Guides, tips, and stories for animal rescue organizations.
Refusing to name a euthanasia threshold is not a policy against euthanasia — it is a decision to decide later, under pressure, by whoever is in the room. Three separate questions hide inside the word, and the third one, opportunity cost, is the one most rescues will not admit is a question at all.
GeneralThe federal Volunteer Protection Act shields individual volunteers from personal liability for ordinary negligence, but it says in terms that it leaves the organization's own liability untouched, and it drops out the moment a volunteer gets behind the wheel.
Medical · Best PracticesCosted at replacement value, volunteer labour is about two-thirds of what a trapping night costs and the clinic donation is about a quarter. A group that is already turning down surgery slots because nobody can trap should spend its next marginal dollar paying a trapper, not buying more vouchers.
GeneralA UK rescue recognised by HMRC can reclaim 25p on every £1 an individual donates, but adoption fees, event tickets and company gifts are all outside the scheme. The money most small rescues leave behind is reimbursed foster expenses and cash in the collection tin.
Dogs · Best PracticesPublished return rates for adopted dogs and cats run from 7% to 20%, but the figure your organization reports depends mostly on where you draw the cut-off. The published studies disagree about when returns happen, and that disagreement is the useful part.
Medical · Best PracticesThe 80% number is real, but it is a rate you have to keep paying, not a milestone you reach and bank. Most scattered, colony-by-colony TNR is a welfare intervention being sold as a population intervention, and the vacuum effect argument rescues use against catch-and-kill applies just as squarely to their own successes.
GeneralA Spanish animal rescue asociación needs four separate registrations, not one, and since Ley 7/2023 it also needs civil liability insurance and a written contract with every foster home. Most groups also owe an annual corporate tax return even with no commercial income.
DogsA dog that's been passed over for months doesn't need a new kennel — it needs a day at the lake and a photo of itself asleep on someone's couch. Here's how to stand up a field trip and sleepover program that actually moves dogs out the door.
DogsA dog in your care bit someone and now there's a 10-day hold. Handled well, it's ten boring days and a clean release. Handled badly, it's a panicked adopter, a euthanasia order, or a rabies scare that didn't need to happen. Here's how to run it right.
Colony & TNRThe frightened cat pressed into the back of the trap could be a true feral who belongs back outside, or a lost house cat who's one bad decision away from being returned to fend for herself. Here's how to tell them apart before you make the call.
DogsA dog that paces, spins, and lunges at the kennel front is often a normal dog breaking down in a bad environment — not a dangerous one. Here's how to spot kennel stress early, tell it apart from a real behavior problem, and pull a dog back from the edge.
MedicalTraps are cheap and cats are everywhere. The thing that actually limits how many cats you fix is surgery slots — and the clinic decides who gets them. Here's how to become the easy, reliable client who gets the appointments.
MedicalSix squirming, near-identical puppies, each on their own two-week clock for shots and dewormer — miss a dose and you can leave a whole litter open to parvo. Here's the schedule that actually protects them, and the system that keeps you from losing track.
DogsA foster dog that panics when left alone can look identical to a dog that's just adjusting — and getting the two mixed up is how good dogs get mislabeled, mistreated, or returned. Here's how to tell them apart and run a protocol that actually helps.
MedicalA skeletal dog lands on your intake table and every instinct says feed it, now, as much as it wants. That instinct can kill it. Here's how to bring a starved dog back without triggering refeeding syndrome.
Small animalsIt was sold as a "teacup" pig, outgrew the apartment and the local ordinance, and now it's a 120-pound animal nobody planned for. Here's how to run the intake so it doesn't bounce again.
MedicalRingworm won't kill a kitten, but it will get your intake room quarantined, your fosters spooked, and your rescue whispered about — and it jumps to people. Here's how to contain it without euthanizing a single cat.
MedicalThe rescue calls and asks if you can take a pregnant dog "any day now." Saying yes means you're about to run a delivery room. Here's how to prepare, what a normal whelping looks like, and the red lines that mean you stop watching and call the vet.
Colony & TNRThe single biggest thing stopping people from starting TNR isn't fear of cats — it's not owning a trap. A trap bank fixes that for your whole community, if you can keep the traps from disappearing.
DogsYou can run an adoption event where twelve dogs sit on the pavement all afternoon, or one where four go home and the rest come back calmer than they left. The difference is almost never the dogs. It's the planning.
Colony & TNROne of the "ferals" at your feeding station walks right up and rubs your leg. That cat is almost never a feral — it's usually someone's lost pet or a dumped one, and the next 72 hours decide whether it ever gets home.
Colony & TNRThe biggest colonies almost always start with one kind person feeding "a couple of strays" who were never fixed. Here's how to reach that person before the count hits forty, without scaring them into hiding the cats from you.
MedicalA dog comes in half-bald, scabbed, and scratching itself raw, and everyone assumes the worst. If it's sarcoptic mange, it's one of the most satisfying fixes in rescue — contagious, treatable, and dramatic. Here's how to tell, treat it, and keep it from running through your other dogs.
MedicalA cat you feed every day turns up limping, or with a wound, or just sitting hunched and hollow-eyed — and it won't let you within ten feet. Here's how to get an untouchable cat the care it needs without making things worse.
Small animalsA guinea pig arrives on a bag of muesli, in a shoebox cage, maybe already pregnant — and pregnancy in a cavy can be fatal. Here's the intake that keeps it alive, starting with sexing.
Colony & TNRThe cat you trapped and fixed two years ago gets picked up and dropped at the shelter as an unowned feral on a short clock. Whether she comes home depends entirely on what you did before it happened. Here's how to make a colony cat traceable.
MedicalA kitten that was fine at the evening feeding is dead by morning, and the virus that killed it is already on your hands, your clothes, and every surface it touched. Here's how to get ahead of panleukopenia instead of burying litters.
Colony & TNRA pile of kibble on the ground feeds everything in the neighborhood, and the rats and raccoons it draws are what get colonies shut down. Here's how to build and run a feeding station that feeds the cats and nothing else.
MedicalBy the time you hear the first dog coughing, the ones it infected three days ago are already shedding without a symptom. Here's how to get ahead of kennel cough instead of chasing it kennel to kennel.
DogsMost foster-dog fights don't happen because the dogs hate each other. They happen because someone rushed the first meeting in the living room. Here's the slow, boring, fight-free way to put two dogs together.
Colony & TNRThe cats you feed can survive a cold snap on their own, but they do it better and lose fewer members when they have a dry, insulated box to pile into. Here's how to build shelters that actually hold heat, and the mistakes that make an expensive one useless.
MedicalTrapping night doesn't care about your plans. Sooner or later you'll pull a trap forward and realize the cat inside is pregnant, or that her belly is full of milk and there are kittens somewhere you can't see. Here's how to make the call without hurting the cat or losing a litter.
DogsEvery found dog you take in as a rescue case might be somebody's lost dog that's been missing for six hours. Before it becomes an intake number, run the owner search — it's faster, cheaper, and the right outcome for the dog.
Colony & TNRSome cats can't go back where you trapped them, and they'll never be lap cats. A working cat placement gives them a real home instead of a cage. Here's how to do it without the cat vanishing the first night.
Small animalsSomeone got in over their head, or the city sent a notice, and now there's a flock that needs to go somewhere. Here's how to intake surrendered chickens without infecting the birds you already have or breaking a law you didn't know existed.
Colony & TNRYou've trapped the whole colony except one. She watches the others go in, eats around the trap, and vanishes the moment you reach for the string. Here's how to catch the holdout.
Small animalsA ferret hides illness, escapes through a two-inch gap, can die from a virus a guest tracks in on their shoes, and was almost certainly fed the wrong food. Here's how to run the intake so it doesn't become an emergency.
Colony & TNRPeople worry about colonies freezing in winter and forget that summer kills cats too. A heat wave doesn't give you days of warning the way a cold snap does. Here's how to get a colony through the worst of it.
Small animalsA domestic rabbit can't survive the field it was abandoned in, hides illness until it's nearly too late, and was probably an Easter impulse buy nobody planned for. Here's how to run the intake so it lives.
Colony & TNRIt's May, your phone won't stop, and every message is a box of kittens. You can't say yes to all of them. Here's a triage system that protects the kittens and keeps your rescue standing.
MedicalParvo in a foster-based rescue isn't one sick puppy, it's a network of homes, cars, and volunteers that all just got connected to a virus that lives for months. The first 48 hours decide whether you lose one dog or ten.
MedicalYour vet says the puppy has parvo but isn't critical enough to hospitalize, and now it's going home with a foster. Outpatient parvo care saves most puppies — if the foster knows what to do every day. Here's the playbook.
Colony & TNRSometimes a colony's home becomes a demolition site and there's no way to keep the cats where they are. Done wrong, relocation kills cats. Done right, it's a slow, deliberate process built around one rule: confinement.
MedicalA single runny-nosed cat in a crowded room isn't a cold — it's the start of an outbreak that can sit in your space for weeks. Here's how to stop feline upper respiratory infection from running through your whole population.
MedicalA parrot is not a returned dog. It can outlive you, it hides illness until it's almost too late, and the last three owners gave up for reasons nobody wrote down. Here's how to take one in without infecting your flock or missing what's actually wrong.
GeneralSomeone just handed you a box of newborn kittens with their eyes still shut. The next two weeks are round-the-clock work, and a few rules separate the litters that make it from the ones that don't.
Colony & TNRA transport run is the most dangerous hour your dogs will have all month — a parking lot full of strangers, open crate doors, and slip leads. Most things that go wrong are paperwork or process, not bad luck. Here's how to run one that ends with every dog where it's supposed to be.
DogsA friendly dog comes in, and six weeks later it's spinning in its run and lunging at the gate. That's not the dog's temperament — it's the kennel. Here's a practical enrichment system that keeps long-stay dogs stable and adoptable.
Small animalsA single rescue rabbit is a lonely rabbit, and a bonded pair adopts out faster. But put two strange rabbits together wrong and you'll end up at the emergency vet. Here's the neutral-territory bonding process that actually works, step by step.
MedicalTrapping gets all the attention, but the overnight after surgery is where TNR goes right or wrong. Here's how to hold a cat safely until it's ready to go home.
MedicalA positive heartworm test scares a lot of rescues into passing on a perfectly adoptable dog. The treatment is long and the rules are strict, but it's routine. Here's how to move a dog from diagnosis to adoption without losing your nerve.
Small animalsWhen a rabbit stops eating, the clock starts. GI stasis can go from "off his pellets" to life-threatening in under a day, and the only thing that reliably saves rabbits is catching it early. Here's what to watch for and what to do.
DogsThe dog your foster meets on day one is a dog in survival mode, not the dog they'll adopt out. Most failed placements come from judging a dog too early. Here's the decompression plan to give every dog before you decide who they are.
Colony & TNRA single annoyed neighbor can undo years of colony work — one call to animal control and the cats are gone. Here's how to handle a complaint before it becomes a crisis.
MedicalTrapping is the part of TNR where good intentions meet a cat who has watched you for an hour and decided not to go in the box. Here's how to plan a night that actually gets cats fixed instead of making them trap-shy.
Colony & TNR · Best PracticesDaily feeding is the closest thing you have to daily surveillance of your colony. If you're not recording it, you're throwing away the most useful data you'll ever collect.
Colony & TNRYou feed the cats every day. You know most of them by sight. But could you tell someone exactly how many are in your colony right now? A regular census is the difference between guessing and actually knowing what's going on.
General · Best PracticesYou said yes to fostering. Now you've got cats on different medications, a kitten litter that needs weighing, and information scattered across five places. Here's how to stay on top of it.
Colony & TNRYou've got a hissing kitten in a carrier and no idea what comes next. Here's what actually works, step by step.
Colony & TNRA step-by-step guide to turning "I feed some cats" into an organized group that actually gets things done. Based on our own experience running TNR in a small Spanish town.
Join Pawsies today and start organizing your rescue operations. No credit card required.
Get started free