'm not just writing about cool-looking stuff. I'm writing about stuff that's going to make a difference in these cats' lives." Kate Benjamin has combined her professional knowledge of design and product development with her love of cats to fill a unique niche—she blogs about cat products designed with the cat consumer in mind! She's been writing her blog, House Panther, for about ten years now, which eventually led to two New Y...
Jul 22, 2017•20 min
Interview! Meredith Hippert, Director of Field Operations, Animal Balance "Through this work, I recognized my passion for serving the underserved, and working with communities to implement change for animals." Though largely self-educated in the field, Meredith Hippert holds an impressively broad resume in animal welfare, from admission guidelines and outreach to foster programming and TNR. Her journey started when she began caring for a colony of cats living behind the tattoo parlor where she w...
Jul 15, 2017•25 min
Interview! Anthony Amos, Owner, HydroDog and Founder of the Bathe to Save Tour "If you want to become a part of HydroDog, you're not just part of a franchise; you're committing to a long-term partnership with the animal rescue world." Anthony Amos is the owner of HydroDog, a mobile grooming salon in Australia that travels from house to house bathing beloved household pooches. He took the idea to the U.S. when he moved here with his wife, three children, three rabbits, and rescue puppy to start t...
Jul 08, 2017•29 min
Interview! Erika Kelly, founder of Operation Git-Meow "The Navy has always been tied to cats, and that's how the cats got to the base in the first place." Only a year after graduating college, Erika Kelly is already well on her way to making waves in the animal welfare community—she started Operation Git-Meow in December 2016, a non-profit designed to help community cats living on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. As you may remember from Stacy's conversation with naval-base resident Caitlyn Mac...
Jul 01, 2017•25 min
Interview! Karen Hollish, Director of Development and Marketing, Pima Animal Care Center "The community cats project has not only helped us save outdoor community cats; it's helped us provide a better experience for the cats inside our shelters." Karen Hollish is the director of development and marketing at Pima Animal Care Center. In March 2014, she started a development program for the government-run, open-admission shelter in Pima County, Arizona. The program was hugely successful: she raised...
Jun 29, 2017•20 min
Interview! Erin Berry, Executive of Marketing and Communication, BoardSource "You have to think, "What is most important for this organization, not for myself?" Erin Berry is the executive of marketing and communication at BoardSource, an organization that helps strengthen the boards of non-profits. Erin has twelve years of experience in non-profit management, and she's no stranger to volunteering, either—by the end of her high school career, she had logged around 400 hours of community service!...
Jun 27, 2017•20 min
Interview! Katie Lisnik, Director of Cat Policy and Protection, Humane Society of the United States "TNR is not a cruel act; it is a humane population management tool, and it should be defined as such." Katie Lisnik is back for another round of "Policy Jeopardy" on the Community Cats Podcast! This time, we get the scoop on animal welfare initiatives in Illinois, New York, Nevada, New Hampshire, and some exciting initiatives on the federal level! If you are interested in getting involved with ani...
Jun 24, 2017•22 min
Interview! Jim Tedford, President and CEO of SAWA "The strength of SAWA is in its network." Jim Tedford is the president and CEO of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA). In the early 1980s, fresh out of college with a degree in animal science, he found his first job in animal welfare at a tiny humane society that was "held together with duct tape and love." Since then, Jim has seen the animal welfare game change drastically in the last few decades—Jim's last job at a shelter in Ne...
Jun 22, 2017•24 min
Community Cats Podcast Anniversary Show, The Podcast Team "I'm learning so much about the talents and passions it takes to make the world a better place for cats." Community Cats Podcast celebrates it's first year online! In the Anniversary Show, Stacy shines the spotlight on the 'behind the scenes' talent that has made this past year a success. She discusses the challenges and highlights of producing episodes and working to spread education and dialogue about community cats. Stacy talks with we...
Jun 20, 2017•31 min
Interview! Shawn Flynn, Author, The Kitty Who Rescued Me After I Rescued Him "He had a huge impact on my life, and that's why I decided to write a book about it." Shawn Flynn is the author of The Kitty Who Rescued Me After I Rescued Him, a current finalist in the 2017 International Book Awards. It tells the story of Shawn's newfound best friend and support in a large orange community cat, who he met after purchasing a house with his fiancee in Enfield, CT. To the couple's surprise, the house cam...
Jun 17, 2017•23 min
Interview! Part Two, Monica Frenden, Cat Program Manager, Austin Pets Alive! "This is the safest large city in the country to be a cat." In part two of this two-part episode, Stacy interviews Monica Frenden about the various cat programs available at Austin Pets Alive! She describes the "Fel-V fever" that spreads once people in the community start adopting feline-leukemia positive cats, as well as the wildly successful ringworm and barn cat programs. In order to design the most relevant programs...
Jun 15, 2017•19 min
Interview! Part One, Monica Frenden, Cat Program Manager, Austin Pets Alive! "We let the public decide what they want rather than assuming what they want." When Monica Frenden lived in rural Illinois, she didn't expect to start a TNR program. What started as a commitment to getting her own cats spayed and neutered exploded into a community-wide support and demand for feline spay-neuter services. Monica began taking her own barn cats to be spayed and neutered in Chicago, the closest resource at a...
Jun 13, 2017•24 min
Interview! Elizabeth Feldhausen, Founder of Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary, Green Bay, WI "You would think that there would be nose prints all over the windows, but it's actually people face prints! Everybody that walks by presses their face up against the glass, and the cats love it." Elizabeth Feldhausen is the founder of Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Green Bay, WI, a cage-free no-kill pet rescue that saves special-needs cats from euthanasia lists in the Midwest. She was inspired to start Safe Haven b...
Jun 10, 2017•23 min
Interview! Jennifer Smith, EasyPetFence.com "With an Easy Pet Fence, cats are able to walk around the backyard safely without worrying about attacks from birds and wildlife." Jennifer Smith is a representative for Easy Pet Fence, an e-commerce store dedicated to the outdoor safety and wellness of animals. Easy Pet Fence has different fencing kits designed for dogs, cats, and even chickens, and their innovative design keeps cats from digging under, climbing up, or getting over the fence. Self-ass...
Jun 08, 2017•20 min
Book Review! Stacy LeBaron, Host, The Community Cats Podcast "Get ready for the tissues..." Stacy is back with her book review show. In today's episode she reviews, Redemption, by Nathan Winograd; Call of the Cats, by Andrew Bloomfield; Cat Daddy, by Jackson Galaxy; and Homer, The Ninth Life of a Blind Wonder Cat by Gwen Cooper. Redemption is a book that provides us with some creative solutions to our pet overpopulation issues in the country and the other books are full of emotion and passion....
Jun 06, 2017•8 min
Interview! Deanna Sanvi, Spay-Neuter Coordinator, Gateway Pet Guardians Community Outreach Program "We help people keep their pets in their homes." Deanna Sanvi is the spay-neuter coordinator for Gateway Pet Guardians Community Outreach Program, a 501(c)3 organization serving about 65,000 people in East St. Louis, IL. Many of these people live below the poverty line, which means that Gateway offers a variety of services besides just spay and neuter, such as pet food banks, adequate outside shelt...
Jun 03, 2017•23 min
Ask Stacy! Stacy LeBaron, Host, The Community Cats Podcast "Oftentimes, these folks are not upset about the cats in general, but the fact that they're not being cared for." In this, the seventh (!) Ask Stacy episode, Lisa and Stacy leave the world of cat lovers behind for a moment to take a look at "cat opponents"—whether those be the neighbors who resent your feeding station or the touch anti-community cat legislation currently enforced in your town. Backed by years of experience, Stacy provide...
Jun 01, 2017•22 min
Interview! Bianca Leos, Student at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University "Animals lives are going to depend on me one day, so I need to know all this information." Bianca Leos is a student at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. She intends to become a shelter veterinarian working in a high quality, high volume spay-neuter program. When Bianca first started at the Cummings School, she had intended to specialize in large animal medicine. After i...
May 30, 2017•20 min
Interview! Susan Rosenberg, Director of International Animal Programs at GreaterGood.org "I am working to save everything from ants to elephants." One could say that Susan Rosenberg has been managing animal shelters since she was 8 years old—at that age, she was covertly caring for abandoned animals in her backyard and using her allowance to do so! She has received two "calls of a lifetime," as she calls them—first from Paul Jolly to work for the Petco Foundation, after her tremendous success in...
May 27, 2017•22 min
Interview! Laura Mullen, SPORE Program Director at San Francisco SPCA "Ringworm is nothing worth dying for." Laura Mullen has worked in the shelter medicine department at the San Francisco SPCA for 15 years. Her current project is the SPORE Program, or Shelters Preventing Outbreaks of Ringworm through Eductation. Ringworm is a pesky fungal infection that lives on the keratin in animal hair and nails—one could call it "cathlete's foot!" Though it's not a life threatening condition, it can wreak h...
May 25, 2017•30 min
Interview! Tina Traster, Award-winning Filmmaker, Writer, and Documentarian of "Catnip Nation" "There are people taking care of community cats, but it begs the question: who is taking care of those people?" Tina Traster is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. Her written pieces have been featured in a multitude of publications, including a regular segment for the New York Post, and her films have won awards at film festivals across the globe. She has noticed a theme of rescue, caretaking, ...
May 23, 2017•21 min
Interview! Rosemarie Crawford, Director of Educational Programs, National Kitten Coalition After her first experience fostering bottle babies with acute health issues, Rosemarie's colleagues realized she was a natural and nudged her towards a career in animal welfare. She worked as a vet tech in Illinois, and subsequetly became a foster coordinator. This eventually led to her current position as the Director of Educational Programs or the National Kitten Coalition, where she facilitates outreach...
May 20, 2017•20 min
Interview! Tracie Hotchner, Author, The Cat Bible and Radio Pet Lady "The point is to reach people and influence their hearts and minds in ways that are really meaningful." Tracie is a premiere podcast presence, supporting the education and wellness of cats. She is the author of The Cat Bible: Everything Your Cat Expects You to Know as well as producer and host of NPR's show "Dog Talk (and Kitties Too!)". Tracie is currently organizing the New York Cat Film Festival, which offers short films and...
May 18, 2017•25 min
Interview! Mike Fry, Founder and Senior Consultant at No Kill Learning "The killing that takes place is harmful and costly and damaging." Mike was raised in a family of animal welfare activists who opened the first no-kill shelter in Minnesota in 1977. After working for Fortune 500 companies in the technology field, he decided to dedicate his shelter experience to end unnecessary euthanasia in local shelters. Mike hosts Just One Day every June 11th, which provides nationwide shelters and animal ...
May 16, 2017•21 min
Interview! Susan Linker, Co-founder of Our Companions Animal Rescue "We've come a long way with spay and neuter in our area." Susan is the co-founder of Our Companions Animal Rescue, a forty-three acre sanctuary in Ashford, CT. A non-profit organization with 400 volunteers, 2,500 donors and plans to double in size, Our Companions Animal Rescue prioritizes creating a low-stress environment for cats and dogs to optimize better health and behavior, hence better adoption outcomes. Susan discusses wa...
May 13, 2017•23 min
Interview! Bonney Brown, Founder and Principle Consultant of the Humane Network "Engaging the public in our work is the key to making it sustainable." Stacy has once again invited Bonney Brown from the Humane Network back on the show! Bonney fills Stacy in on what the Network's been up to in the past year, such as helping rescue groups to better their strategic planning, improve their live release rate, and ensure their sustainability, among other things. Bonney and Stacy also chat about how the...
May 11, 2017•22 min
