First of all, I'd like to appologize to people who were expecting me to live tweet for the conference. I did well Saturday morning, but then the wheels fell off. I presented in the afternoon (hard to present and live tweet at the same time) and then my twitter account had a bug in it all day on Sunday. So I missed out.
So the conference itself was great, as expected. The knowledge, experience, expertise and most importantly, the success, of the speakers at the conference really makes it a top notch experience. It was also a great opportunity for me to meet face-to-face many of the folks that I've only known via the internet.
I have a long list of post ideas that I plan to write in the coming weeks as follow-ups from the conference -- and I will continue to give those ideas the No Kill Conference 2010 tag as they get interspersed with news updates and thoughts.
For now, here are some of the blog postings and top tweeters that I've found thus far regarding the conference:
YesBiscuit was the first to start assembling links, so I need to give her her due.
For your Entertainment - Wonders why someone would want to adopt an animal from an adoption agency that tells the public they are not responsible enough to care for the animals -- and why shelters continue to blame the 'irresponsible public' even though his experience is that the vast majority of people he's ever met love their animals dearly and take great care of them - -and that statistically he's right.
The past is Prologue - Winograd posts his prologue and intro to the conference.
No crazies in sight - The Wisconsin Watchdog notes that instead of the No Kill movement being driven by crazies and hoarders like some might suggest, it was only mainstream professionals, business folks, Lawyers, shelter workers and veterinarians promoting the movement.
Saving Pets created two video blogs telling about her experience at the Conference (she came all the way from Australia to attend -- and I had the pleasure of finally meeting her). These are both fairly long, but worth the time to watch.
Day 1 - She covers the start of the conference, Winograd's opening speech, Shelter enrichment for cats, a lunchtime roundtable and How to turbocharge pet adoptions
Day 2 -She shows some of the visuals from the host tables and from DC, innovative shelter design, and effective leadership for shelter leaders
The Pet Connection had two delegates there -- who live blogged the sessions they were in. I sometimes think live blogs make for some difficult reading -- but the content is great and thorough. Here is a collection of their stuff:
Feral cats r us - Contrary to what many want to claim, there is no real data that suggests that feral cats are not happy or healthy. I also like the suggestion of referring to them as "community cats" instead of "feral" -- which is a pretty scary term.
Socializing Shelter dogs - incidentally, I heard this was a great session (I chose a different track). The session deals with creating play groups for shelter dogs as an outlet for releasing energy and increasing socialization. Additionally, adopters usually want to know if a dog is able to go to dog parks or not and shelter directors need to know that information. Properly training volunteers to understand play styles is important.
Pups in Play Groups (This is part 2 of the one above) - Knowing how to properly handle playgroups makes for a safe and fun experience for both the volunteers and the dogs. Indicentally, Amie Sadler's (who ran this workshop) shelter has a 94.4% live release rate for all dogs that come into the shelter. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about success.
Using the law to save animal lives - I attended this session and Christie did a nice job of capturing the essence of this. My comment from the audience even made her recap -- I'll mail a copy of Nathan's book Redemption to the first person who picks out which comment is mine and posts it in the coments here (this shouldn't be a hard one to pick out).
Enrichment for cats - my favorite advice ever is in this (and applies to dogs too): Stop creating policies based on worst-case possibilities or "what ifs"
Saving Lives 2.0 - Christie's report on Mike Fry's presentation on using social media to save the lives of animals. The bottom line, social media allows for very fast communication in a way that is based on mutual respect (unlike email spam). It also allows for accurate information to be relayed in times when large organizations are trying to control the flow of information through mainstream media.
Using Technology to Save Lives -- This is Gina's version of the same session. If you read only one, read Cristie's (it's more complete). But great advice here for social media -- don't be afraid to voice your opinion and don't be a downer -- adoptions should be fun.
Forcing Transparency - A lot of great information about how to get public records such as bit statistics and euthanasia numbers.
Saving homeless pets: Lessons from a scrappy insurgency - Info about success in Austin at improving their failing shelter system there (this was a great presentation -- and I'll be writing more about it at some point).
Also, I want to give a big shoutout to a couple of people who were very active at Tweeting the conference -- particularly @savingpets and @kcdogadvocate -- also, @kcdogadvocate attended my presentation so you can get at least a sense of what my presentation was about.
And if you are not already a fan of the No Kill Nation on facebook, go "like" them now.
As I find more posts -- which I'm sure there will be many - I will keep posting them.
And if I missed anyone, it's purely not intentional -- so please, post your links in the comments as well.
This is the comment I think is yours "Someone says that they think we’re really rushing into this “guardian” thing. Sometimes due process is the ONLY THING that keeps dogs, esp pit bulls, from being confiscated from homes and KILLED IN SHELTERS. There are really legit reasons people, breeders, rescuers, pit bull advocates, are hanging onto “owner” and “property,” not because they don’t care about animals."
Posted by: Nokillhouston | August 03, 2010 at 10:06 PM
Well done. Thanks for playing. You are a winner.
However, I'm assuming that you already have a copy or two of the book...
Posted by: Brent | August 03, 2010 at 10:29 PM