When you find an injured stray dog in your neighborhood, who do you call? In many communities across America, the answer might surprise you: there’s often no one officially responsible for helping. This creates dangerous gaps that leave both animals and people at risk.
Host Penny Ellison talks with Brian Hackett, Director of Government and Community Relations at Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey, about the uneven patchwork of animal control across the country. This continues our series exploring potential legislation that can move the needle for animals. This week’s focus: making local animal control services mandatory in every community.
In this episode, we explore:
- The fact that only 13 states require local governments to provide animal control services
- How Pennsylvania and New Jersey handle stray animal control differently —what works and what doesn’t
- What happens when critical services are left to underfunded charities instead of being treated as public safety functions
- Real-world examples of implementation challenges, even when laws exist
- Why reliable animal control benefits both animal welfare and community safety
- How to research and advocate for stronger animal control laws in your area
- Action steps you can take to improve services where you live
Brian shares insights from years of working within the system, explaining how even states with legal mandates often fall short in implementation, and why sustainable animal control requires treating it as an essential government service like police or fire departments.
Key Takeaway: Animal control isn’t just about animal welfare—it’s about public safety, community health, and creating systems that work for everyone. Every community deserves reliable, well-funded animal control services.
Episode Highlights:
00:49 The Game-Changing Problem — Why animal control should be a mandatory government function like police and fire services, but isn’t guaranteed in most communities.
02:50 Only 13 States Require It — How New Jersey’s mandated system provides a blueprint for what works and what doesn’t in animal control.
04:55 Pennsylvania’s “Too Many Cooks” Problem — Why having multiple agencies (police, dog wardens, animal control) with no clear responsibility creates dangerous gaps.
06:24 New Jersey’s Better Structure — How state mandates require every municipality to have an animal control officer and impoundment facility.
10:23 Animal Control vs. Animal Cruelty — The crucial distinction between when animals affect people versus when people harm animals, and who handles what.
13:20 The Police Connection — How New Jersey streamlined animal cruelty enforcement through designated municipal humane law enforcement officers.
15:51 The Patchwork Problem — Why unfunded mandates create wildly different implementation models, from county shelters to private contractors.
18:40 Nonprofits Bearing the Burden — How charitable organizations end up shouldering municipal responsibilities at their own expense, and why this isn’t sustainable.
25:39 The Ideal System — Brian’s case for county-run facilities with clear mandates, proper funding, and nonprofit support partnerships.
28:19 When Counties Step Up Voluntarily — How some counties provide animal services even though they’re not legally required to, and what happens when they don’t.
30:33 Breaking Point in Salem County — Real-world example of what happens when shelters finally say “no more” to unsustainable municipal contracts.
32:41 Your Action Step — How to find out if your state mandates animal control services and what to do if it doesn’t.
Resources mentioned:
- Free Shelter Assessment Tool & Advocacy Resources: animaladvocacyacademy.com/free-resources
- Podcast show notes, transcripts and previous episodes: animaladvocacyacademy.com
- Associated Humane Societies of NJ
Transcript:
Penny Ellison:
Welcome back to the Animal Advocate, your guide for moving from compassion into action. Last week we talked about animal control and compared it with animal sheltering, covering all the different ways local governments provide or choose not to provide animal control services. If you missed it, it’s a great foundation for today’s interview. It’s episode 19 and you can find it on our website at animaladvocacyacademy.com/19. Now, I know there were a lot of nuts and bolts in that episode, but I don’t want you to get lost in the details. Here’s the big picture I need you to understand. I’ve identified a handful of proposed laws that I think would be game changers for animals. And on the podcast we’re taking them one by one.
First I do a solo episode where I explain the problem and the proposed solution. Then the next episode is an interview where we go deeper on the whys and hows with someone who has real hands on experience. We did that with allowing veterinarians to use telehealth to expand access and help keep pets in homes. And now we’re doing it with changing the way animal control works. Here’s what I think needs to change. Animal control should be a mandatory government function that just like police and fire services. When you see a stray dog that’s injured, hungry or potentially dangerous, there should be someone you can call every time. But in most communities in this country, that’s not guaranteed. And that’s just wrong.
Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers with the information and inspiration you need to become effective advocates. I’m your host Penny Ellison, and I’ve taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. If you’ve ever thought someone should do something about that, I’m here to guide you on your journey to being that someone. You can find us on the web at animaladvocacyacademy.com and that’s where you’ll find show notes and resources, and you can send us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you’d like to hear on future shows. So on to Today’s topic.
Only 13 states require their local governments to provide animal control services, and New Jersey is one of them, as you’ll hear from today’s guest. Even with a mandate, the system isn’t perfect, but it gives us a blueprint for what works and what doesn’t when we’re trying to ensure these services are available everywhere.
The truth is, this isn’t just about animal welfare. It is of course, animal welfare. But it’s also about public safety. Communities need reliable systems for handling stray animals, responding to bite incidents, and managing rabies control. When local governments aren’t required to provide these services, both animals and people suffer the consequences. Now, I’m not naive about this. Animal control costs money, and getting local governments to fund new services is never easy. But as Brian will explain, there are different models for providing these services.
And states that mandate animal control have found ways to make it work in different kinds of communities. The key is having the legal requirement in place first, then working out the implementation details. So today’s guest is Brian Hackett, Director of Government and Community Relations at Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey. Brian has worked on both the policy and implementation sides of animal control, and he’ll help us understand why some approaches work better than others. We didn’t coordinate on this, but he uses the same word I used last week to describe the current system, and that’s patchwork. And that’s exactly the problem that we need to solve. So if you’re wondering how animal control works in different communities or whether your city or town is even required to pick up stray animals, then today’s episode will help you connect those dots. You’ll learn why enforcement breaks down in some places but works in others, what accountability looks like when it’s built into the system, and most importantly, how you can push for laws that better protect both animals and people in your community, because that’s what animal control is about.
Penny Ellison:
Brian brings real insight from the field, and by the end of our conversation, I hope you’ll have a much clearer picture of both the problems and the solutions that are within our reach. Here’s my conversation with Brian. So welcome Brian Hackett to the Animal Advocate.
Brian Hackett:
Great to be here.
Penny Ellison:
So you and I first connected because I’m on the Dog Law Advisory Board for Pennsylvania, and I was doing some research for them about how stray dogs are handled, because in Pennsylvania, the law says that stray dogs can be picked up by local animal control, the police, or the dog wardens that work for the state. And the problem with that arrangement is that it doesn’t mandate that any of them are primarily responsible. So some municipalities have decided that they don’t want to provide animal control services because it costs money and they just leave it to the police and the dog wardens. But now, not only do the dog wardens cover large areas, so they can often be very far away from where a stray dog is. They also, like police, for the most part, don’t have any kennels. So if they pick up a stray dog, they have nowhere to take them. Often they decide to leave it out there if there’s no local shelter that’ll agree voluntarily to take it in. And I feel strongly that for the safety of animals and humans, everyone should have someone they can call that can take a stray dog to safety.
So that led me to reach out to you about New Jersey’s system, which is different from Pennsylvania. And I know it’s got pluses and minuses. So I wanted to talk to you about, you know, tell me about how it works in New Jersey with stray dogs.
Brian Hackett:
Yeah. So it sounds like in Pennsylvania you have too many cooks in the kitchen and not enough clarity on who, what, where, when, why and how. In New Jersey, we have at least what seems to be a better structure on paper. But we also run into a similar problem that you have in Pennsylvania of the mandates in the statute not being clear or not being complete enough, which leaves a lot of variability into how it’s actually implemented and practiced out. So, for example, in New Jersey, we have state statute that requires every municipality to have an animal control officer. The state mandate is every municipality. There’s 565 in New Jersey. They must make an arrangement for an appointed licensed animal control officer.
Brian Hackett:
The second mandate in New Jersey is essentially there needs to be an impoundment facility for each of those animal control officers to bring animals that are stray, sick or injured or otherwise subject to the animal impoundment animal control requirements in state law. So, for example, we have a state law that says any animal, dog, cat or otherwise that is sick or injured, that is reported or observed by animal control must shall be impounded by animal control. The problem where the rubber really hits the road here is not only are those state mandates totally unfunded, which is a whole other issue as to funded versus unfunded mandates and state mandates and all of that. But practically speaking, beyond the financial piece is the state doesn’t say who, what, where, when, why, or how should you provide that animal control and account for that animal impound facility. So the problem we have in New Jersey is a bit different than you have in Pennsylvania. We know who should be doing what, but how they should be doing it has variability as wide as the horizon. Right. So some counties in New Jersey have county run animal shelter facilities.
Where I live in Burlington County, you know, we of course border Philadelphia and, you know, Pennsylvania and all that is we have a county shelter that is funded by our county tax dollars. And my county property tax bill, it goes to the shelter and many people are fine with that. But then it’s up to each municipality within the county to provide for animal control. The county does not do that since it’s a municipal obligation. So what we have in that type of scenario is there could be a totally different animal control officer in my town where I live, but then go two miles down the road and. And it’s an entirely different animal control officer. Maybe it’s a for profit animal control company that’s used by that town, but my town has an employed animal control officer under the police. So without getting into too much nitty gritty, I think that the issue is on paper we have good mandates, but not enough clarity on, well, you know, maybe the town should only have its own animal control officer, not these private for profit companies.
Penny Ellison:
Some towns decide to contract out with a private for profit company who is then who you would call if you live in that town and you see a stray dog.
Brian Hackett:
Right. This gets to. Typically, if someone has an animal control or any animal related issue, it could be animal cruelty.
Penny Ellison:
And this is another issue I wanted to ask. We talk about animal control as if people know what that means and people in animal welfare do. But animal control is more what happens to stray dogs? What happens to sometimes surrendered dogs. It’s not usually prosecution of animal cruelty. Are those functions separated in New Jersey?
Brian Hackett:
Yes, they are. So what I say to everybody generally is animal control is when there is an issue involving an animal where the animal is affecting people. A stray dog running at large..
Penny Ellison:
Dog bites, maybe be barking endlessly.
Brian Hackett:
Yeah, nuisance complaints, you know, dogs barking, dogs running at large, you know, a dog bit someone, there’s a sick injured cat that should be subject to a trap neuter vaccinate return program that needs to be addressed. Right. That’s animal control. Animal cruelty is when a human is negatively impacting an animal which could come into disorderly persons or misdemeanors or criminal indictable animal cruelty offenses. Right. In some states you have humane society officers or animal control officers that are empowered to deal with the animal cruelty as well as animal control. And sometimes those issues mend together. Right.
Brian Hackett:
If you have an animal hoarding situation where you have, you know, an animal control issue with tons of cats roaming around a property that aren’t fixed and are not vaccinated, but then you also have animal cruelty because maybe they’re starving and they’re being neglected and being kept in an awful hoarding circumstance. Right. So that requires an integrated response between animal control and the police. Now, when someone here in New Jersey calls about an animal issue, we find the problem is that none of the dispatchers understand that difference between animal cruelty and animal control. So the knee jerk reaction is just to refer everything to animal control. But animal control doesn’t have the statutory ability to enforce state animal cruelty law.
Penny Ellison:
Right.
Brian Hackett:
So that has to be referred to the police department. And every police department is required to have a municipal humane law enforcement officer, which is typically someone, a police officer that designated in that police department to deal with any criminal animal cruelty matters.
Penny Ellison:
And that sounds like an advantage to have a specific person who probably maybe volunteered for that or has an interest in it or at least has accumulated some experience.
Brian Hackett:
It’s a mixed bag. Right. So New Jersey used to have the New Jersey SPCA which was the statewide quasi-governmental nonprofit police force that was tasked with enforcing animal cruelty law. But we disbanded that because of rampant corruption and dysfunction and mismanagement back in 2018. So the new structure was basically in a nutshell, the state said, you know, we don’t want volunteer people running around enforcing state laws. So since we’re already investing so much in… almost every town in New Jersey has its own police department.
Brian Hackett:
You know, out of 565 towns, I think there’s only 60 or 70 that are covered by the state police. So there are so many police departments, they’re already tasked with enforcing state law. Animal cruelty law is included in state law, so they should just be trained and designated to deal with it. Why are we having people call about an animal cruelty issue? They don’t know if it goes to animal control or if it’s a county SPCA or if it’s the state SPCA. There were so many cooks in the kitchen with that that it was streamlined and refined to animal cruelty. Call your police. That’s it. If it involves animal control, get animal control involved.
Brian Hackett:
And they should mutually work together to address the matter. Right. But it’s a mixed bag to your question around the state because some places you have police departments that have officers who care about animals and they take this stuff seriously. And other police departments, you call them and you get, we’re dealing with murders and robberies, Go take a hike. Click.
Penny Ellison:
Yeah. Okay. So we’ve separated animal cruelty enforcement, which is a criminal proceeding, from animal control. And you talked about that New Jersey has a mandate on municipalities to have an animal control officer and have somewhere to take animals, but that they handle it differently. It sounds in your county, the county pays for, out of tax dollars, a shelter where the municipalities could take those animals. But there are other models where it’s not quite that clean.
Brian Hackett:
Right. So there are quite a few counties in New Jersey that do not have a county shelter facility. So if you live in one of those counties, some of them are more populous counties up towards the New York City areas. These are very, very populated, large counties that do not have a county animal shelter. So when you don’t have a municipal or a county run animal shelter facility where those towns can bring animals that need care, what you have is a patchwork of coverage where private animal sheltering facilities that are most, if not all are 501 nonprofit charitable organizations that run animal shelters like Associated Humane, where I work. We are the largest animal protection organization in New Jersey. We have four animal shelter facilities throughout the state. We are the largest contractor for municipal animal services in the state.:
What does that mean? Essentially, the reality of what that means in plain speak is our private charitable organization is assuming the burden of providing animal services to municipal residents for that municipality, often at a cost that we are always bleeding red because the municipality never pays what it actually costs to do this work work, even though they are the ones legally obligated to provide those services. Right. And this is where we circle back to the state mandate. State statute simply says every municipality in New Jersey must have animal control and an empowerment facility. It does not say who, what, where.
Penny Ellison:
When, why, or how or who pays for it. Because you’re getting into the same situation that I’ve had. I’ve had discussions with shelter leaders in Pennsylvania that use that same phrase, almost verbatim, that we are shouldering the burden that should be a public burden. That is, you know, where the municipality has decided that they don’t want to pay for animal control. You know, we’re having to raise money as a nonprofit to do that work. And isn’t that, especially if you’re talking about strays and public safety? Public safety is supposed to be a municipal or state function. So there’s just the overlap of private entities trying to pick it up. And then, you know, I want to, by the time we’re done here, I want, I want to come to what would the ideal situation be? Because it’s clearly not that the nonprofits pick up the slack.
Brian Hackett:
Right. I think it’s so important for podcasts like this and radio shows and animal shelters, anyone who understands how this really works and to educate the public about what the realities are. Because the tragic thing I see so often is you have well-meaning people. Sometimes they’re Just average members of the public. Sometimes they’re animal rescue folks. It spreads the gambit. But you have people who want to bash the animal shelters or they want to criticize the SPCAs or the Humane societies. You know, you’re not taking in enough animals.
Brian Hackett:
You’re euthanizing too much. You’re not doing this. And we are just charities that are bearing the burden of municipal officials not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And look, this is not to say that all animal shelters, all humane societies, they’re not perfect. There’s always things that they could do to improve and better their operations. I’m not saying that’s not the case. But we have to level the responsibility and the criticisms in the right place. We need to empower and encourage and support the entities that are stepping in because they care about animals and people so much.
Brian Hackett:
We’re stepping in to take this huge burden on our own shoulders at our own expense, largely because we’re underfunded perpetually. And we have to deal with the messes that that are created because either the municipal or the county or the state officials are not properly funding and accounting for crucial animal services. And we always have to say, it’s not just animal services. It’s not just bringing a stray dog to the pound. This is a comprehensive community approach to public health, public safety, and animal welfare that are all integrated. When you have animal hoarding, you have mental health, you have public health issues, you have animal welfare concerns. All of these situations and cases transcend multiple concerns, multiple areas of government programs, and just social impact, that it’s always on the burden of the animal shelter, and we’re the nonprofit. I said this to a health director of a city yesterday when we were negotiating a contract.
Brian Hackett:
I said, you think that’s too much money, what we’re proposing in a monthly cost? I said, we could take in one case from your city that will cost us that monthly fee in one case.
Penny Ellison:
You said that brilliantly, Brian. I just agree with everything you said. And in fact, you nailed the reason that finally got me to start this podcast, and that was looking at all of that online criticism of shelters. But being part of the shelter world and saying, I understand how it looks to the public because it’s very confusing. It’s different in different places and who’s responsible for what. But there is a ton of what I think is largely unfair criticism of shelters. They’ll say things like, well, if you don’t have an officer that can get out in an hour, why don’t you Hire another officer. It’s like, well, we’re not funded by the state.
Penny Ellison:
This is charitable money that you have to raise to get an officer and a vehicle and insurance and everything else. And a big chunk of that should be, in my view, a government function. Maybe not, you know, rehabilitating and adopting out all the animals, but certainly the chunk that deals with human safety should be. And like you said, getting the different. It’s not just an animal problem, it’s a social service problem, it’s a housing problem, and getting all of those different entities to work together.
Brian Hackett:
Right. And that’s where we, as people who love animals sometimes fall into the situation of we care about animals so much. So that’s what we’re always thinking about and that’s what we always want to talk about. But we have to put ourselves in the shoes of a municipal official or county official in all of the things they’re dealing with, all of the things on their budget, all the things on their plate, and say, you know, maybe they don’t care about animals or they don’t understand what goes into all this. So we need to show how these issues are integrated into all of the other things they’re currently doing and that they care about. Right. You have a city or a county health department. They’re dealing with vaccines and public health.
Brian Hackett:
Well, trap, neuter, vaccinate, return for cats. We want to make sure all these outdoor cats are properly vaccinated. Keeps them safe, it keeps the public safe. Right. Well, why do we not round up cats and euthanize them anymore? Well, not only is that unethical, it’s inhumane, it’s contrary to best practices of the National Animal Care and Control association, but it also doesn’t contribute to protecting public health.
Penny Ellison:
You’re right. Speak to the priorities. Because the legislator may care about animals, but times are getting tougher and they’re balancing a lot of priorities. And you have to speak to that, the financial priorities in particular, as in maybe if we had better programs to help people retain their pets, it would actually be cheaper than rounding them up and holding them in a shelter and eventually euthanizing some of them, that you might be able to provide people a boost at a more effective cost.
Brian Hackett:
Right, right. And, and I, I think looking at this holistically, in what are the policies and practices of a city or a county when it comes to animal services? Right. I, for example, am very hesitant to contract for animal services through our Organization for Animal Control and Animal Sheltering. If a city is going to fight me on Having a trap, neuter, vaccinate, return ordinance. Why should I contract with you at our burden and our expense if you’re going to turn around and expect us to jeopardize our nonprofit mission because you just expect us to round up all the stray cats and kill them?
Penny Ellison:
Yeah. That gets to the heart of a problem of having almost this dual mission of animal welfare and maximizing animal welfare and animal control. Sometimes those two things are kind of viewed as diametrically opposed because one is protecting people from animals and one is protecting the animals themselves. In an ideal world, Brian, you’ve experienced a lot of different types of systems for animal control. If you were going to a state legislature or a local governmental body, what do you think is the best system?
Brian Hackett:
Well, I think it’s clear that we need state mandates requiring these services because they’re so vital. So first, making sure the state mandate is clear and depending on how it is mandated, determining some type of funding mechanism for that state mandate. I personally like a county system. I see the county run organizations in New Jersey where Cape May County or Burlington County or Bergen County, where you have a large facility with county backed resources, with good staff that everyone in that county understands, this is the facility, this is the people, these are the programs. And, and then that county facility has a nonprofit Friends of the Burlington County Animal Shelter, which that nonprofit fills in gaps and supports the county shelter and works with municipalities. I really like how that model works. How much of it can be mandated in state statute, I’m not sure, but whatever is mandated, I think it has to be be clear. There must be an animal control officer, there must be an animal impoundment facility who has primary jurisdiction and where is the funding coming from? And meeting those questions I think would make things much clearer.
For example, again, you know, New Jersey mandates that every municipality has animal control. Now we have municipalities that have 300 plus thousand people and we have municipalities that literally have 100 people.
Penny Ellison:
Then that’s where you’re saying that the county model makes a lot of sense because every municipality shouldn’t have to have a shelter, right?
Brian Hackett:
Not every municipality can or should have its own shelter because maybe a large city could or should have their own shelter. But the town that I was a councilman in for a short period of time, we had a couple thousand people. We were a small town, we didn’t need our own facility. We could have done shared services or we could have been under a county structure where the county ran a facility. But interestingly, with the current mandate as it is, counties don’t have to do any of that. It’s only the municipalities. So the counties that run their own shelter, they’re doing that out of kind of their own good graces.
Penny Ellison:
That’s amazing.
Brian Hackett:
Right. So the county government is taking that function on. And sometimes I wonder, where did that all even start? Because it’s the municipal obligation. And this is a problem we’re running into in some places. Where? There are some towns in New Jersey that have no animal impoundment facility, which is a violation of the state statute. It’s a public health crisis. Because if a vicious dog bites some young girl’s face off, well, where is that animal control officer going to bring that dog so it’s not a threat to public safety? Well, there is no place to bring it, so they just let it run wild, or they ask an animal rescue to hold onto it, which is not permitted.
Penny Ellison:
Right. That’s why I just think that the system has to, at a minimum, have a solution to that problem for every one of the citizens of the state.
Brian Hackett:
And for the longest time, it was animal shelter nonprofits that were perpetuating the problem. And I don’t say this as a criticism because they were stepping in because they care about animals so much and they saw a need and wanted to help. But in doing that, it was perpetuating the government officials to not have to do what they should be doing because, well, oh, the Humane Society will handle it. Out of sight, out of mind. We don’t have to worry about it. Well, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost in a lot of places. Because we have a situation in Salem county right now where most of the municipalities in the county have no animal shelter because the animal shelter that was servicing them said, you know what? You guys not only are not paying what this costs us, but you’re not even doing the proper local policies with TNVR and backyard breeding that you just want to keep dumping the problem on us and then not even paying us properly to deal with it. We’re done.
We’re cutting you off. This is going against our mission. This is a tremendous strain. You’re on your own. And now all the towns are saying, woe is me. Oh, no, we have no one. We have no. Well, you knew this was coming down the pike.
For a year, you were begged to do the right policies to make this easier for the shelter. And finally when they broke loose because they couldn’t take it anymore, now you’re crying victims saying, woe is me.
Penny Ellison:
Well, you know, and that state mandate means they need to figure it out, I guess. I mean, they don’t have the option to say just not doing it like some towns in Pennsylvania, do you?
Brian Hackett:
Correct.
Penny Ellison:
Well, Brian, we could probably talk about this all day, and we have many other things to talk about since you brought up trap, neuter, vaccinate return programs and backyard breeding. So we’ll have to have another discussion or two on those. But thank you for all the information that you provided today and thank you for the work that you do.
Brian Hackett:
Thank you for shedding light on this because there’s a lot of possibilities and potential out there. But until we hold the government officials feet to the fire and really put pressure on this, it’s going to continue to be business as usual, which is nonprofits bearing the burden of a government obligation.
Penny Ellison:
That is true. Thanks very much. We’ll talk to you soon.
Brian Hackett:
Thank you, Penny.
Penny Ellison:
Today’s conversation with Brian really drove home why we need laws that require local governments to provide animal control services. He showed us that even in New Jersey, where it’s mandated, implementation varies wildly, but at least there’s accountability and a legal framework to build those improvements on. Without that mandate, you have stray animals roaming the streets, suffering and making the overpopulation problem worse if they’re not spayed or neutered. And nonprofit shelters end up trying to pick up the slack without any public funding to do what should be the government’s job. And that’s just not the way it should work. So here’s what I want you to take away from all this. If you live in one of the 37 states that don’t require local animal control services, that’s a problem you can help solve by proposing a bill to your state legislature. And whether your state mandates animal control or not, if you’re seeing gaps in service in your community, you could work directly with local officials to try to improve it.
If you’re ready to take action on this or any of the other policy changes we’ve been discussing, you can find resources to help you at animaladvocacyacademy.com just click on Free Resources. And here’s something I’m really excited about. Next month, we’re launching a private podcast series called the Four Cs of Legislative Advocacy for Animals. This is a framework I’ve worked on for turning passionate animal lovers like you into confident, effective animals advocates who actually get bills passed. I’ve broken down everything I’ve learned into a system that shows you how to identify winnable issues, build the right coalitions, and navigate the legislative process. Even if you’ve never done anything like it before. If you sign up for our newsletter, you’ll be the first to get access to this new private series. I can’t wait to share it with you because I know how powerful it is when you can combine solid knowledge with a supportive community of people all working towards the same goals.
That’s exactly the kind of systemic change that moves the needle for animals. Instead of just managing the symptoms like overcrowded shelters, stray animals with nowhere to go, we’re trying to address the root causes through better laws and policies. So here’s your action step. Find out whether your state mandates animal control services. If it doesn’t, that’s a bill worth proposing in your state. If it does, look at how well it’s being implemented in your community and work with local officials to strengthen the system. That’s it for today. The Animal Advocate Podcast is brought to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy.
Penny Ellison:
You can find episodes and show notes at animaladvocacyacademy.com along with a link to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we discuss our podcasts, and we’d love to discuss your thoughts and experiences there. If you’re interested in learning more about protecting animals, subscribe to the show so you get every episode when it comes out. If you have any questions on this or any other topic related to animal law, email them to podcastnimaladvocacyacademy.com and we’ll make sure to get them answered. We’ll either email you back or feature them in a future episode, or both. And remember, compassion is great, but compassionate action is infinitely better. Until next week, Live with Compassion.
