Optional Workshop - Additional Fee Required
Learn how to advocate for horse welfare on a local, state, and federal level. Hear from experienced advocates and become empowered while learning about state welfare coalitions, the threat of horse slaughter in your community, effective letter writing, grassroots advocacy campaigns, and the federal legislative process. Practical tools and talking points, as well as hands-on learning experiences, will enable attendees to become better advocates, educate politicians and the media, and improve the lives of horses.
Optional Workshop - Additional Fee Required
Learn how animal advocates can help animal control and law enforcement in prosecuting animal cruelty cases. Budget cuts, pet overpopulation, and increased awareness of animal cruelty issues have had a direct impact on our shelters and enforcement officers. Animal control and law enforcement agencies are receiving a considerable number of complaints regarding animal cruelty and the public via the media and social networking are pressing for an increase in prosecution of these cases. This can be overwhelming for an agency, especially when the budget does not provide for additional staff or training to assist. These factors can create a reluctance to investigate animal cruelty cases, but you can make a difference and we will teach you the tools and techniques to assist your local community.
Optional Workshop - Additional Fee Required
WARNING: The factory farming industries don’t want you to attend this session. There’s no greater way to reduce animal suffering than to focus on helping farm animals. And we have the plan to do it! Come learn, from some of the nation's most experienced farm animal campaigners, strategies for effectively waging farm animal cruelty initiatives in your community. This session is all about ways you can make a difference for farm animals at the local level, and with as much or little time as you have available!
Optional Workshop - Additional Fee Required
See a sad chained dog in your neighborhood and wonder what you can do about it? You've come to the perfect panel, get ideas and positive solutions for chained dogs and under-served communities that include:
• Fencing programs
• Awareness Campaigns
• Grassroots legislative efforts
A growing trend among advocates has touched the heart of communities all over the country and become a catalyst for positive change. By providing free direct services such as fenced enclosures, dog houses, and spay/neuter services to under-served communities, advocates are transforming lives for chained dogs, their families, and helping to bridge the gap within their community.
Enjoy hors d'oeuvres, a free drink from the bar, meet HSUS state directors, network with other animal adovcates and have fun!
Enjoy some hot popcorn and join us for a viewing of "Madonna of the Mills," a documentary about Laura, an office manager from Staten Island, who stumbled on the reality of puppy mills four years ago and vowed to save as many breeding dogs as she possibly could. Laura has now rescued over 2,000 dogs from Amish and Mennonite farmers in Pennsylvania. In the process, she has forever changed her life and the lives of those families fortunate enough to adopt one of these remarkable “puppy mill” survivors.
Lean into Healthy Eating
Kathy Freston will be talking about how to "Lean In" to a healthier way of eating and living. She believes that everything is possible - weight loss, getting healthy, and feeling great in every way - when you just set your intention, and then nudge yourself ever so gently in the direction of the shift. Kathy also believes that what's good for your body is also good for your soul, and for the world around you.
Taking Animal Right to the Next Level - Going Hi-Tech
Learn how individuals and organizations can work more effectively to speak up for animals using the media and other social networks. Learn how to: (1) band together to take a united stance on issues that affect animals; (2) use the media to respond to breaking news that involves animals, like a mad cow disease outbreak; (3) use technology to speak up for the animals, create newscasts; (4) develop rapid response strategies to respond to breaking news stories the same day; (5) be a powerful voice on your own to affect change as one individual did when contacting Amazon to stop carrying shark and dolphin meat; and (5) partner with other entities to make a real difference for animals like HLN's Jane Velez-Mitchell did in conjunction with the Puerto Rican Bar association, PETA, and a Puerto Rican lawmaker to stop the opening of a lab monkey breeding facility that would have housed and bred thousands of monkeys.
Saving Species, Saving Lives
Zoos are unique societal intersections where nature, science, education, and human values converge. They could be sanctuaries for human and non-human animals if everything about their physical and social environments addressed every animal's needs and preferences. Exotic animals in accredited zoos are well-fed, live mostly predator-free and longer than their wild counterparts and most reproduce well. But there are also thousands of roadside zoos/menageries that threaten our communities and don't advance conservation - species welfare. And what about individual welfare of those animals in captivity? Are zoo animals thriving or just surviving? Are we rescuing and saving lives or harming both human and non-human animals? This will be a candid conservation about exotic animals in America
Learn how you can be an effective advocate for animals by using social media to create positive change by creating your own campaigns or supporting existing campaigns. You’ll learn how to engage like-minded people, leverage your existing social networks, and rally support for your cause!
Sponosred by E - The Environmental Magazine
Want to help animals, but not sure where or how to start? Want to use your own talents, but feeling a little inexperienced? This workshop will explore the various ways you can take action, both as a part of an organization and on your own, and how to find the right fit for you. There are many ways to be involved; you'll hear first-hand stories from advocates on how they got started and explore options for volunteering in ways that make the most of your time and unique abilities. Take away specific tips for meaningful actions. Prepare to be inspired!
Want to win big changes for animals suffering in laboratories and the classroom? There are critical first steps, such as identifying the problem, getting the facts, assessing the landscape, setting your goals and knowing what your resources are. Then what? Your leadership and relationships make all the difference. We’ll role play how to carry out the critical planning steps and how to effectively work with diverse partners in the community to make the change you are seeking. You’ll leave the workshop with a list of new prospects to help the animals in the short and, especially, long term.
Sponsored by the ASPCA
Speaking up for the underdogs in your community has never been easier. Join us for this fast-paced workshop and learn about positive trends in fighting breed discriminatory legislation, progressive policies that are getting pit bull dogs home faster and innovative and affordable kennel enrichment strategies that will keep all of your dogs happier and healthier. Get the information the policy makers need to hear and the tools to advocate successfully for the pit bull dogs in your community! Each participant will receive a copy of The Pit Bull Placebo, by Karen Delise.
Adverse legal decisions in state and federal courts, as well as international bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), can overturn or dilute vital animal protection laws. Legal experts in the fields of animal protection, constitutional, and international trade law will take a critical look at recent cases and issues that are shaping the field of animal protection law, including the NMA v. Harris case at the Supreme Court, the Tuna – Dolphin and Seals disputes at the WTO, and the legal obstacles to horse slaughter restarting in the U.S. The panel will offer recommendations about how to avoid – and defend against - a legal challenge to your hard-won legislative victory for animals.
Enjoy a delicious vegan three-course meal, listen to banquet speakers Wayne Pacelle and U.S. Rep. Sam Farr along with entertainment from singer/songwriter Nellie McKay.
Sponsored by the ASPCA
Wayne Pacelle
As President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle leads the largest animal protection organization in the United States, with 11 million members and constituents. During his tenure, Pacelle has more than doubled the size of the organization and, through corporate combinations with groups, built unity and greater efficiency within the animal protection cause. He has led successful efforts to pass hundreds of new state and federal laws to protect animals (more than 600 state laws since 2005, and more than 25 federal statutes over the last decade), expanded The HSUS’s animal care operations, and worked with dozens of corporations to enact operational changes that benefit animals. Pacelle is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. His work on animal issues has been featured in thousands of newspapers and magazines across the country. He received his B.A. in history and studies in the environment from Yale University in 1987.
U.S. Rep. Sam Farr
Congressman Sam Farr, D-Calif., was named 2011 Humane Representative of the Year for his leadership, as the Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, securing significant increases in funding to strengthen USDA enforcement of key animal welfare laws, as well as on bills to improve treatment of egg-laying hens and promote stability for egg farmers (the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments, H.R. 3798) and to require licensing and inspections of puppy mills selling directly to the public via the Internet or other means (the PUPS Act, H.R. 835). Rep. Farr played a pivotal role in approving a USDA request to reprogram $4 million of FY 2011 funding so that the agency could address serious shortfalls in its oversight of puppy mills, identified by USDA’s own Inspector General, as well as obtaining a $5 million increase in USDA’s FY 2012 funding to enforce the Animal Welfare Act, which covers puppy mills, laboratories, zoos, circuses and other regulated facilities. Rep. Farr’s long history on this effort – he led the initial push for increased AWA funding back in 1999 and offered key guidance in the ensuing years – has been very successful. In the 1990s, AWA funding was stagnant at about $9 million per year; for FY 2012, Congress provided $27 million. In addition, Rep. Farr provided critical help last year winning enactment of a 40 percent increase in funding for the Horse Protection Act, the law that prohibits soring of show horses (the first time in decades that HPA enforcement, also strongly criticized by USDA’s Inspector General, received more than $500,000). Rep. Farr also earned a perfect score on the 2011 Humane Scorecard, and has championed animal protection dating from his service in the California Legislature.
Nellie McKay
Acclaimed singer/songwriter Nellie McKay is a creative dynamo. She has released five critically acclaimed albums, won an award for her performance in the Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, and appeared onscreen in the film PS I Love You. Her music has been heard in films and numerous TV shows. Not just a multi-talented artist, McKay is also a staunch advocate of animal protection and other social causes, and she brings her advocacy, along with a strong dose of satire, to her music and her performances. Two of her most recent, and unique performances include “I Want to Live,” a “musical death row revue” hailed by The New Yorker as “a brilliant piece of theater,” based on the life (and death) of San Quentin inmate Barbara Graham; and “Silent Spring—It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature,” a tribute to Rachel Carson on the 50th anniversary of the book that gave birth to the environmental movement.
“Get Ready To Lobby “ Training Session
Attendance at Part 1 is required before attending Monday Lobby Day.
If you plan to take part in Lobby Day on Monday, you are required to attend Part 1 of this training session before joining us on Capitol Hill—and we encourage you to stay for Part 2 as well. To be a successful citizen lobbyist, you must know what catches a busy lawmaker’s attention. This program will give you all the skills you need to meet with your legislators or their staff and discuss important animal protection legislation. Lobby Day packets will be available at the HSUS Federal Affairs table in the exhibit hall all weekend, and you can also pick them up at this Lobby Day training along with your Monday meeting schedule.
Meat, fur, and other animal derived products move easily across borders, along with ideas and practices relating to the treatment of animals, so animal protection campaigns must also be global. Drawing upon examples from the campaigns against factory farming in developing countries/emerging economies, the trans-continental effort to halt the slaughter of seals for fur, and local programs to protect companion animals in China, this workshop showcases an array of strategies (including influencing international trade and investment policies, and utilizing on-line communication tools) to foster compassion worldwide. Participants will be invited to examine their responsibilities and roles in protecting animals outside of their country.
Sponsored by the ASPCA
Outreach to underserved communities is an important and often overlooked aspect of animal welfare work. Reaching out to provide services to these populations in your community can lead to great results for companion animals by elevating the human-animal bond, increasing spay/neuter rates, and ultimately reducing suffering. This requires a genuine understanding of how to effectively engage, build trust, and create partnerships. Learn how to successfully overcome perceived barriers such as race, culture, language, and socioeconomic status as well as out-of-the-box strategies for how to assess your target audience, market your services, engage community partners, and approach pet owners.
“Get Ready To Lobby “ Training Session
Attendance at Part 1 is required before attending Monday Lobby Day.
If you plan to take part in Lobby Day on Monday, you are required to attend Part 1 of this training session before joining us on Capitol Hill—and we encourage you to stay for Part 2 as well. To be a successful citizen lobbyist, you must know what catches a busy lawmaker’s attention. This program will give you all the skills you need to meet with your legislators or their staff and discuss important animal protection legislation. Lobby Day packets will be available at the HSUS Federal Affairs table in the exhibit hall all weekend, and you can also pick them up at this Lobby Day training along with your Monday meeting schedule.
Sponsored by E - The Environmental Magazine
For most animal organizations and advocates, the budget for full-time media relations assistance is minimal. This workshop will identify the most important components of an effective media outreach strategy, providing tips on how to leverage various media platforms. We will discuss how to identify and pursue media opportunities that directly and positively impact an individual issue, how journalists work and what they need from you, how to effectively react to a media story, and how to best pitch and prepare for media interviews.
This is a wonderful opportunity to meet with your federal lawmakers and/or their staff to let them know how important animal issues are to you. We rarely get the opportunity to walk the halls of Congress and meet our elected officials so don’t miss this opportunity. We will be with you every step of the way and provide you with everything you need to be effective. Plus, lobby day is a fun and easy way to instantly become a citizen lobbyist. The skills you will learn can later be applied at your local or state level.
We hope to see you all there. The animals need every available humane advocate working on the front lines for humane legislation and this is a perfect opportunity to do just that!
