What makes a humane community, in and out of the animal shelter? That's the subject of this episode of People, Pets, and Purpose—our interview series exploring the human-animal bond, and what really matters.
Check out this great conversation between host Diaz Dixon, Maddie’s® Advisor for External Affairs and Partnerships for the HASS project, and expert guests Brent Toellner of Best Friends Animal Society, and Director of National Operations for American Pets Alive! Clare Callison.
We promise you'll get a lot out of listening! Clare’s foster dog even gets involved… in a funny and oh so relatable way.
Find Human Animal Support Services Online:
What makes a humane community, in and out of the animal shelter? That's the subject of this episode of People, Pets, and Purpose—our interview series exploring the human-animal bond, and what really matters.
Check out this great conversation between host Diaz Dixon, Maddie’s® Advisor for External Affairs and Partnerships for the HASS project, and expert guests Brent Toellner of Best Friends Animal Society, and Director of National Operations for American Pets Alive! Clare Callison.
We promise you'll get a lot out of listening! Clare’s foster dog even gets involved… in a funny and oh so relatable way.
Find Human Animal Support Services Online:
Oh, and welcome the People, Pets, and Purpose, our interview series on the human animal bond and talking about what really matters, particularly in these days when humans are struggling and pets are struggling, finding purpose that overlaps with people who really understand that is a wonderful thing. And today, I'm super excited because we've got two wonderful guests on the show. I'm diagnostics and the Maddies, advisor for External Affairs and partnerships for the Human Animal Support Services project. And I'm excited to be speaking today with Brent Toellner, and Clare ----. Sorry, Clare, and Clare Callison, about humane communities, communities, and what they look like inside and outside the shelter, and how we get there, because there's so many different strategies that we need to take. And these two are both pioneers, we're going to talk a lot about the work that Brent has done. He's currently the senior director of national programs for best friends, animal society, where he's working to make the entire country no kill by 2025, before taking on this role, but was part of a small team in 2012, that took over the contract to run the municipal Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Within six months, they transformed the shelter from one where more pets lost their lives that actually got out alive. And he transformed it into one that had a 90% savory, KC Pet Project, an opportunity to visit KC Pet Project 2018 myself, because I heard of the wonderful things that they were doing. And I wanted to get down there and just emulate it and bring it back to Reno, Nevada. But it is also a hot pilot shelter, and is now seen as a model and how to save animals through the most challenging circumstances. And really how to keep families together, particularly on the people side, understanding how to connect and relate and relay messages. And also joining us today we've got Clare Callison, who is the Director of National Operations for American pet supplies, class supports shelters throughout Texas and across the country, and building life saving programs and improving operations to better serve people and pets. And there aren't many people who are smarter than Clare. I mean, she is one of those people you can sit down and always walk away feeling like you're a better human being. Just by being around are so welcome both of you for joining this episode of People, Pets, and Purpose.
Brent Toellner:And he says thanks for having us on and for the nice intro.
Diaz Dixon:But, you know, I, the, the, you're easy to Google stuff, with all the stuff that you've done, we've got a wonderful team that has gathered a lot of information too. So they gave me a lot of the blogs, I was able to pull up a lot of those things, I found myself almost like a TikTok. You just look up and hours go by before you realize that okay, I've had this for a long time. That's how I felt reading a lot of the blogs that you've done. I want to ask you, though, Brent, you've got just such a great background. Tell me how you went from blogging about animal welfare, to leading a major municipal shelter, to now leading nationwide efforts to save homeless animals lives. Yeah, so
Brent Toellner:the blog is what really was sort of my start of understanding animal welfare and and taking all the pieces that I was learning from different places and the conversations I was having with different leaders in animal welfare. And putting them all in one place not only for my benefit, but for kind of a group of advocates that we're trying to help reform things in Kansas City.
Diaz Dixon:And as
Brent Toellner:things kind of evolved in Kansas City, we were trying to make some reforms with the municipal shelter. They're the opportunity came up with and they were privatizing the operations of the municipal shelter. And there was nobody bid on the contract for it. And so we really became one of those things where they extended the deadline for submission, and it really became put up or shut up time, like you can't really tell everybody else that they should be doing better if you're not willing to roll up your sleeves and do better. So my wife and I, and a couple of other people submitted a bid and the city gave it to us. And so we had no choice but to figure out how to take over this municipal shelter operations. And so then after five or six years of being involved with get into city pet project, I stepped away from that because best friends put the stake in the ground for the no till 2025 initiative. And I'd reach out to him I said, if there's any way like people reached out to me all the time that might have worked in Kansas City of like, how did you do what you did in Kansas City? Like I don't have time to help them but if I could work progress friends and be able to help some of these people, I haven't had time to help you I would love that opportunity. And so they, they've given me that. So it's really been kind of that type of whirlwind and love being able to help people meet their licensing
Diaz Dixon:goals. That's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. Particularly, you know, when we can not be selfish and stuck in our own little silos, but we're stretching ourselves and getting out. Clare is doing the same thing at Austin Pets Alive!, which is, is great that it's been contagious. Clare, what would you say would be your biggest challenges in dealing with these things on the national level?
Clare Callison:So that's a great question. And it's really lovely to be here. And I've looked up to both of you Diaz and Brent for a long time. So thank you for having me, it's great to be here. biggest challenges, I would say, Gosh, I think it's getting out there and building trust, I think that's a big one. You know, shelters, historically have done a lot behind closed doors, and not been very open to the community helping and sort of seeing what happens in the back, I guess, so to speak. And so having that openness and that trust, and that goes as simple as, you know, letting volunteers take on more tasks or, you know, encouraging people to foster I think there's a lot of sort of guarded skepticism, and, you know, a little bit of uncertainty about innovation and change out there. So sometimes, you know, we run into some resistance. And I think it comes from, you know, maybe some fear of fear based of not wanting to take on new initiatives possibly failing. But I also think shelters are, you know, really up against it when it comes to resources, and, you know, staffing shortages. So I think it's, it's hard to be kind of high level and think about the future when you're constantly putting out fires in front of you. So we're trying to strike a balance, you know, in our work and working with shelters, to give immediate support and immediate relief, but also start looking at improvements that will be more sustainable. So you're not constantly putting out fires in front of you, and you're building programs that will help solve some of these these big problems that happen every day.
Diaz Dixon:That is awesome. I mean, we're lucky to have an ally like you out there doing the work, I think it's really important when you're talking about the claim when you're talking about building trust, because you are actively engaged in it. It is trust is one of those few things in the world that never sit static, it's either being built or broken. And so we have to make sure that we are putting forth efforts to build trust for those that can continue to be allies. For us. That's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. We're gonna have to ask you, what was it like, at the beginning, early on with KC Pet Project? How did you get to that 90% No kill benchmark so quickly? You know, I think it was
Brent Toellner:a lot of if I think about, like, my background, before I got into animal welfare was in marketing. And you know, so it was, our solution to a lot of things early on in the early days was, you know, if we don't have enough adopters coming up, we just need to do a better job marketing. And so we really reached out to the community, we were transparent with the community early on, even when things were a struggle, we were always like, this is what's happening. This is why it's happening, to try to build that trust to Clare's point. And I think, you know, we work to, to build that trust, the community embraced us. And our goal was always to be the, to go from a place where nobody ever came to adopt a pet to be the most popular place for people to adopt a pet in the Kansas City area. And, you know, I think they did 10,000 adoptions last year, from what I understand. And before we took over the shelter, it was less than 1000. And so, you know, that's just the growth in the decade of that becoming the place that people want to go to adopt pets in this community. And there are other places like, you know, there are other suburban shelters, some legacy humane societies that have been around for a long time. But it was really kind of built around that marketing and building that trust with the community. And I think and I think that's really like, to Clare's point, like, I think that's always the challenge. And the work that we're doing here is that there's not a lot of trust between the community and the shelters. And the community doesn't necessarily trust that shelters, the shelters don't trust that the community is not going to roast them if they find out what's really going on behind closed doors. And that's really not a great situation. You know, the whole point of this, this podcast is about people and pets. And you know, when people don't trust each other, it's really a kind of a toxic relationship, and it's tough for folks.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, like I couldn't agree with you more on that. It, you know, and we, we get outside of looking for solutions, when we look for reasons why not to have to work with one another, why not to solve problems. And ultimately, it's the, it's us, it's us as people that are responsible for either making things go move forward, or being barriers. What I really love is the fact that your team and what you were able to do with all that success, pulling all the people together, for your community was really a proof of concept. So in that it is possible, and how it's done to save all these lives. What lessons do you take? Or can we talk to our audience? What lessons do we take from that experience that you can you can share with us?
Brent Toellner:You know, I think one of the biggest lessons for me was, you've all talked about transparency, and the fact that you need to embrace the community, it's also a lot harder to do in practice. So I remember that after the first year, we had always said that we were we're going to be transparent about the good, bad and the ugly. And so we had a pretty good first year, it wasn't perfect. But one of the numbers that really stood out to me was our diet and care number was, you know, we had 180, some animals that died in care. And when people see that type of number, they're like, into there, they imagine animals languishing in a kennel environment. And we, and so I did some digging on some of the data. And it was like, you know, most of them were neonatal kittens that died in foster care. And, you know, we just weren't doing a great job of saving them. And so we were transparent about them. It's like, we this is a number we have to get better at. And this is what that number represents. And we had a couple of our key kitten Foster's, like, this is what we do, like we weigh all of them on it a couple times a day. So we can catch them if they're fading very quickly. And so if one of them was like, we'll give you, you know, a couple $100, you can buy a bunch of kitchen, kitchen scales, so the other fosters can weigh them as well. And so we were able to cut that number in half the next year, because we reached out, we told the community, like this is what the problem was. And some work, somebody from the community came up and said, this is the solution that we've done with our own posturing. And it really helped solidify for me if like, if you can build that trust and transparency, that the community will step up and help you because they generally want you to succeed.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, yeah, trust and transparency. And people do want to see good things. And that is, I guess that is the one thing that is really common when we're talking about taking across the country and going into different communities, whether they're rural, or suburban. Clare, what would you say when with with trust and transparency? Or how do you go about building that? Like, when you're taking in, you know, you're picking up and you're going somewhere that maybe you haven't been before? Or you're talking with people that you don't have an established relationship with? What do you start? Sure, well,
Clare Callison:you know, a lot of our work is, is going into shelters and helping them either we're, we're proactive, where we've heard through the grapevine that they might need some support, but they're not actively reaching out. For you know, something happened in the media, and we can see that a shelter is is truly struggling, or more reactive, people are actively reaching out and seeking help. But regardless of someone is asking, or if they haven't asked that, that trust is huge to build. And I can think of a couple of shelters that even though we were a presence there almost monthly, it took at least two or three years to really build, you know, some trust and a relationship. And I think it's, you know, again, I don't want to keep echoing the same ideas, but it does come down to transparency, I think we're a little bit skeptical in this industry. And it's good to just put all of our cards on the table and, and build real authentic relationships and partnerships with groups. And so you know, that that is as big as you know, sharing data and sharing our intention. And I think talking about real goals. It's easy, you know, I know this is more personal, but it's easy for me to go in and just jump right into the work and, you know, start talking about their software systems and how the shelter works. But it's important to get to know the people that are working in these in these organizations as as people as on a personal level and ask like what brought you here, you know, what drives you every day and what is your passion and I think really getting to know people I mean, we have so many incredible hardworking staff and volunteers that are dedicating hours of their lives and working overtime and just you know, and enduring some pretty big emotional toll. It's not an easy job and so on. Um, I think just seeing the human behind behind the desk and making sure that we're building those building that trust and relationships that it's, it's incredibly important. I would say the last thing is proving that I'm also here to help. You know, I think it's one feeling that the community or an outside organization is just there to criticize and as Brent said, sort of roast them. But I always try to approach it with humility, and it, you know, willingness to roll up the sleeves and get in there and do the work. And sometimes we've had to go into shelters and help them clean kennels in the morning, you know, just just to show them like, we're here for you, we understand you're very short staffed, and then, you know, we can sit down in the afternoon and talk about goal setting and what's really going on. So. Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely a tough line of work. But something that I think trust is really, at the root of it all.
Diaz Dixon:Well, you know, right off the top of my head, as I sit here, and I'm sitting in this room with two superstars, it's really cool. Because your leadership abilities just shine through with everything that you guys say, you know, when when we're talking about trust and transparency, it's, that's not driven by ego. You know, you're walking into situations, and you're listening, and you're paying attention, and we're meeting shelters, where they're at meeting people where they're at. This is, this is really good stuff. This is really, really good stuff. I have to ask you both, then a question I have for you is, for each of you, what is your why? Because clearly, you talked about that. You touched on the passion and why they're doing what they're doing. And they may be overwhelmed. But for each of you guys, what is your way in this world. So we will start with your breath.
Brent Toellner:So I think for me, like, you know, obviously, like a lot of people in this industry, I got into it, because I cared about animals, and I wanted animals to do better in shelters. But like, the more I'm in this, and the longer I'm in this, there's the reality that like people who work at shelters they want to do right by the animals, and they're struggling, and it's really painstaking for them. And, you know, when they're having to euthanize healthy, treatable animals and their shelter, like they have to take that home. And like they don't have that sense of pride that he would get with a job well done. And they're sometimes even scared to talk to their community or tell their friends and family where they work. Because, like, they don't want those questions to come out. Because it's like, that's a tough situation to be in. Like Clare said, it's really hard work on it. And so the longer that I'm in this, the more I'm in it for the people, because I want them to have the success that they they want to have, I want them to not have to kill animals that could otherwise have homes and have healthy outcomes. And I want them to have the pride that comes with being able to do that. And so it's really become so much for me about those lightbulb moments where like, really clicks is like, okay, I get what this really could look like in my own community. And they don't feel like they're victims of that. And so I really kind of come full circle on that. Probably it was the last decade of working with people that, like I just want the people to, like have that success. And if those people have the success, and the animals will have the positive outcomes that they deserve as well. So that's, that's my why that's what gets me out of bed every every day to go to does
Diaz Dixon:this work. I love it. I love it. You know, and for our listeners, I think if you just tune in to that grid really has focused on the fact that we have to take care of the people that take care of the pets, we oftentimes have people that go into this field and they're like, oh, I don't like people. I just want to deal with the pets. But we all have an opportunity to learn grow and change. And I love the fact that you said I've come full circle and with through your wisdom you're able to see things differently have a different approach they can share that thank you for sharing that. Alright see too.
Clare Callison:I like that yeah, I you know, I have to say when I I've been reflecting a lot on that lately and thinking about I was looking at like some old photos and like, gosh, time flies by but I'm working right now with a shelter in Texas. That reminds me a lot of the shelter I started in about 13 years ago and and I have to say that I came in very naive to the reality of sheltering Hi, my first job was an adoption counselor. And I thought it'd be like Disney worlds and just rainbows and butterflies and happy happy stories. I did not do my research before getting the job and turns out I was in one of the largest municipal shelters in Texas and you know, when I first started the euthanasia rate, I mean 18,000 animals a year were were being put to sleep and killed in this shelter. And it was absolutely traumatizing. I'm reflecting on on that even 1314 years ago now. But at that time, there wasn't really much support or there may may have been support out there, but I just didn't have access to it. And so like Brent said, you know, when I'm reflecting, it's really about the people in the shelter and helping right now. They're in South Texas, and there's one person and he's just the friendliest, nicest staff member, he's a vet tech. And he lives in Mexico and crosses the border every day to go to work. And it takes him about an hour and a half to go into work. And part of his job, a big part of his job is euthanizing healthy, friendly animals. And they're, they're getting closer. It's, they're, they're improving. And you know, every day, like Brent said, I'm waking up, and I'm thinking about him, and he's still so cheerful and happy. But I'm like, gosh, I want to see him, you know, seeing animals leave alive, I don't want him to have to come and sit in traffic for an hour and a half, just to euthanize healthy, friendly animals, it doesn't have to be this way. So that is what's really driving me is exactly what brendensen thinking about the people doing this work and knowing what it feels like to not have that support and wanting to fix these things. I know, we're only two people here. But big goals have big aspirations. But you know, someone's got to be out there to try to help and to sympathize with, with how how hard this job is.
Diaz Dixon:Well, and that's really important, as we're paying closer attention to the trauma is that is trauma, that type of job is trauma. And I love the fact that we are recognizing it's not just the animals who are suffering and shelters right now, shelter staff and volunteers to go through this too. And then the human on the human side of things, social workers, and counselors are always encouraged to have their own therapist, because as you're taking on this stuff, you don't even pay attention to it, because you're, you're in the throes of it moving forward. And I think we need to be really mindful of coming up with solutions to pay close attention to caring for the people, and protecting the people who are doing the hard critical work. So I'm really proud to be friends with both of you guys who are making this a bit parently clear and really important. That's something that we're conversations, we need to make sure that we continue to have in all of our shelters across the board. I want to ask you, Brent, we've talked about I touched on the fact that you're working on us getting to know kill by 2025, across the country. We're gonna get there.
Brent Toellner:I think so. You know, it's really incredible, like, if you think, way back, and it's not even that far back. But in 2016, my best friends, you know, made the declaration that they wanted to get to know Cal by 2025, they didn't even have any idea like how many shelters that were in the country, we had no idea how many of them were no kill at that point. So we, the first thing we started doing was collecting data and making the data priority. And at that time, 2016 or so we identified that about 25% of the shelters across the country were no kill, or had reached that 90% benchmark. That number is now over 50% Is that 50 to 53% We're still pulling in data from 2022. But it looks like we're gonna stay well above that 50%. And so we're making a lot of progress in that. And, you know, progress begets progress. Because, you know, as Clare was saying, you know, there when she started her first job in animal welfare, when I started in Kansas City, like there weren't a lot of people out there and do you could call on that would be able to provide help and support. And now they're like, as there have been more successful people, more successful organizations, there are more people who are willing to help and be a part of that solution. Who can share ideas and help you overcome some of those challenges like we, you, Clare can probably attest to this, like, you can go from shelter, to shelter, to shelter, and like they're all a little bit different, but they're all a little bit the same too. We all have a lot of the same challenges. And the more that we can share resources, sharing knowledge and information, the better it is that we can solve our problems when that happened to reinvent the wheel every single time. And so, really, I I'm optimistic because you know, in every one of those 50 Shelter 50% of shelters that were already no kill helped one other shelter get there. We would solve this problem in a year. And so in you're seeing a lot more people taking on that I'm looking at a neighboring community and saying, Hey, how can I help and, you know, there's a lot of connectivity that's happened during pandemic where people were, you know, connecting via zoom in ways that we never had before is really helping And, again, build that trusting relationship of like, Hey, I'm really struggling with this as my community, what did you all do to do that. And so for that reason, I'm very optimistic about the progress that's happening, even though I know it's a really tough time for shelters out there, right now I know people don't feel that momentum, there's actually a lot of it
Diaz Dixon:happening. It's really good to hear. And for those of you guys who are struggling, or you're inside and in the throes of it all, inside your home shelter, know that this is happening, this is happening, it's a movement, and there is always room to get actively involved. That is really systemic change. You know, the, the human social service world relies heavily on their partners for information, things that works, when things don't work. And I think that it's nice to see that animal welfare has made that shift and is going in that direction. Everyone needs help, collaboration and partnerships are so important. That's one of the things that we're really emphasizing over at Haas. That is, that's good, right? You're talking about systemic changes there? Where do you see the need for more systemic change in, in the animal industry?
Brent Toellner:You know, I think in addition to the systemic change that we're already seeing at the shelter level, like, I think that the change has already happened in the community, like the community has reset its expectation for what the work of the animal shelter should, should be. And so like, that's always a thing of like, it's a community support your work, then they'll come adopt, and they'll spay neuter their pets, and we'll do a lot of those things that we want them to do. And they'll help be sure that there's the funding available for you to do the work that you're doing. So that I think is the was the first systemic change. And now we're seeing on the shelter level, I think the, the piece that I want us to sort of wish we're in an animal welfare we could rewrite a little bit is, you know, a lot of the focus within the last two or three years has been on the work that we do to help support the public. I think all this work is really, really important. You know, I think we should help people who are under resource be able to have the resources for veterinary services. You know, we even talked about the cost of veterinary services before we got onto this call, like, it's expensive to care for pets, and being able to provide those resources is important. But we can't always do it at the expense of the animals that are already in our care. And I feel like sometimes we've done that, that we're we're so outwardly focused now that we have neglected, prioritizing, saving the lives of the animals in our care, which impacts our own staff, but also like, how are we going to be the moral authority on how humane treatment of pets in our community can be if we're not doing it ourselves? And if the community knows that healthy and treatable pets are dying in our care, you know, how did we then say, well, you all should do better, but we're fine, even if that's happening. And so I really hope that we can. Why? Well, I think that the whole topic of this is really important is that inward focus of being sure that we're taking care of our own house before we take care of the entire community is is just as important. And I don't want to diminish the value of the community programs that are out there. But it just can't be at the expense of the animals that are around care.
Diaz Dixon:Yeah, no, that makes total sense. We don't want to be moving forward in one direction and sliding backwards with progress that we've already made, particularly internally. So well, I have to ask you, what does it look like? While shelters are understaffed and intake is going up? Like, what are our solutions wrapped around that?
Brent Toellner:You know, I feel like we got away from a lot of the basics that we learned. You know, during the course of the early 2010, period, you know, when I first got involved in animal welfare, we were very focused on spay neuter, we only spayed and neutered enough pets. And in 2006, we were going to solve all all the world's problems. And we've kind of during 2008 2009, in through kind of the mid 2010 period. We were really focused on saving the lives of pets in our own shelter. And I think we lost focus on some of those programs that we know work, you know, open adoptions and having conversation based adoptions instead of like being overly critical of our adopters and screening them out. Doing major adoption events to make them almost a community celebration and pet adoption, having open hours that were late into the evening later on weekends and longer on weekends when people could have access to them, you know, still amazed at the number of shelters out there that are doing adoptions by appointment only and that made sense and, you know, 2020 2021 When we were in the middle of a pandemic, it doesn't It makes sense when your shelters are packed to the gills and you're trying to get adopters in the door, like, creating more of those barriers is a factor. And I think we gotten ourselves into a situation where our shelters are so full, we're so busy caring for the animals there, that we're not able to provide the customer service that we work prior to that. And so I've seen a lot of places like you go in, and it's almost an annoyance that the doctor showed up, because I've got other things that I need to do. And just like a pen adapter, like, that's the person who's gonna take an animal home. And I think, like, with a lot of the turnover that happened during the pandemic, I think we've just kind of lost sight of some of those things that we know work inherently in terms of the marketing and the customer service, and the open adoption processes that really helped move animals. And I really hope we can get back to some of that and in in a, in a
Diaz Dixon:humane way. Yeah, those are conversations we definitely need to have, and keep those on the forefront. Getting back to those those pieces. Excellent point. Cloud, let me ask you, what are the challenges that you're seeing on the ground? Like today? And what do you think the solutions are? Yeah, I mean, I think
Clare Callison:it's, there's certainly a lot of groups that are overwhelmed. And I couldn't agree more with Brent, in the fact that, you know, the solution doesn't have to be an all about innovation and trying new things, I think there are groups that are looking for this brand new silver bullet solution, and we're getting a lot of organizations that have never transported before asking me That's it, you know, like transport, let's do it. And I'm not saying that, it's the wrong way to go. But there I when I look into their, their process and how things work, it's like, You're right here in your backyard, you've got your solution, you know, you do not need to be sending pets across the country, when you know, your adoption application is 10 pages long. And just like Brent said, when people are coming in to adopt or look around, it's like, and it's not warm or friendly. Don't Don't stick your fingers in the kennels type of greeting. And so, you know, getting back to the basics, absolutely. And I think not having to reinvent the wheel. I mean, I know when I'm after a long day, I'm exhausted, I don't have a lot of creativity left. But I really I'm a firm believer in borrowing slash stealing whatever you want to call it from others, you know, you see a good social media posts that worked and it went viral, right, you can do that in your community and making it as easy as possible for people to help. I can't stress that more, you know, being open to fosters, even if they can only take for three to four days. I mean, we're seeing in our research that you know, not all those pets, even if you do a big short term, hey, we're full, like come help us. Or use the weather to your to your advantage, right? If it's super cold, like get these dogs, you know, get them warm for the weekend or whatever, not all those dogs are going to come back. So it's it is a win win. And you get the ones that do come back, you're getting a ton of notes on them. So I think like that, there is this attitude when we present these ideas that seem you know, big community adoption events and open your doors League, it feels like we've tried, there is some resistance, I think on some level, like we've tried that it didn't work or but I would really challenge people to say did you really try it? You know? Did you did you really like put all your all into it and maybe try it again in a different way. There's no harm in trying something for 30 days, you know, again, and really focusing in and if it doesn't work, alright, for we're falling, but I really do think we've got the answer just right in front of us. But it's we're sort of getting in our own way by a lot of the barriers that we're putting in place. So just making it as easy and as welcoming and as friendly as we can to the to the community and bringing him back into our doors because like Brent said, there is an adjustment after the pandemic, and but but the appointment base, although convenient for staff and the dogs are maybe a little little less barky. It also is is it's a barrier for people to come in to help, you know, to want to adopt. So I think just really looking at all of our policies and not doing the things that we've been always doing without questioning them is more important than ever right now.
Diaz Dixon:People are oftentimes scared of innovation, scared to do things differently. We've come into a system and learn how to do it this way. And this is the way we've always done it. And also scared to fail. And you know, I always say fail his first attempt in learning. So it doesn't mean you can't go back to it and try it again. You know, put it out there. Yeah, we've tried that before. But maybe we'll try it this time and do something a little different. And we deal with intentionality of trying to learn from it. Not necessarily the intention behind it is we have to have all these wonderful, great results right at the top. I love everything that both of you guys are saying I've been blabbing and throwing spitballs questions that you guys left and right. What Clare, what question do you have for Brent?
Clare Callison:Oh, that's that's a really good question.
Diaz Dixon:As I throw you on this, as I throw you in your question, opportunity to chat
Clare Callison:now? No, I really appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, I, I would love to hear, and I'm putting Brent on the spot. But just, you know, and hopefully it helps listeners, because I do think there is this like fatigue when it comes to new ideas. But what do you think is the most sort of exciting initiative that you've seen, and it doesn't have to be big, but if you think of an organization that sort of had a breakthrough, or does have that positive momentum that we're talking about, you don't have to name the organization? But what do you think sort of underlying that? Is it? Is it one person driving it? Is it a culture of let's try new things, you know, or it could be just a, you know, an initiative that they tried, and they're all feeding off of it. But I don't know what stands out to you that that seems to be working, that maybe other groups could benefit
Diaz Dixon:from? You know?
Brent Toellner:That's a really good question, Clare. I think one of the things that I am, I think, super exciting. And I love this is innovative or not, but I'm there. If you think about the like the last 1520 years in animal welfare. I was working with a shelter who basically they that the municipality ran the shelter itself, but then they turned over all of the adoptions and all of the adoption work over to a not for profit for handling adoptions for handling live outcomes. And, you know, if you think back 20 years ago, when this relationship happened, I think a lot of the not for profits were by far more progressive than the municipal shelters. And this municipality recently canceled their contract with the not for profit, because the municipality was actually becoming more progressive, and their life saving outcomes, then the not for profit was. And to me, that's really exciting to see how progressive municipal agencies and municipal governments who, you know, have to respond to the public, they are responsible to the public and to their constituents and to their taxpayers. For those that live outcomes, to me this like, it gives me that whole feeling of Yeah, like the public really wants this, and the municipalities are even changing, and even the municipalities are notoriously slow for, for making quick progress. The fact that we've come that far, and this I think, is is superduper. Exciting, and to like, it's probably not really the answer to your question, but it's one of the things that I'm most excited about, because I've seen it happen in a couple of different places now that I'm like, yeah, we've really changed the culture. And to me, if the culture is there around saving lives, then people will figure out a way to do it. It will, because once you reject that idea that like, this is how things are always done, and we just we can't do better. That's where all the innovation starts happening. And that's where you become less resistant to the changes, as Diana was just talking about, because you're willing to try anything for you know, give it a test run for 30 days and, and see if it works. And if it doesn't then move on to the next thing. But just because we changed how we do things today, doesn't mean it has to stay that way forever.
Clare Callison:Yeah, that's, I think that's really inspiring. I'm thinking of one group in Texas as exactly the same. It's almost like the necessity has foresee the innovation a little bit, but you would not expect that from you know, a slow moving municipal agency. But I agree with you, I think that is exciting. And I love what you said earlier too, about if other shelters can attend, you know, mentor or help other you know, other organizations or other shelters in your area. I think that's huge. There's something about you know, me coming from Austin and and even though I feel like I'm familiar, you know, and I have some expertise to give there is that level of trust of like your
Diaz Dixon:looks like Clare froze up right there. She'll come back in unless she froze with a good look on her face. No, sometimes when the when the screen freezes. You had to wonder like your mouth open, you know, are you when I slightly closed? I do love the fact that you're talking about spreading the word. It's great. Are you available to talk to other shelters? And if not, what resources do we point them to? You know, I think
Brent Toellner:that's the wonderful thing about my team. So not only am I available to talk to shelters, but we have have a whole team at best friends that our entire job is to help shelters to work with shelters like all of us to different degrees have been kind of where those shelter directors have been like we've been in this those areas where we've been struggling or having challenges and had to work through them. And if we don't know the answers, like we have a whole team of people we know that we can call on to find those answers. I often joke that like, I always tell them the expert on any one thing, but I always know who the expert is. And I'm happy to reach out and have them reach out to me. And so you know, so we probably have 50 of us at best friends, maybe more than that, that, that our entire job is to help support shelters and do a lot of the same work that players doing with helping and support shelters. And that's what it seemed like, there's so many more resources out there for people to tap into. That shouldn't be scary. It's, you know, we're all in this to try to help people achieve their goals and to have and not have to use the nice, healthy, untreatable animals in their shelters. And so I hope people will reach out and have some of that success.
Diaz Dixon:Okay, you guys, listeners, you heard it out there, Brent has opened up the door in, take the phone call. I love it with all this wonderful knowledge and intellect that they bring. But the best part is the passion. And it really shines through it. For those of you guys who have not read any of his blogs, you can find them very easily. But everything that Brent is talking about in here, this is the type of stuff that when I get off this, this show today, I'm going to be pumped, this is a great way to start my day. You know, we all care about transforming animal shelters to be more humane from pets to people throughout. I love the fact that you've come on today. This is a visionary and a person who's super collaborative. So I hope that everyone can take from today this show that we've had something positive and put it to work. We are blessed to have you, as part of this country, I will say this community because you're in so many communities. Brent, were there anything? Is there anything that you want to touch on before we close out, or anything that I missed on anything new and exciting that you're working on? Or anything you want to throw out there? Yeah, I think
Brent Toellner:and unfortunately, when we lost Clare, I think we she was hitting on something, I think it was really, really important. And something that best friends has started working on as well, is that whole idea of these shelters helping other shelters. And you know, we just started a new program at best friends, where we are supporting some of these shelters that are already have achieved their 90% Say rate that have an appetite to go help other shelters that were helping support that type of work. It's the type of stuff that Austin Pets Alive has been doing for you know, over a decade now. But helping other people get to that point. And again, I think really success is going to happen when we're all willing to help out and reach across the aisle and help each other and support each other in the lysate and work in sharing in realizing that we share common goals, you know, I think there's been a little bit of a maybe a little push to sort of try to hide that this is no longer important and that we should be doing other things in the community instead, I still think this is really, really important and essential to the work that we're doing. And all the other work is that yes, but I think we still have to, you know, take care of the animals in our care first, and, and take care of our staff and be sure that they're not having to euthanize healthy and treatable animals in their care first. And so when we do all that, then we're way better suited to do all these other things that I think we all know are really important for our communities.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. That's awesome, all coming together. And Clare has returned her dog knocked her internet out. That's all part of the world that we live in. Right.
Clare Callison:Sorry, the wrestling at my feet. What a day. All right, thanks. Okay. Welcome
Diaz Dixon:back. I just want to ask, you know, and we're kind of wrapping up here. How can people reach out to you and your team for support? Sure.
Clare Callison:There's a few different ways. You know, we have a website, Austin Pets, alive.org, or there's American pets alive.org. And so people can easily just submit an inquiry form if that's easiest way. But we have an email address that goes directly to myself and team and it's just shelter support at American pencil live.org. So shelter support at American pencil live.org And no inquiry is too small and it doesn't have to be even a complete. Ask. It can just be an intro email that you send and then we'll generally jump on a phone conversation and see if we can help Well, we're a pretty small team. Most of our travel is in Texas. But we're not opposed to going to different parts of the country if it feels like a good fit. But there's a lot of support, we can provide both remote support. You know, and we've done zoom trainings with staff and things, we get creative with how we provide resources and support all the way to more in depth in person visiting the shelter and spending it a few days with with the team and seeing what the biggest challenges are and trying to propose a solution. So yeah, as simple as just emailing us and we'll get started.
Diaz Dixon:So awesome. Awesome. This resource is available, you guys, anyone out there listening, we got Clare and Brent, two fantastic people that are backed by wonderful teams. But I'd be remiss if I did not ask one last question of each of you. To tell me a little bit particularly, I think why Clare's dog knockout The Internet is because I typically asked about your pet. And your dog is probably like, that hasn't even brought me up. Can you guys each tell me a little bit about your pet or pets. Any quick stories you got? I'm happy
Clare Callison:to go first and spine interrupted this, this podcast, but I am yeah, for dogs and they don't all come from San Antonio not planned. But it's hard not to bring your work home home with you. And in a one eyed tenant, and every one of them has something quirky about them deaf or three lighted or one eyed, emotionally very needy, you know, add it to the list, but it's always a full house. And yeah, my husband is very, very understanding. I'll just put it that way.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. That's awesome. How about you, Brent?
Brent Toellner:So I again coming full circle. I started all of this as the dog person and had three dogs when I in two cats when I started in animal welfare. Now I have three cats and one dog. So I've animal welfare has turned me into more of a cat person than a dog person. And so but yeah, I have three cats, all with their own sort of special needs. And one, one year old puppy who will chew up everything. So fortunately, she's locked out of the room. Otherwise, she would have chewed through my internet cord and we've been have been in a bad shape.
Diaz Dixon:That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I want to thank both of you guys for joining the show today. Again, what a delight to my morning a wonderful way to start my day. I know that I'm pumped. And I will be looking for what can I do and how to do more. I love hearing about your Why's the things that you guys are doing more than just inside your own community. And, you know, you took your capes off for the moment to be able to come on to the show greatly appreciated. In a world where we need more human kindness impact kindness, People, Pets, and Purpose really focuses on us looking at the levels and areas we can intersect to make our communities a better place, particularly in this day and time and we are struggling. We all need help. We all need allies and superheroes like these two. Thank you guys for joining the show. Thank you guys for listening. And looking forward to seeing you guys come back at some point in time on People, Pets, and Purpose. You guys have a wonderful day.
Brent Toellner:Thanks, Diaz.
Clare Callison:Thank you