Meet Bob Christiansen
Bob Christiansen has devoted his career to saving animal lives through education and Community Animal Management Systems. Bob Christiansen started in the animal welfare movement by developing a successful dog training school in San Diego, CA that trained approximately 1,000 dogs per year. Bob Christiansen has devoted his career to saving animal lives through education and Community Animal Management Systems.
Bob Christiansen started in the animal welfare movement by developing a successful dog training school in San Diego, CA that trained approximately 1,000 dogs per year. He quickly learned that dogs had people problems and many were forsaken when expectations were not met. Having witnessed these unwitting abuses, he wrote two books dealing with dog training and behavior. His interest turned to animal welfare and he found empathy in dogs abandoned and relinquished to shelters.
His highly praised publication, Choosing and Caring for a Shelter Dog and Save Our Strays: How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats & Dogs has won numerous awards and is highly praised by peers in the animal welfare field. In 1999, Mr. Christiansen launched the “Save Our Strays USA Tour.” He drove 12,000 miles and visited 25 cities in a mobile spay/neuter van. He conducted “Town Hall Meetings on Pet Overpopulation.” During the tour, he appeared on radio and TV talk shows to raise awareness of companion animal issues. Mr. Christiansen was honored to be a keynote speaker at the Canadian Animal Shelter Conference in the spring of 2000.
Bob has consulted with many boards of directors and governments on developing effective strategies of “Community Animal Management” and coordinate community efforts to save animal lives. Bob coined the phrase “Live Release Rate” to show the good work animal control agencies do to save animal lives.
In December 2000, Bob moved to Atlanta to work as Executive Director at DeKalb Humane Society. Mr. Christiansen later co-founded The Atlanta Animal Alliance along with Dr. Amy Orlin. Together they developed veterinary programs; Project CatSnip, a low-cost spay-neuter initiative that has performed more than 90,000 surgeries and WellPet Humane, a full service, affordable veterinary program that targets low-income pet owners. WellPet served more than 30,000 pet owners and 50,000 pets annually.
Today, Mr. Christiansen works to initiate animal welfare philanthropy to fund and support Community Veterinary Care Clinics for companion animals in need.