Overview of Updates
Previously, Shelterluv's species and breeds were blended together for many animals other than dogs and cats. Many animals that are actually considered their own species were considered "breeds" in Shelterluv. This original mapping of species and breeds in Shelterluv was influenced by the way in which the aggregators (Petfinder, etc.) were organized.
The new species and breeds organization will give Shelterluv a more exhaustive and scientifically accurate list of animals. In the new structure, different species of animals are truly considered species. And the only animal species with breed options are those that truly have breeds in reality, including dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, other barnyard animals like cows, sheep, chickens, and several others. You can see the full breakdown of the new list of species and breeds here. You will likely only notice these changes if you have animals other than dogs or cats in your care.
For example, previously "mammal, other (domestic)" was a very general species option in Shelterluv, and all animals in that category, like rabbits, ferrets, and guinea pigs, were considered "breeds." Now, the "mammal, other (domestic)" species option has been removed, and rabbits, ferrets, and guinea pigs are all considered to be their own species.
Species / Breeds Configuration
You'll see that your Configuration has a new section called "Animal Population". This is where you can configure which of the new species and breeds your shelter will use. We have migrated your previous species/breeds configuration over to this new structure for you.
For simplicity's sake, you'll see that the species are organized into new higher-level categories.
NOTE: These higher-level categories will not appear anywhere else except for your Configuration. They are just there to help organize the different pieces of your Configuration into digestible and configurable groups. That is their only purpose. We understand that any higher-level groupings like this will be imperfect.
The new higher-level categories in your Configuration are:
- Dog
- Cat
- Barnyard
- Made up of species that were previously considered under "mammal, other (domestic)"
- Bird
- Combination of previous bird species groups (both domestic and wildlife)
- Exotic/Other
- Combination of previous species of Fish/Aquarium/Terrarium, Reptile (both wildlife and domestic), and Amphibian (both wildlife and domestic)
- Horse
- Large Mammal
- Made up of species that were previously considered under "mammal, other" (both domestic and wildlife)
- Rabbit
- Small Mammal
- Made up of species that were previously considered under "mammal, other" (both domestic and wildlife)
Within each higher-level category, you'll see all species options for you to select from. If a selected species also has breed options, you'll find those in the "Breeds" section to choose.
Mammal, other (domestic) / Mammal, other (wildlife)
Actions Needed
If you had adoption price groups set up for either of these previous species groups, those will now need to be updated by a user with Configuration permissions to have the correct "animal type". For now, you will see that the animal type will be blank until you edit.
Review Recommended
If you were previously using the "mammal, other (domestic)" or "mammal, other (wildlife)" species categories, we suggest that you review the below list in your Configuration. You'll now see that these groups have been broken out into the new high-level categories (like small mammal, large mammal, rabbit, and others). Take a few minutes to review (and edit, if desired) each of the new animal types in the following places in your Configuration:
- age groups
- behavior assessments and plans
- behavior, volunteer, adoption, and medical categories
- adoption contracts
- attributes
- adoption, foster, and owner surrender applications
- adoption price groups
- vaccine quick fill templates
- iframe code snippets
Feral Cats
Previously, feral cats were considered a separate "species" type in Shelterluv. With these updates, the "Cat(feral)" species option has been removed and any existing feral cats have been migrated to all have "Cat" as their species. We communicated to all users before this release took place the need to add a "feral" attribute to all their in-custody feral cats before the release so that no information was lost for reporting. We added a "Feral Cat" attribute to your out of custody feral cats for you.
Secondary Breeds
As part of these updates, we've added "secondary breed" as an option for cats and all other animals that have breeds (previously, secondary breed was only an option for dogs).
What else do these changes impact?
If you have animals in your care other than dogs and cats, you'll see these new species/breeds reflected everywhere you already find species and breed information in Shelterluv. For example, when you're intaking an animal, depending on what species you have configured, you may see more specific species options that you didn't have the option to choose before.
We know this is a pretty big change and a lot of information to digest. Please let us know if you have any questions at all by emailing help@shelterluv.com.