"With animal welfare, we're basically waiting till the roof falls in — when the animals are at the shelter, that's the roof falling in. We have to catch them earlier."

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and The Kitten Conference.

What if the animal welfare system stopped waiting for families to walk through the shelter door — and started showing up before they ever got there? That's the question driving BJ Adkins, disabled veteran and founder of Animal Angels Foundation (AAF), a prevention-first nonprofit serving seven counties in central Alabama.

After years of fostering and watching intake numbers refuse to budge, BJ decided to stop patching the system and start rebuilding its missing layer. AAF isn't a rescue organization. It's prevention infrastructure: programs designed to solve the problems that force pet surrender before surrender ever becomes an option.

Those programs include SNIP, a spay/neuter assistance initiative with a $100 stipend for income-qualifying owners; The Bridge, which addresses the financial and housing barriers that most often precede surrender; Finder-to-Foster; Adoption Boost; Landlord Partnership; and Sniff and Greet. Connecting it all is the Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) — a shared technology platform that replaces organizational silos with real-time coordination across shelters, rescues, vet clinics, and community partners. Three participation levels and no cost to join means even change-resistant organizations can get on board.

To measure what's working, BJ is partnering with a University of Tennessee researcher to build the evidence base for prevention-first animal welfare — while already fielding calls from Colorado, Tennessee, and the Canadian SPCA. The data is being collected. The network is growing. And if BJ has anything to say about it, the roof won't have to fall in anymore.

Press Play Now For:

• Why BJ compares the current animal welfare system to waiting for the roof to fall in — and what "upstream" intervention actually looks like
• A breakdown of AAF's six core programs and how each one targets a specific point of failure before shelter intake
• How the Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) replaces organizational silos with a shared, real-time coordination platform
• The SNIP program's $100 stipend model and why removing financial friction matters for low-income pet owners
• BJ's strategy for bringing change-resistant organizations into the network — with three levels of participation and no cost to join
• How AAF is partnering with University of Tennessee researchers to build a data-driven case for prevention programs
• Practical advice for new nonprofit founders: research first, build relationships, and find the gap nobody else is filling

Resources & Links

• Animal Angels Foundation Website
• Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN)
• Maddie's Pet Forum (where Stacy and BJ connected)

"Mother Nature provides us with all the food and medicine that we need. Food is medicine — and it is the number one thing you can do for any person or animal to help them stay healthy and help their immune system operate."

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and The Kitten Conference.

What if the best medicine for your community cats isn't found in a bottle — but in a bowl? In this episode, host Stacy LeBaron sits down with Angela Ardolino, a certified cannabis and fungi clinician with over 20 years of expertise in holistic pet wellness and founder of MycoDog, MycoCat, and CBD Dog Health.

Angela's path to holistic animal care began with her own recovery from rheumatoid arthritis using plants, mushrooms, and diet — which led her to discover that every animal shares an endocannabinoid system, the body's master regulatory system. With no quality animal products on the market, she spent two years formulating and testing full-spectrum hemp extract and medicinal mushroom tinctures at her rescue farm before bringing them to the public.

Stacy and Angela dig into the real cost of kibble — not just financially, but biologically — and make the case for real food, even in small increments, for both owned cats and colony cats. Angela also offers practical guidance on supporting senior and geriatric cats with full-spectrum hemp extract, how to spot trustworthy supplements (look for a COA), and why the endocannabinoid system is the key to keeping cats healthy from the inside out.

Press Play Now For:

• Why kibble is the wrong foundation for feline health — and practical, budget-friendly alternatives for pet owners and colony caregivers alike
• How the endocannabinoid system works in all animals and why supporting it is key to preventing disease
• How to administer full-spectrum hemp extract to cats you can touch — and cats you can't
• Why 85% of supplements on the market (for pets and humans alike) aren't worth buying, and how to identify the ones that are
• When a cat becomes a "senior" vs. a "geriatric" — and why that distinction matters for their care
• The feline grimace scale, telehealth options, and emerging tools that help caregivers monitor cats without a vet visit
• A vision for mobile veterinary care that extends to colony sites, not just indoor pets

Resources & Links

• Angela Ardolino's Website
• CBD Dog Health
• MycoDog
• Your Natural Dog Podcast
• Follow Angela on Instagram
• Follow Angela on Facebook
• Follow Your Natural Dog on Instagram

"When we look at things on a neighborhood level and we're noticing patterns, noticing new colonies — when something's predictable, it's preventable."

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and The Kitten Conference.

What does it look like to build a community cat program from scratch — not just logistically, but with real intention about how change happens in a neighborhood? In this episode, Stacy LeBaron speaks with Tonya Cook, Community Cat Program Manager at Ohio Alleycat Resource (OAR) in Cincinnati, about her remarkable journey from neonatal kitten foster to full-time community cat advocate, and what she's learned about scaling impact when you're a team of one.

Tonya's path into animal welfare began in 2020 when she started fostering neonatal kittens with Cincinnati Animal CARE. Night feedings and fragile lives gave her a front-row seat to how many kittens were being born outside — and how few resources existed to stop the cycle at the source. That question drove her toward TNR and, ultimately, toward a complete career change. In 2022, she left behind 15 years as a professional photographer to pursue animal welfare full-time, gaining hands-on experience at UCAN and Cincinnati Animal CARE before joining OAR in 2025 to build its community cat program from the ground up.

In its pilot year, that program has facilitated the TNR of over 400 cats — most of them trapped by Tonya herself, two days a week, before she recognized the limits of that approach. When burnout began to set in, she did something harder than trapping: she stepped back. That decision led to the creation of OAR's Neighborhood Cat Ambassador Program, which embeds trained volunteers directly into high-need zip codes identified through shelter and rescue data. Ambassadors walk their streets, distribute flyers with QR codes linking to a community cat census, connect caregivers to resources, mediate neighbor disputes, and trap for those who can't. The result is a program that feels less like a service and more like a movement — and one that's bringing neighbors together in the process.

Tonya also shares an inspiring story from a mobile home park 20 miles outside Cincinnati, where she spent last spring trapping 58 cats. Earlier this year, the park reached back out — not to ask for help, but to learn how to do it themselves. They've since purchased their own traps, gone door to door, posted on social media, and started bringing cats in weekly. That's the long game Tonya is playing: not just TNR, but teaching communities to sustain the work themselves.

Press Play Now For:

• How fostering neonatal kittens led Tonya to TNR — and a complete career change
• Why Tonya insisted on doing the work herself first before bringing in volunteers, and what she learned from that approach.
• The story of Sonny, the neighborhood cat who introduced a whole street of strangers to each other
• How OAR's Neighborhood Cat Ambassador Program works, who it recruits, and why ambassadors stay engaged longer than traditional trapping volunteers
• A mobile home park success story: from one organization doing the work to a community sustaining TNR on their own
• Why "when something's predictable, it's preventable" is the mindset shift that defines neighborhood-based cat management
• How to find common ground with neighbors who hate cats and neighbors who love them

Resources & Links

• Ohio Alleycat Resource (OAR) — Website
• OAR Community Cat Program
• OAR on Instagram (@ohioalleycat)
• OAR on Facebook
• Tonya Cook on Instagram (@cincycatlady)