Animal Welfare

Here at COAPE we aim to make a difference to the lives of all animals through education. We are working towards this goal with every new student who enrols with us to learn more about animal behaviour.

In our intermediate and advanced courses, we encourage our students to get practical experience at shelters*, where they learn to assess cats and dogs, help with basic behaviour problems and train the dogs in some obedience exercises. The benefit of this is that due to these positive interactions the animals are eminently more adoptable. If a student’s goal is to work in captive animal management, we encourage them to spend time at the facility of their choice to gain invaluable experience in management, nutrition, safety and species-specific behaviour.

In the Diploma courses we encourage the students to log hours of community service at a shelter* and to offer their services free of charge to owners who have recently adopted their forever pet from a shelter, to assist in the settling in process and introduction to resident pets. We also require our Diploma students to do a certain number of pro bono behaviour consultations to make this crucial service available to owners who may otherwise not be able to afford it.

Our program for captive wildlife facilities is completely volunteer-based, and we encourage our students to join us to allow them to truly understand the efficacy of MHERA ™ and ESTA ™ as they get to apply their knowledge on a wide variety of species. 

Students wishing to work with captive wildlife are encouraged to join the Johannesburg, South Africa Zoo program, or similar programs in their local Zoos.

Many of our students are from a rescue background and we offer a 10% discount on all our course fees to people working full time in shelters, this is just part of the way  we try to give back to the animal community in need. 

Our ‘You and Your Rescue Dog/Cat’ courses are aimed at people adopting from a shelter, rescue organizations and animal shelters are welcome to contact us for more information on these courses to give to new and prospective owners.

*Only in countries where legislation allows.