The Great Connector Series: Double Dog Dare – How Communities Can Partner With Animal Shelters

Join us on August 14 from 1-3 p.m. at the Ulster Welcome Center (Highland approach to the Walkway) for a presentation titled “Double Dog Dare: How Communities Can Partner With Animal Shelters” by Lynne Meloccaro from the Dutchess County SPCA.

Historically, animal shelters have served as repositories for a community’s unwanted animals.  But in recent years, a new and more progressive perspective has emerged, in which animals are taken to be the responsibility of the community, and the shelter becomes a resource for services to humans to help their pets. When we examine the facts about why people surrender their pets to a shelter and why animals end up as strays, it becomes clear that in the vast majority of cases, the entry of an animal into the shelter system can be averted if their caretaker is given proper support.  Working with human agencies, animal control and legislatures, animal shelters can be a critical resource to address the human circumstances that affect pet guardianship—because, after all, what happens to animals is always a direct reflection of what happens to their human caretakers. Research suggests that through the successful partnering of animal shelters with their communities, the number of animals entering the shelter could be reduced by over 50%.

Lynne Meloccaro has been executive director of the Dutchess County SPCA for the past three years. During this time, she instituted the highest standards of shelter animal care, reformed intake and adoption policies to adhere to best progressive practices and succeeded in raising the live release rate for animals from 77% to 97%.  DCSPCA is now recognized as one of the top no-kill shelters in the country by the national ranking organization Best Friends Society. Before coming to DCSPCA, Meloccaro had a successful 20-year career in not-for-profit management in the arts in New York City. She entered the animal welfare field at the insistence of her five cats.  A former academic, she holds a doctorate in literature from Rutgers University and taught at Rutgers, Columbia, and the University of Rochester.