Laurie Lawless

Throughout my career, I’ve noticed similar trends at every single shelter I’ve come into contact with. 

• Reactive responses to behavioral challenges with dogs

• Inconsistency in how dogs with varying difficult behaviors are managed

• Difficulty having conversations about challenging dogs due to emotional interference

• Dogs with great temperament and personalities being overlooked, and even euthanized, due to kennel stress or reactive behaviors that aren’t assessed or addressed properly.

• Staff burning out due to lack of proactive training around the topics of behavior and euthanasia, and expectation setting.

• Asking adopters to take on challenging dogs without delivering adequate post adoption support.

• Missed opportunities to gain behavioral data on intake to support that dog’s journey through the shelter and into a new home. 

• Lack of clear policies around adoptability and risk assessments

The list could go on and on, but these challenges are at every shelter, and what strikes me is that each shelter is operating within its own silo, trying to navigate these challenges on their own. But what if there was a framework that was adaptive enough to customize to every shelter, while also bringing consistency to the operations?

That’s where Shelter Behavior Integrations comes in!

My goal is to work alongside your team, bringing my knowledge, skills and experience to the table. To help you adapt your current operations into a framework that brings the long-term solutions to your shelter and community. Let’s start our decisions of each dog at or even before intake, and create a journey through your shelter that minimizes risk, increases welfare, and sets each dog up for success. Include your staff in this journey in a way that helps them feel successful in their job role, even on the hardest of days.