MSU Holds Inaugural Animal Shelter Education Conference

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – It was the first of its kind for Mississippi State University.

The University’s College Of Veterinary Medicine hosted it’s Inaugural Animal Shelter Education Conference.

Animal Shelter Workers from all over the South East gathered near Mississippi State’s Campus for a meeting of the minds.

“It’s offered to workers in animal shelters at no cost to them. It’s designed to give people who work in animal shelters very practical cost effective ways to improve the care of the animals that come into their shelter,” said Event Organizer Phil Bushby.

The 2 day conference touch on topics that shelter workers experience on a daily basis while on the job.

“We kicked off with capacity for care. We’re going to be talking about intake protocol, we’re going to be talking about proper medical care and behavioral care of the animals in the shelter, We’re going to be talking about euthanasia ,we’re talking about compassion fatigue for shelter workers,” said Bushby.

Lisa Henley is the director of the West Point Clay County Animal Shelter.

She says without the Shelter Medicine Program at MSU getting the job done would be a little harder.

“We appreciate the shelter medicine program at Mississippi State. It’s just vital in this area in our operation. The guidelines that they set, the visits that they make, in an effort to help the shelters in this area and out lying areas as well is really makes a difference for us,” said Henley.

Event Organizer Phil Bushby says with the conference being the very first one and Super Bulldog Weekend going on he wasn’t sure who would turn out.

“The interesting thing is when we started planning this we got a grant from pets mart Charities to fund this and when we started planning it we anticipated we would have 25 to 50 people attend. We sent notices out to every shelter in the state of Mississippi, every shelter in North Alabama, and every shelter in West Tennessee our final registration number was 236,” said Bushby.

The Conference was paid for by a $16,050 from PetSmart Charities of Phoenix Arizona.