Animal Cruelty 101
Course Description
Neglect comes in many forms and impacts animal care or animal services organizations every day, from phone calls about chained or neglected dogs, to free roaming strays or reports of large numbers of animals on a single property. This one-day workshop is an in-depth primer on how to handle animal cruelty cases from start to finish. Participants will explore how their organization can help curb and prevent animal cruelty through public and humane education as well as interruption programs designed to reduce the occurrence of animal cruelty, neglect, and illegal animal fighting in their community.
This course is open to anyone interested in learning how to recognize and appropriately act upon suspected animal cruelty.
Course Objectives
Topics covered in Animal Cruelty 101 include why animal cruelty matters, including its link to human violence; a review of your state's cruelty laws and how they can be applied; key concepts such as exigent circumstances, the plain view doctrine, and search warrant procedure; and working with prosecutors and other agencies on cruelty cases.
By the end of the workshop participants will have a practical knowledge of:
- Handling animal cruelty and neglect reports from the public
- Housing, care, evaluations, and adoptions programs for victims of cruelty, neglect, and illegal animal fighting cases
- Humane education and interruption programs
- Public education and community outreach
- The significance of animals and animal cruelty in our society
- Animal cruelty's connections with other violence
- Receiving and processing cruelty complaints
- Investigating an animal cruelty complaint-- from first response to filing charges
- Caring for seized animals
- Recognizing street fighting
- Animal fighting’s connection to other felony crimes
Schedule
Where: The location of onsite workshops will be determined by the host agency.
When: This is a one-day workshop held between the hours of:
8:30am to 5:00pm
Check in begins at 8:00am
* Note: Participants will be given an hour for lunch
Registration & Fees
Cost Options: The Host Agency can choose from one of the three cost options, below. Rates are specific to each workshop topic and length of the workshop
- Hosting Agency Flat Rate/No Student Registration Fee: The Hosting Agency pays a flat rate to cover the cost of the workshop; individual students do not pay HSU. The cost of each workshop varies according to the requirements of each workshop and your location. For specifics, please inquire with hsuonline@humanesocietyuniversity.org.
- Low Cost Student Registration Fee/Back-up Hosting Agency Matching: The student registration fee is set at a low rate determined by the hosting agency (i.e. $25). The hosting agency would match the difference between the low student rate and the normal registration fee. An invoice will be sent to the hosting agency following the completion of the class.
- Student Registration Fees only/No Hosting Flat Rate: HSU sets the registration fees based on our average class size of 35 students. Workshop fees vary in order to cover costs of instructor travel and materials. In general, our standard student rates are:
Workshop Rate:
| Length of the Workshop | Individual Participant Fee | Host Agency Flat Fee |
|---|---|---|
| One-day workshops: | $145 | $3,200 |
Registration deadline is two weeks before the start date of the workshop.
Cancellation fee is 25% of the registration fee.
No refunds will be given after the two-week time period.
HSU reserves the right to cancel this workshop due to low enrollment or in the case of a major animal disaster response.
Accommodations
Recommendations for accommodations will be made by the host agency and will be posted on the specific webpage for each workshop.
Instructors
All of our instructors are subject - matter experts with 10 or more years of experience in their field of instruction.
Required Materials
Workshop materials will be provided by HSU and sent to the host agency within 7-10 business days prior to the start of the workshop.