Professionalizing a Profession

Fifty years ago animal care and control wasn't the profession it is today. Few local humane societies were well funded and most of the country's municipal pounds were horrifying places with no well-developed programs for community outreach and adoptions or professional development. But The HSUS always saw local societies and animal shelters as central institutions of humane work, and a cornerstone of our foundation was offering them support. So from the start we worked to help shelters improve the services they provide their communities.

Through the late 1950s, we aided communities facing the challenges of animal control, even stepping in to manage local facilities in emergency situations. We amended The HSUS bylaws in 1960 to affiliate with local humane societies, and into the mid-1960s certified affiliated societies that met approved standards, helped them address problems in their communities, and collaborated with them in investigations. We even offered economy shelter kits for constructing basic facilities where none existed.

We opened our National Humane Education Center (NHEC) on a donated 140-acre farm in Virginia in the mid-1960s, complete with a demonstration animal shelter and other training facilities. And here our staff tested shelter operations, gaining insights we shared with other animal care workers with workshops on shelter management and operation and hands-on assistance across the country in the 1970s. The 70s also saw the introduction of our "legislation, education, sterilization" (LES) formula for pet population control; the LES troika became the foundation for many local governments' animal control programs to deal with pet overpopulation and continues to be successful to this day.

We began publishing Shelter Sense in 1978 for the animal care and control community. The magazine later became Animal Sheltering®, which still brings the latest news about companion animal health and protection, shelter and humane society management, humane education, investigations, and legislation to shelter professionals. We also began working with the international City/County Management Association (ICMA) by writing a report published by the ICMA that described how to effectively manage local animal control agencies and programs.

To even better serve local agencies, in 1979 we launched our Animal Control Academy with the University of Alabama (now superceded by Humane Society University programs). Instructors helped train law enforcement and humane society personnel in investigations, shelter operation, animal care, and euthanasia.

In 1985, we joined 10 other organizations to form the National Coalition to Protect Our Pets (Pro-Pets) to combat the use of animals from shelters and animal control facilities for research. And we began our Professional Education and Training Services (PETS) program to train executive directors and shelter managers.

In 1991 we launched Animal Care Expo, still the nation's largest annual educational conference and product and service exhibition for the animal care and control community. And in 1999, we began our Animal Services Consultation (ASC) program, which offers in-depth evaluations and improvement plans for public and private agencies.

Since 2000, we have initiated many new programs to train and support the animal care and control community, including our Pets for Life® National Training Center in Denver, Colorado, where shelter staff learn how to improve and implement programs that foster successful adoptions to keep pets in the homes where they belong. We now bring these courses closer to shelters that might not otherwise be able to send staff with our Regional Training Centers.

We wrote our fourth report for the ICMA—Animal Control Management: A Guide for Local Governments, which details how to run effective and humane animal control programs. We also established Humane Society University (HSU) to help shelter staff gain the course work and experience they need in cruelty investigations, organization management, legal issues, and many other topics.

We sponsor National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week to raise community awareness and support for shelters. And our Shelter Partners™ program provides participating shelters with income-generating programs, savings on products and services, discounts on HSUS publications and training, and more. For more on our programs for the animal care and control community, visit www.hsus.org/pets, www.HumaneSocietyU.org, and www.AnimalSheltering.org.