Canine Manager

Position Summary: The Canine Department Manager provides hands-on leadership and oversight HSDC’s canine program, including animal care, intake, pathway planning, foster, behavior, and adoption. This position is responsible for staff leadership, canine population management, program quality, and consistent implementation of HSDC policies and standards.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Staff Leadership

•         Supervises Dog Caretakers, Dog Team Lead, and Foster Coordinator; sets clear expectations and ensures appropriate staffing and coverage.

•         Leads regular team meetings and 1:1s; provides coaching, feedback, training, performance management, and timely follow-through on staff concerns.

•         Participates in hiring, onboarding, and development; identifies training needs and builds a collaborative, accountable team culture.

Pathway Planning & Population Management

•         Maintains primary ownership of day-to-day canine pathway and population decisions, while collaborating with Operations, veterinary, behavior, and other department leads on complex cases.

•         Monitors census, capacity, length of stay, adoption activity, foster utilization, holds, and available   resources; identifies barriers and drives timely next steps.

•         Ensures pathway plans and significant decisions are clearly communicated, documented, and reviewed regularly, balancing animal welfare, behavioral/medical needs, safety, and organizational capacity.

Animal Care

•         Ensures high-quality, humane care, including feeding, cleaning, enrichment, exercise, handling, monitoring, and low-stress practices.

•         Ensures staff follow animal care, sanitation, disease-control, handling, and safety protocols; promptly addresses care or housing concerns.

•         Works closely with veterinary and behavior resources so individual needs are reflected in daily care; ensures changes in health, behavior, or condition are documented and communicated promptly.

•         Evaluates practices and recommends improvements to procedures, housing, enrichment, training, and workflow.

Intake

•         Coordinates canine intake, including applications, screening, appointments, transfers, and humane-agent case intakes; reviews capacity and ensures complete, timely records.

•         Ensures new dogs receive timely website profiles/photos and that intake, adoption, and foster inquiries are responded to promptly.

•         Manages adoption, foster, and foster-to-adopt pathways; proactively addresses barriers and supports timely movement to appropriate placement.

Adoption & Placement

·         Coordinates canine adoption activities, including website applications, walk-in adopters, foster appointments, and foster-to-adopt placements.

·         Ensures adoption inquiries received through the website, email, and phone are addressed promptly.

·         Works with staff to identify and address barriers to adoption.

 Supports timely movement of dogs through appropriate placement pathways..

Administration & Program Management

·         Creates, reviews, and updates canine program SOPs, protocols, and training materials.

·         Ensures staff understand and consistently follow departmental procedures.

·         Works with the Volunteer Manager to train and onboard canine volunteers.

·         Oversees departmental inventory and ensures adequate supplies are maintained.

·         Monitors departmental spending and assists with annual budget planning.

·         Maintains accurate records and documentation within shelter management systems.

·         Monitors canine program KPIs and uses data to identify trends and opportunities for improvement.

·         Maintains working knowledge of canine intake, outcomes, length of stay, adoption activity, population, and other relevant metrics.

·         Provides operational updates and reports as requested.

·         Participates in organizational planning, meetings, and special projects as assigned.

Qualifications

•         High school diploma or equivalent required; four-year degree preferred but not required.

•         Demonstrated management/supervisory experience required; animal shelter or animal-welfare experience strongly preferred.

•         Strong leadership, coaching, conflict-resolution, customer-service, communication, emotional intelligence, and professional judgment.

•         Ability to make timely decisions, prioritize competing needs, and remain effective in a fast-paced and emotionally challenging environment.

•         Experience safely working with dogs of varying sizes, behaviors, and medical needs preferred.

•         Euthanasia-by-injection certification preferred; certification required within one year of employment.

Physical Demands & Working Environment

•         Must be able to lift up to 50 pounds and safely handle dogs of varying sizes, temperaments, and medical conditions; frequent standing, walking, bending, lifting, and animal handling are required.

•         Work occurs in an animal-shelter environment with exposure to noise, temperature variation, animal waste, zoonotic disease, cleaning chemicals, anesthetic agents, sharp objects, and potentially dangerous or fractious animals.

•         May interact with distressed or confrontational individuals and must maintain professionalism and sound judgment.

•         Must work assigned shifts, including weekends and holidays, and respond during emergencies or periods of significant operational need. This is an on-site position and is not eligible for remote work.

THIS IS AN AT-WILL POSITION