Virginia Tech forms unique partnership with Roanoke Valley SPCA

Having this well developed partnership, I think is really unique, and it's going to give our students a lot more opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning, and in the species they really want to work with. On the other hand, we're hoping that because our students get involved early and can become sort of masterful working in shelters, that this is going to be an avenue for the shelters to sort of elevate their workforce. So having somebody here that's dedicated to developing behavior programs here and can help our students see what the cutting edge work is in animal behavior is essential; and then to have somebody that's really dedicated to be able to work with the students one on one. So this just opens up so many new opportunities and new learning opportunities for our students. I'm really excited about it. I have history in the sheltering world, and I really, really found my niche there, helping the animals find forever homes and help them support their welfare while they're here. But I was still missing out on what I was previously doing even before that, which was research and teaching. And so being able to mesh both worlds, the academic world, and my passion, which is sheltering, is just the best thing ever to me. We are so excited to have Megan here. There's so much that she's going to be able to do for the animals at our shelter. She brings a level of knowledge and research that we don't necessarily have here at the shelter that we can use to help provide enrichment, behavior management, support, pre and post adoption services, pathway planning. The other thing that we're really excited about is the students who'll be working with Megan and their ability to interact with the animals at the shelter. I would love to start learning more about cooperative care, because my goal is to hopefully bring that into more of a veterinary setting. So I would love to learn how to kind of make their kennel more of an exciting place. We always want to support shelters more. They're doing really good work, but they have limited resources. So us being able to bring students in and partnering with bringing in Megan as an expert is really useful. And what we really hope is that we're gonna benefit the dogs and cats at Roanoke Valley SPCA in getting them adopted. The research that they will be doing will help us learn more about how animals act in shelters and what makes them more comfortable in shelters. The way I look at it is that it is mutually beneficial for both parties, right? So the students are learning handling skills, critical behavior skills that they are going to need to know in their future careers. They're going to learn, you know, compassion for these animals. Animals, in general, they provide such a beneficial use to us as humans. And I feel like it's our duty to kind of provide it back to them where we can.