Colorado Animal Welfare Conference Session
Unmasking Animal Hoarding
10:30-11:45am - Aug. 20, 2025
Lakewood Ballroom
Field Services
Participants will explore the different types of animal hoarders, including overwhelmed caregivers, rescue hoarders, and exploitive hoarders, and how each profile may require a different approach. The course also covers how to conduct a criminal investigation, including scene entry protocols, basic evidence collection, and working within legal boundaries to ensure cases are handled safely and effectively.
Attendees will learn to recognize early warning signs, assess animal and human welfare risks, and engage in cross-agency collaboration for intervention and follow-up. Emphasis is placed on compassionate communication, officer safety, and long-term solutions that prioritize both enforcement and support.
This training is ideal for field officers, shelter professionals, law enforcement partners, and anyone involved in humane enforcement or community response.
Process Improvement: Roots And Bones In Leadership And Operations
3-4:15pm - Aug. 20, 2025
City Lights 2 and 3
Leadership
Process Improvement – This session will discuss pathways to creating team engagement and buy in for improving processes throughout your department. From discussing why some people just never want to change, to learning how to harness the energy of those natural innovators on your team we will learn ways to move forward, together.
Jace Huggins
Jace Huggins oversees one of the largest Humane Law Teams in California, along with investigations and case management, emergency response, officer training, dispatch, and collaborations with local courts and law enforcement. He has 22 years of experience in animal welfare and veterinary hospital management, including a decade working in humane law enforcement. Prior to joining SDHS he served as Chief Animal Control Officer for the City of Sacramento, Front Street Animal Shelter. Huggins has overseen programs both in shelters and in field services side, having helmed Sacramento’s Homeless Outreach and Assistance Program; a free monthly vaccine and microchip clinic; and the “Promoting Animal Welfare and Safety” program. He is also a nationally elected board member of the National Animal Care and Control Association.