Seattle Animal Shelter Behaviorist Tina helps animals and humans live better together 

By Madeline Johnson 

The Shelter Behaviorist role, crucial to many animals’ success at the Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS), was created thanks to and continues to be made possible by the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF). Tina Hope took on this position at SAS in July 2023. Recently we talked with her about her work at the shelter and in the community, the importance of improving human and animal relationships, and how it impacts the animals she works with. 

Tina and Kafka 

What is a behavior success story that you were a part of recently? 

T: Kafka! He’s a 110-pound Giant Mastiff mix dog who was surrendered to us in February, due to his owner losing their housing. He had some resource-guarding tendencies, and he had one minor bite on his record, due to a bandage being changed on his arm. The owner wasn’t quite sure how to manage the resource-guarding, and they were having trouble finding housing with a dog his size. When he came in he was very fearful and had intense barrier reactivity (which can sometimes go away as soon as you open the door), and touch sensitivity. Understandably though, he was intimidating to a lot of people. I started working with him through the kennel, tossing treats to him, and got him to be less reactive to the kennel barrier. I opened the door, asked him to go for a walk, and we went for a walk. He was very wary of me so it took a couple weeks for me to be able to touch him, but by the end of it he would climb up and sit in my lap (even though he didn’t fit). He was adopted in September by two folks who he immediately took to. 

While he was here, Kafka actually helped another dog named Merci. Merci was a victim of significant physical abuse and was very anxious around humans. In my work I’ve often found that some dogs who are victims of abuse will feel more confident and comfortable in the presence of another dog. He gave her space, he let her come to him, he helped us introduce new people to her on paired walks. I don’t know that we could have helped her come around as quickly as we did if it wasn’t for him. He’s a success story and he created another one too. 

What’s your background in animal welfare? Have you worked for other shelters/rescues before? 

Tina: I’ve been working professionally in animal welfare training and husbandry for about 18 years. I started my professional career with horses, but I’ve worked with a number of species including dogs, cats, fish, guinea pigs, goats, birds, reptiles, pigs, and more. Prior to moving to Seattle, I worked at a high-intake shelter in California, the Municipal Shelter for the City of San Jose. There were a lot of differences between sheltering in California and Seattle as far as what challenges we faced on a daily basis, although some of the problems remain the same. When I started there we had about a 50% positive outcome, which was very low, and during my 8 years on the team we were able to build the positive outcome rate to 89% by the time I left. Part of that was I developed their first behavior program, and coordinated rescue transfers, including large transports of dogs to Southwest Washington Humane Society, in Vancouver Washington. So I came up here during a drought in California, it was green and pretty, and found that Seattle was for me. 

What’s one of your biggest challenges in your work? 

T: One of the biggest challenges is the lasting impacts we see from systemic racism, ableism, and classism, and how humans and non-human animals are treated, viewed, and often dismissed by the organizations that have been established to provide support. We are still operating as a punitive institution from the Animal Control perspective, so trying to bridge that gap to being more of a community support organization is our challenge. We’re really fortunate to have our Director Esteban because he’s leading the charge, getting those things in motion. You wouldn’t necessarily think that it impacts Behavior but it definitely does, because we see animals coming in that maybe don’t need to come in, ones that we potentially could have diverted a surrender if we were able to provide some behavior training or support, so it really all trickles down. So we’re working on creating more of a community organization that is here to help keep animals at home unless of course those homes are mistreating them. 

As this behavior program continues to grow, we’re hoping to get to a place where adopted dogs and their families can come back and do training classes, and maybe an internship program for at-risk youth. I’m big on sharing the knowledge and getting everybody involved if they’re interested. And for me it’s important that we are reaching into communities that we haven’t historically served or had positive relationships with, and building that up. 

What drew you to the animal behavior field? 

T: Animal and human behavior has always fascinated me. I grew up in California, and when I was 7 or 8 years old I would exhaust my mom by always asking her to go to the animal shelter, Santa Cruz SPCA. I would sit in front of their kennels and just talk to them. I had my own dogs (I like to say I was raised by pitties), and ever since I was a small kid I was really interested in animals and just felt this very strong connection with them. I’ve always wanted to be able to better communicate with them and better understand their needs. We ask them to live with us, we ask them to do things that aren’t species-specific behaviors, and I wanted to get a better understanding of the ways they think and how we can help improve our relationships with them.  

Animal shelters in particular I really enjoy working in because it gives the opportunity to reach folks and animals on a grander scale. In my day I get to talk with volunteers, my co-workers, members of the community, and help them all better understand their animals and the animals they’re interacting with. As far as working with the community, it’s really great to be able to start a conversation where this person feels like they’re doing everything wrong, and end the conversation with them feeling empowered and they have the tools to be a good pet parent.  

Tina at the Seattle Animal Shelter with a fuzzy friend 

It seems like it’s a real calling for you! It also seems like so much of this work is about improving the relationship between the humans and the animals – it’s not just a human training an animal, it’s the relationship, connection, and how you’re understanding each other.  

T: Definitely. We tend to forget the human side of it, but until we help the humans heal, we can’t really help them help the animals they’re working with. 

Why is behavior training important? 

T: Training really helps build that bond between the human and the animal. It’s a give-and-take of trying to understand what the other being wants. You can gain that trust and bond with cohabitation, but training helps form that language between the two of you on a deeper level, so you can coexist more harmoniously. 

What is one of your most eye-opening or teaching moments in your work? 

T: When I first started in sheltering, I was helping a person who wanted to surrender their dog for some behavior reasons and also wanted to adopt a dog back-to-back. I was upset with them, went to my supervisor to talk about it, and she told me something that still resonates with me today. She said, “Let’s start with they showed up here today, and that was the right thing to do. And then we can figure out what’s happening with this dog that they think they can’t hold on to. Then move on from there.” Once I gave them that space to talk, I learned it was more that the dog wasn’t getting along with the children at home, he was showing significant fear, and they were worried he wasn’t having his best life. Once I gave them room to tell their whole story, it all made sense, and I knew they did do the right thing by bringing this dog in. If they hadn’t, he probably would’ve eventually bit the kids, since he might feel he had no other choice in communicating. That was a turning point for me in the way that I realized that I’m not here just to help these animals, I’m here to help these humans too. 

Seems like having that empathy for the humans in that situation actually turned around and helped the dog as well, because it benefits both parties to find the right fit. 

What would you say to people interested in animal behavior/animal behavior training? 

T: It’s important to keep your mind open if you’re interested in animal behavior because there are so many ways to approach and operate in the field and help animals and humans at the same time. I think if you’re just starting out volunteering with the species you’re interested in working with, try things like volunteering at your local shelter, aquarium, and local groups to get a better idea of what part of behavior you’re interested in. There’s a lot you can do within this field, and it’s important to cut out the misinformation, be a good student, do your research, and think about the impact on the animal that you’re working with. Make sure that you are allowing them their autonomy and allowing them to choose to participate in the training or not, and not forcing any training on them. 

The SAS Animal Behavior team and training program is financially supported by donors of the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation. Visit the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation‘s website to donate. 

And to learn more about adopting animals, visit the Seattle Animal Shelter website at https://www.seattle.gov/animal-shelter.