Professional Training

A research-based assessment of a cat’s behaviour and interests that matches adopter preferences with an animal’s behaviour. And the amazing part is that it works —shelters testing the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match® Program (Feline-ality™ is a part of Meet Your Match®) found a 40- to 45-percent increase in adoptions and a 45- to 50-percent decrease in returns and euthanasia. Incredible results and stats-driven!

The Meet Your Match (MYM)® Canine-ality™ Adoption Program is a colour coding method for matching shelter dogs, ages six months and older, with adopters. This program is making it possible for adopters to know a little about a dog’s behaviour before deciding to make him a part of their family. Finding the perfect pooch is a serious undertaking. That is why the Ontario SPCA offers the MYM® program—to help match the colours of an adopter’s personality to their new friend’s Canine-ality™.

This course is designed for staff responsible for conducting Intake Exams, as well as those wishing to further their knowledge in this area. It will provide you with a well-rounded skill set and ability to perform Intake Exams for shelter animals, a key component in managing animal health in the shelter environment. This training is theory based, geared specifically to the procedures and protocols performed for the Intake Exam, including safe, low-stress animal handling.

This course will teach you basic animal behaviour focusing on recognizing and reducing fear, anxiety and stress with the animals in your care. We will discuss steps to evaluate your facility for environmental stressors that affect behaviour.  You will leave with a comprehensive understanding of a considerate approach to animal care including the importance of gentle control and low stress handling.  You will also learn the importance of creating individual animal care plans and continual behaviour monitoring.  Finally, an emphasis on safety including proper approach techniques as well as the use of in centre safety equipment will be covered.

Please note, staff taking this course must pass the assessment quiz with an 80% or higher to move onto the Virtual Demonstration and the Canine and Feline Communication workshops.   

The 3 animal behaviour and low stress handling workshops are a part of an ongoing series in which the same staff members must move through all three in order to achieve their certificate of completion.  For questions in regards to these ongoing workshops, please reach out to Katie Hart at khart@ontariospca.ca

This will be an interactive setting where you will be shown and asked to perform various methods of restraint to prevent staff injuries and to reduce fear, anxiety, and stress in canines and felines.  This course also includes hands on Fear Free tactics to ease animal handling going over proper equipment usage. Please note, the prerequisite to this workshop is Animal Behaviour 101: Low Stress Handling

 The 3 animal behaviour and low stress handling workshops are a part of an ongoing series in which the same staff members must move through all three in order to achieve their certificate of completion.  For questions in regards to these ongoing workshops, please reach out to Katie Hart at khart@ontariospca.ca

This course will teach you specific and focused best practices you can use to provide for the behavioural needs of the dogs and cats in your care. You will leave with a comprehensive understanding of canine and feline body language and low-stress animal handling. You will learn to recognize specific canine and feline behaviours, what they signify (e.g. stress, frustration), as well as safe and professional handling skills.  We will discuss the impact of fear, anxiety, and stress on canine and feline health and wellness and of length of stay. You will be introduced to Fear Free practices and reward-based training methods.

Please note, the prerequisite to this workshop is Animal Behaviour 101: Low Stress Handling

This course will teach you specific and focused best practices you can use to provide for the behavioural needs of the small animals in your care. You will leave with a comprehensive understanding of small animal body language, low-stress animal handling, and steps to evaluate your facility for environmental stressors that affect behaviour. You will learn to recognize specific small animal behaviours, what they signify (e.g. stress, frustration), as well as safe and professional handling skills.  You will be shown various methods of restraint to prevent staff injuries and to reduce fear, anxiety, and stress. Also, an introduction to small animal husbandry, proper diet requirements and small animal enrichment with be covered. This course includes hands-on practice and live demonstrations.

The Infection Control and Zoonosis Workshop will enable you to create and maintain a healthy shelter environment for both animals and humans. Preventing and controlling infectious disease is an integral part of humane animal care.  This audience participation and interactive workshop will tackle the basic principles of disease transmission and zoonotic diseases. We will review biosecurity precautions for staff and volunteers, cleaning and disinfection protocols and meeting Health and Safety Standards.

Please note, each participant must attend both Part 1 and Part 2 to receive their certificate of completion.

This course has been designed to be a resource for guiding frontline staff in how to deal with inquiries from the public about community cats and how we can better manage any of these cats that do end up in our centres.  A portion of the course will cover topics such as how to determine between feral and frightened, how to best handle and house feral cats in your centre and how to best support our feral cat caretakers out there in the community. We will also go over Neighbourhood Cats’ TNR Handbook and best practices for managing a feral cat colony, including demonstrations on how to use different live traps.

Please note, each participant must attend both Part 1 and Part 2 to receive their certificate of completion.

Do you or your staff need a one day focused review of all things “Safety”?

This full day course curriculum will introduce several key aspects of Human Resources safety elements including WHMIS updates, WSIB, and safety incident reporting. The course emphasizes key components of working safely in the shelter environment, including Bio-security and zoonosis, sharps handling, and use of cleaning and disinfecting agents. The afternoon will provide hands-on safe animal handling techniques for real shelter situations. Guidance will also be provided for specific questions you may have regarding on the job safety, and resolution of health and safety concerns.