The Sumit Winners are...

CALGARY, 19 October 2009: The Summit Urban Animals Strategies is pleased to announce the winners of the 2009 Summit Awards. More than 20 nominations for the nine award categories were received from across Canada. The final awards were presented Thursday, 15 October 2009, during the Gala Reception that was part of the Summit for Urban Animals (SUAS) at Lake Louise, Alberta.

the 2009 summit winners are:

Animal Health & Wellness: Eastern Passage Village Vet

Animal Re-Homing: Lincoln County Humane Society

Animal Sheltering: City of Calgary Animal Services

Community Education: City of Edmonton Animal Services

Community Collaboration: Lincoln County Humane Society

Distinguished Service Provider: Ontario SPCA

Media & Communications: Ontario SPCA

Individual Achievement: James Wilke, City of Saskatoon Animal Services

Lifetime Individual Achievement: Tim Dack, City of Winnipeg Animal Services and Paul Teichroeb, City of Vancouver Animal Services

Congratulations to all winners and nominees! (View complete list here.) And a heart felt "Thank you!" to the 80+ delegates and speakers who made the 2009 Summit For Urban Animal Strategies a great networking, collaboration and learning event.

 

Summit to Aid in CBC Cat Documentary

"Kitty Gone Viral" will air on Doc Zone in Fall/Winter 2010

We are pleased to announce that a collaborative working agreement has been signed with the Summit for Urban Animal Strategies and Vancouver-based Bountiful Films. The documentary production company is working on an in-depth feature about the problem of cat overpopulation.

"We made the decision to work collaboratively with film producer, Maureen Palmer, after an extensive review of her synopsis," explains Summit Chair, Larry Evans. "We felt that assisting Palmer with research, community resources and content for her project was in the best interests of Summit delegates, considering that this film will address the same issues that we struggle with on a daily basis."

"We want [to attend the Summit] to build some important relationships," explains Palmer. "We want to listen, and make sure we have a firm grasp of all the issues and positions, so that the documentary we create is a fair representation of what is really happening at the grassroots level. We want to make sure we are correct statistically and that we do indeed have our finger on the pulse of 'state of the art' research. We need to know the people we have identified as 'key players' are indeed such."

Bountiful's most recent film, How to Divorce and Not Wreck the Kids had its genesis at a family lawyers conference in Toronto in fall 2007. "We did film sparingly there," said Palmer, "but none of that made it to air. We did however, make priceless contacts and left confident we had a handle on the story... and that is why we want to attend the Summit."Quite often, complicated issues [such as cats overpopulation] get the depth and context they deserve only in documentary," adds Palmer. "The challenges facing those who care about cats are nuanced and sensitive. We will present them as such."

Summit Presentation Synopsis #6

Building a Feline-Friendly Community

Presenter: Nadine Gourkow ~ Esteemed researcher, educator and companion animal activist

All of us working for feline friends have experienced moments of despair, wondering how to shift from a world where millions of cats are abandoned, abused, and put to death, to one where cats are valued and every kitten has a loving, forever home.

"Although creative solutions, devotion and hard work have done much to improve the plight of cats in the last few years, much remains to be done," believes Nadine Gourkow. "Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an innovative approach that can help cat welfare professionals and activists better understand the root causes of problems. Furthermore, it provides guidance in the development of effective targeted solutions and a methodology for measuring effectiveness. The EBP movement has already been adopted by many in disciplines such as Social Work, Education, and Veterinary Medicine, among others. Recently EBP has been used by some animal welfare professionals, yielding effective measurable solutions to human/cat problems in their community."

Nadine’s Summit presentation will review a number of concepts central to EBP and describe leading edge case studies including the CatSense System – an evidence based approach to the care of cats in animal shelters. Her presentation will be followed by a though-provoking and dynamic brainstorming session on how evidence based practice could be applied to different aspects of cat welfare work.

And the Nominees Are....

Some of Canada’s hardest working animal advocates recognized by their peers

CALGARY, 08 October 2009: The Summit Urban Animals Strategies is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2009 Summit Awards. More than 20 nominations for the nine award categories were received from across Canada. The final awards will be presented Thursday, 15 October 2009, during the Gala Reception that is part of the Summit for Urban Animals (SUAS) at Lake Louise, Alberta.

“The ‘Summits’ are intended to convey the recognition of peers from all four sectors of the companion animal industry – animal control/legislation, animal health/wellness, animal welfare and animal services,” explains Larry Evans, Chairman of the SUAS organizing committee. “Considering that individuals and organizations can not nominate themselves, this public acknowledgment of commitment, creativity and collaboration in effort to make their communities better for pets and people is, in itself, a great honour. Although there can only be one award per category, we consider all of our nominees to be ‘winners’ in whatever it is they do.”

the 2009 summit nominees are:

Animal Health & Wellness

• Eastern Passage Village Vet
• Animal Hospital of Manitoba

Animal Re-Homing

• Langley Animal Protection Society
• Lincoln County Humane Society
• Moncton SPCA

Animal Sheltering

• Animatch
• Calgary Humane Society
• City of Calgary Animal Services
• Heaven Can Wait
• Saskatoon SPCA
  

Community Education

• Edmonton Animal Services
• Ontario SPCA - Animal Voice Magazine
• Ontario SPCA - BARC Camp

Community Collaboration

• Lincoln County Humane Society

Distinguished Service Provider

• Associated Vet Clinic Ltd.
• Ontario SPCA

Media & Communications

• Dogs in Canada
• Ontario SPCA

Individual Achievement

• Dr. Hugues Lacoste, Centre Vet
  
• Debbie Nelson, MEOW Foundation
• Dr. Drew Van Niekerk, Assoc. Vets
• James Wilke, City of Saskatoon Animal Services

Lifetime Individual Achievement

• Tim Dack, City of Winnipeg Animal Services
• Paul Teichroeb, City of Vancouver Animal Services

All Summit alumni are encouraged to review the nominees and their supporting documents at the www.tsuas.com website, under the section “summit award nominations”. Then vote by completing the survey.

See you at the Summit!

Summit Presentation Synopsis #5

The Dynamics of DNA: Cat genome research explained

Presenter: Dr. Leslie Lyons, U of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Health and Reproduction

Cats have a universal reputation for being mysterious creatures. Dr. Leslie Lyons is determined to change that! She is, quite literally, taking a microscopic look at cats... right down to analyzing their DNA.

"Currently, the domestic cat is one of the initial species to have a more in-depth [DNA] sequencing," explains Dr. Lyons. "My research focuses on the development of high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays for the cat, to investigate feline model of inherited traits and diseases."

Last spring, Hill’s Pet Food announced a low coverage, private sequencing project and has donated a large portion of the data to the cat genetics community, along with $1,000,000 to support development of a cat SNP array.

"To date, feline studies have required large-extended families with clearly defined modes of inheritance (MOI)," adds Lyons. "A plethora of diseases exist in cats that have a significantly increased risk in certain breeds or populations, but the MOIs are not well defined. Often, MOIs of more simple diseases are highly suspected, but data has not been collected in an organized manner to document these conditions and would not pass peer-review in scientific journals."

You'll learn more about this fascinating topic at the Summit!

Summit Gala ~ Master of Ceremonies

Andrew C. Patton has been with The Canadian Kennel Club for more than six years. His focus is Communications, Sponsorship and Membership Development. Andrew says that he is delighted to be at the Summit again this year.

Andrew sees great opportunity for the companion animal industry in "big-picture collaboration, allowing us the prospect of touching every pet in Canada and engaging and offering value to the pet families with whom they live."

Andrew aspires to be the person the dogs in his life think he is and enjoys misquoting one of Napoleon’s generals: “We can either love cats or understand them, but never both.”

Summit Presentation Synopsis #4

Licensing Cats in Calgary

Presenter: Bill Bruce, City of Calgary Animal & Bylaw Service Manager

Trying to legislate cat licensing in your community? Here's hope... and help!

After years of effort, on January 1, 2007, The City of Calgary began licensing cats. The program has been a resounding success.

"To date, over 48,000 responsible cat owners have licensed their cat(s)," explains Bill Bruce. "Within the first two years of the program, return to owners statistics for cats at the City’s shelter has increased to 56% and there has been a reduction of cat euthanasias to 18%."

Bruce's presentation will look at the process of implementing cat licensing with a high degree of public acceptance, working with partnerships on managing cats in the community and future steps to increase the level of responsible pet ownership with cat owners and reduce the number of unwanted cats in shelters across the City.