The Community Cats Podcast

In this episode, Stacy is joined by Sarah Dunsmore, who co-owns CDE Animal Cages with her husband. Lifelong animal lovers, Sarah and her husband purchased the thirty-year old company several years ago and decided to shift its focus to helping shelter and rescue groups. As a small, family-owned company, CDE wants to help connect shelters and rescues with caging that helps keep their animals healthi...

Christina Ha joins Stacy again (having been interviewed by Stacy in CCP episode 144  and episode 245 ), this time to discuss the third annual Cat Camp event, to be held this June 1 and 2 in New York City at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Christina, who is one of the co-founders of Meow Parlour cat café, founded Cat Camp in 2017 as a resource for the many people who were asking her about how they could...

For the 300thepisode of Community Cats Podcast, Stacy is joined by Bryan Kortis, Director of National Programs for Neighborhood Cats. Previously featured on CCP Episode 13 , Episode 127 , and Episode 218 , Bryan is back to talk about how things are going for community cats in Hawaii, and about the new book he has co-authored. And of course, he and Stacy discuss the ongoing webinar series that CCP...

Lindsay Hamrick, Policy Director for Companion Animals at the Humane Society of the United States, works to support local, state and federal policies protecting pets. She holds an M.S. in Animals & Public Policy from Tufts University and was the New Hampshire state director for HSUS prior to her current role. She spent ten years as CEO at three different New Hampshire animal shelters and, like so...

Dave Hanley, developer of the Tomorrow app, is an entrepreneur who is also a pet (and human) parent. Tomorrow is designed to help anyone set up a legal will quickly and easily—and even appoint guardians for their pets and/or children. The app is free, with no strings attached. (It is funded by the optional sale of life insurance products.) Dave's own love for cats began as a child when his parents...

You may remember Dr. Kate Hurley, Director of U.C. Davis Koret School of Veterinary Medicine and co-founder of Million Cat Challenge, from CCP Episode 47 . If not, be sure to check it to hear all about how Dr. Hurley got started in the world of animal welfare. In this episode, Dr. Hurley is back to talk with Stacy about the amazing success of the Million Cat Challenge (MCC) program that she co-fou...

Nikki Martinez was always a dog person. That all changed one day when a kitten ran in front of her car on her way to a post-surgical doctor appointment. Feeling down and overly focused on herself after her surgery, Nikki poured her heart and soul into nursing that sickly kitten back to health, and eventually found it a new home. In the process, Nikki herself began to heal—and she found herself hoo...

Danielle Bays, Director of Cat Protection and Policy at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), is a frequent flyer here on CCP, having appeared before on Episode 55 and Episode 261 . She joins Stacy again here to talk about what's going on across the country for cats, and about various events happening in the animal welfare world this spring. One such event is HSUS'S annual Animal Care Ex...

Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado, a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist with a Ph. D. in psychology, has quite a list of accomplishments under her belt. She has co-authored the book Total Cat Mojo with Jackson Galaxy, and she currently co-owns a cat behavior consulting business called Feline Minds, which assists both pet owners and shelters. Mikel is also a post doc fellow at the University of California...

In this interview, Stacy speaks with Karen Anderson, an animal communicator and afterlife expert who has been practicing for over 20 years. She has received several awards and is a best-selling author of several books as well, including her most recent, The Amazing Afterlife of Animals . As far back as Karen can remember, she has always loved animals. They were her very best friends and for many y...

Kim Saunders was a practicing attorney when she decided to move into the animal welfare world full-time (after years of volunteering). She spent 15 years at Petfinder before moving into a more hands-on role at St. Hubert's. She is now the Operations Director at Liberty Humane Society (LHS), the only licensed animal shelter in Hudson County, NJ, which one of most densely populated counties in the s...

Elena Battles of Shelterluv software has been working for animals in one capacity or another since 1999. It was then that she found Trini, a stray beagle who truly changed her life. Elena had been working as a physical therapist, but after rescuing Trini, she was re-awakened to the issues facing animals, and decided to change paths. She began volunteering, then moved on to several staff roles in a...

Kay Stout is the Executive Director of PAAS Vinita in Oklahoma, a multi-faceted group that grew out of the initial shelter that gives the group its name (PAAS stands for "Peaceful Animal Adoption Shelter"). Back in 2015, the shelter opened, but no one was coming in to adopt the animals. That's when Kay realized they had to do something different. She reached out to animal welfare contacts and soon...

Sandy Rees, the CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) at Get Fully Funded and Founder of Arf Club, joins us for her second visit to Community Cats Podcast. If you missed her first chat with Stacy, check it out here . Sandy's company shows passionate nonprofit leaders how to fully fund their big visions so they can spend their time saving lives instead of worrying about money. Based in Loudon, TN, Sand...

Dr. Angie Kraus, a holistic house-call veterinarian in Boulder, CO, has known since the age of 3 that she wanted to be a vet. She was trained conventionally, but after graduation, she began to explore other, less traditional modalities of treatment, leading her to holistic veterinary medicine. For Dr. Kraus, being a holistic vet means doing anything that works for her patients. In this interview,...

Veronica Coit, a full-time hairdresser who is married with two children, calls herself a "cat lady for life." She spearheads the Asheville Cat Weirdos, a Facebook group that she started in 2016. That group has now grown to almost 9,000 members, all from the greater Asheville, North Carolina area. The group has also grown from simply being a place for cat lovers to converse to a full-fledged 501(c)...

Dana Andresen started as the first executive director of Feline Rescue, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based, no-kill companion cat rescue organization, in April 2016. Dana came to her current role after working with a pet food company and then as the first executive director of the Minnesota spay/neuter assistance program (MN SNAP). She got interested in animal welfare after running a fundraiser with the...

Dr. Graham Brayshaw, a 2004 graduate of Texas A&M's veterinary school, is both the chief veterinarian and the director of animal services for the Animal Humane Society (AHS), an organization based in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Brayshaw's interest in animal welfare and community cats began when he did a rotation through local shelters in vet school, and in 2012, he acce...

Sara Kent, the first CEO and paid staff member of Shelter Animals Count (SAC), sits down with Stacy to discuss how SAC came to be, what its mission is, and some of its latest statistics. Sara began her career in animal welfare close to 20 years ago as one of the first people hired at Petfinder, where she ultimately served as the director of shelter outreach and led the creation of Petfinder Pro. Y...

In this episode, Stacy talks with Larry Shively, owner of ProVetLogic, one of the sponsors of 2019 Online Cat Conference, about controlling the spread of disease among cats, particularly in shelter-type environments. Nine years ago, Larry & his wife Colleen started ProVetLogic after being called in to assist with a "big cat" situation – and by "big cats," he means lions and tigers! A zoo's big cat...

Durning the month of December, we're revisiting some of our favorite, most informative shows. This is a rebroadcast of episode 248 featuring Kim Freeman who, with the help of her trained tracking cat Henry, helps find cats when they've gone missing  – enjoy! Kim Freeman turned her lifelong love for cats into a career as a professional missing cat finder. When her own cat Mr. Purr went missing in 2...

Durning the month of December, we're revisiting some of our favorite, most informative shows. This is a rebroadcast of episode 143 featuring the man who has one of the most interesting jobs we've ever heard of, Shaun Sears of Canopy Cat Rescue   – enjoy! You don't need to call a fireman to rescue your cat from a tree when Shaun Sears is around. Shaun and his partner are certified arborists who hav...

Durning the month of December, we're revisiting some of our favorite, most informative shows. This is a rebroadcast of episode 222 featuring The Cat Man of West Oakland, Adam Myatt – enjoy! Cats have been taking over this amazing guy's life for the last eight years! What started as a small photography hobby has turned into a life-changing endeavor for Adam Myatt, leading the "Cat Man of Oakland" t...

Durning the month of December, we're revisiting some of our favorite, most informative shows. This is a rebroadcast of episode 175 featuring cat behaviorist and host of Animal Planet's "My Cat From Hell", Jackson Galaxy - enjoy! It's the Cat Daddy himself in this special episode of the podcast! Stacy has a fascinating conversation with Jackson Galaxy, the once-musician whose special bond with feli...

Durning the month of December, we're revisiting some of our favorite, most informative shows. This is a rebroadcast of episodes 256 and 257 which we dubbed "The Mike & Carmine Show" - enjoy! Stacy speaks with Mike Keiley, the Director of Adoption Centers and Programs at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), and Carmine DiCenso, Executive Director of the Dakin...