Workshops

Animal Care Expo 2025 featured over 100 professional development workshops and learning opportunities across 12 themed tracks. At every Expo, leaders and experts in animal welfare provide attendees with insight into trending topics, best practices and tools they can use within their own communities and organizations.

Educational opportunities included:

• Learning Labs - Daylong sessions (8:30am – 3:00pm) that allowed for a deeper dive into specific topics. Learning Labs took place on Tuesday, April 15 and included lunch. Learning Labs were available for an additional fee.
• Main Stage - We convened together for main stage sessions where we discussed some of the biggest topics and trends in the animal welfare field today.
• Workshops- 2025 Workshop tracks included:
  • Access to Care (Sponsored by Petco Love) - Workshops covered approaches and best practices for animal welfare organizations, service providers and veterinary professionals on how to ensure equitable access to animal health and pet care resources; and share innovative programs and research on community outreach and pet support services.
  • Behavior (Sponsored by Virox)- Workshops provided tips, tools and resources to support the behavioral and enrichment needs of dogs and cats in shelters, rescues and the community.
  • Cats (Sponsored by Hill's Pet Nutrition) - Workshops focused on strategies for bolstering your impact for cats, assessing community needs and building community support for cat programs.
  • Community Engagement (Sponsored by PetSmart Charities)- Workshops emphasized building relationships, partnerships and coalitions through collaboration and programmatic work to find common ground, drive change and advance progress in the animal welfare field.
  • Expanding Our Reach (Sponsored by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement)- Workshops explored how to engage audiences to promote your message, including programs that addressed systematic barriers, enhanced mental health awareness, and focused on educational outreach, with a particular emphasis on wildlife content.
  • Field Services (Sponsored by National Animal Care & Control Association) - Workshops supported professionals such as field officers, outreach staff and humane investigators who provided a wide variety of community services including lost pet services, cruelty investigations, outreach/education and enforcing ordinances, laws, and regulations.
  • Global Spotlight (Sponsored by Battersea) - Workshops explored animal welfare issues and topics from an international perspective, highlighting information and experiences of people and organizations based outside of the US.
  • Leadership and Career Skills (Sponsored by DocuPet) - Workshops supported leadership skill-building and addressed current and future challenges in animal welfare.  These workshops also equipped individuals at any career stage with essential skills and knowledge to enhance their impact in the field of animal sheltering and welfare.
  • Marketing and Fundraising (Sponsored by TrueSense)- Workshops provided tools, insight and guidance into the many different ways organizations across the country shared their work, engaged with their communities and raised funds for their animals.
  • Progressive Programs - Workshops featured exciting programs that could be implemented to make a difference in your community through partnerships to meet today’s challenges in animal sheltering, fulling community needs.
  • Shelter Operations (Sponsored by CDE Animal Cages) - Workshops highlighted best practices in adoptions, rescue, transport, fostering, RTO, pathway planning, and emerging practices and trends.
  • Veterinary Medicine (Sponsored by Maddie's Fund)- Participants earned RACE continuing education credits in workshops that discussed the latest trends in shelter and community medicine, along with ways to increase access to veterinary care for people and pets in need.

Workshops that highlighted specific themes throughout the conference included the following spotlight designations:

• Spotlight on Inclusion (Sponsored by Petco Love)- Content focused on increasing equity in access to care services, community-centric programs and community-based solutions inclusive of underserved, underrepresented and historically marginalized communities; and on creating a more diverse, just and fair animal welfare movement.
• Spotlight on Wildlife- Content focused on best practices for shelters and rescues that interact with wildlife, including effective care techniques and strategies for communicating with the public about wildlife-related issues.

A note on content from speakers, presenters and vendors

As the host of Animal Care Expo, Humane World for Animals endeavors to invite speakers, presenters and vendors who are knowledgeable in their subject areas and/or provide useful products and services for the animal welfare field. Please note that views expressed, and materials distributed by speakers, presenters, and vendors are solely those of the presenters and not of Humane World for Animals.