Education, outreach, useful resources, and practical connections built around the human-animal bond.
Animal Ed Link inspires compassion and strengthens communities by fostering meaningful connections between people and animals through education, outreach, partnerships, and innovative programs that encourage learning, healing, service, and responsible stewardship.
From left: Julie Bjorland, Dr. G, Dustin Dutton, Aubrie Kavanaugh, Matt Davis, Mindy Gilbert, and Mike Fitz.
Dr. Doug Phillips, host of Discovering Alabama, brought together an animal-welfare roundtable in August with people working across animal welfare, animal control, shelters, advocacy, veterinary medicine, and community education.
The discussion focused on challenges, practical solutions, shared experience, and what becomes possible when people working in different parts of animal welfare connect.
Dr. Doug Phillips · Discovering Alabama
Dr. Phillips explored the human-animal relationship and animal-welfare challenges in Alabama in the two-part Discovering Alabama: Animal Friends series. The programs also have an official teacher guide, making them especially relevant to Animal Ed Link's education work.
Watch Animal Friends — Part 1 → Watch Animal Friends — Part 2 → Teacher Guide →Long-term improvement in animal welfare requires more than laws, shelters, and animal control. It also involves culture — how animals are understood, valued, and treated. Children are an important part of that change.
Animal Ed Link is actively introducing Alabama educators and community leaders to Mutt-i-grees, a Pre-K–12 program that uses children's natural connection with animals to strengthen empathy, resilience, responsible decision-making, and social-emotional skills.
The possibilities extend beyond traditional classrooms to homeschool groups, churches, faith-based programs, youth ministries, libraries, and other community settings where children learn, serve, and build relationships.
Explore Mutt-i-grees → Watch the short video →Alabama Code §16-8-28 gives county boards of education responsibility for prescribing courses of study on the recommendation of the county superintendent, while §16-12-9 establishes a similar local role in city school systems.
§16-1-57 recognizes supplementary instructional materials used in classrooms that have not been formally adopted by the local board.
These provisions do not mean an outside program is automatically approved. They do help explain why direct conversations with local educators and school systems matter: local leaders can evaluate supplementary resources and decide what fits their students and communities.
We have a short letter for teachers, counselors, homeschool educators, librarians, church and youth leaders, and others who work with children introducing Mutt-i-grees and ways to explore it.
Conversations are underway around Mutt-i-grees and opportunities connected with humane relocation/transportation. Details will be added as the work develops.
Founded by BJ Adkins, Animal-Angels Foundation is developing the Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) to strengthen connections among shelters, rescues, veterinary clinics, community organizations, and other people working to improve animal welfare in Central Alabama.
Animal-Angels Foundation on Facebook →Animal Ed Link helps people find strong resources that already exist — and understand how to use them. We don't need to recreate good work. We want to help more people discover it.
Alabama Animal Advocates, created by volunteer Kristen Yarbrough and supported by volunteer research, brings an unusually broad range of Alabama animal-service, animal-law, shelter, animal-control, and assistance information together in one place.
This is the kind of statewide resource that can be useful to residents, shelters, veterinary clinics, animal-control officers, municipal leaders, and community organizations.
Explore Alabama Animal Advocates →Paws4Change, created by Aubrie Kavanaugh, explains how successful No Kill communities work as systems — through shelter practices, community involvement, public policy, accountability, accessible services, and programs that keep healthy and treatable animals alive.
It also examines why some seemingly simple approaches do not necessarily solve the underlying problem. That includes discussion of why mandatory spay/neuter laws can have unintended consequences, while accessible, affordable spay/neuter services remain an important part of community infrastructure.
Municipal officials, advocates, and community leaders can use the site to better understand how the pieces of animal-welfare systems fit together.
Explore Paws4Change →
Julie and Stormie with four puppies on their way to Rose Acres Rescue.
Four young puppies near High Falls Holistic Veterinary Care were in danger of being hit by cars. High Falls provided their initial veterinary care, including first vaccines and flea treatment, before the puppies were transported to Rose Acres Rescue.
At Rose Acres, their journey continued with veterinary care, spay/neuter, basic training, and preparation for adoption.
It was a small chain of people and organizations doing different pieces of the same job: someone noticed a problem, a veterinary clinic provided care, volunteers provided transportation, and a rescue took over from there. That is what community connection can look like.
A curated collection of Pet Health columns touching on compassion, responsible care, the human-animal bond, and practical pet health.
Animal Ed Link grew from Julie Bjorland's years working in veterinary medicine, writing about pet health and animal welfare, and connecting people with resources that can help. She writes the Pet Health column for Alabama Living and works with educators, veterinary professionals, advocates, rescues, and community members. Animal Ed Link brings those pieces together so useful ideas, resources, and people have a better chance of finding one another.
Educators, shelters, veterinary professionals, faith communities, libraries, nonprofits, community organizations, and people who see a useful connection are welcome to reach out.
AnimalEdLink@gmail.com · AnimalEdLink.org
What if a child's natural connection with animals could help strengthen empathy, resilience, responsibility, and the way they relate to other people?
Animal Ed Link is introducing Alabama educators to Mutt-i-grees, a Pre-K–12 social-emotional learning program developed through North Shore Animal League America and Yale University's School of the 21st Century. The program uses the human-animal bond to make important social-emotional skills engaging and memorable for children.
The materials can complement learning in schools and homeschool settings and can also be useful in churches, faith-based programs, youth groups, libraries, and other community settings. Animal Ed Link helps educators discover the resource, explore it for themselves, and connect with people and materials that can help them use it.
If you work with children — or know someone who does — please explore Mutt-i-grees and share this letter with an educator in your community.