Animal Welfare and its Importance in Society

Britney Tennant is the CEO of the Cheyenne Animal Shelter -  a position she has held for a year this month! A Cheyenne native and graduate of the University of Wyoming with a B.S. degree in Animal and Veterinary Sciences and a Master's in Nonprofit Leadership, she has worked and volunteered in animal welfare for more than 20 years. In 2008, she founded Black Dog Animal Rescue and, over the course of a decade, expanded that organization into Wyoming's largest private companion animal welfare organization.

Britney is a contributor to the Humane Society of the United States "Animal Sheltering" magazine as well as the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement's blog for animal welfare professionals. In 2016, Britney delivered a talk on the TedX stage in Cheyenne which launched her into the national discourse. Since that time she has continued to be an outspoken advocate for animal shelters and the people who work within them, - helping to initiate and drive the Socially Conscious Sheltering movement. Britney has been featured as a conference presenter and keynote speaker and is a well-known collaborator and coalition builder. She is the past chair of Leadership Cheyenne, a 2019 graduate of Leadership Wyoming, and past chair of the Wyoming Nonprofit Network and the Northern Colorado Regional Animal Welfare Coalition. In 2020, she was appointed by Governor Mark Gordon to the Wyoming State Board of Veterinary Medicine and she became a Certified Animal Welfare Administrator, joining just 200 colleagues nationwide with this premier industry credential.  Her professional passions include public policy and advocacy work and she has helped to pass numerous pieces of state legislation helping advance the welfare of companion pets across the state.