Species
Settings → Animal management → Species is the list of animal types your organization works with. It sets the species offered on intake, in filters, in adoption fee rules and on your public page, and each species you choose gets its own age groups and breed list. The choices are a fixed list: Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Equines, Small mammals, Large mammals, Birds, Barnyard, Fish, Reptiles and Exotic / other. Press a species to add it (it shows a tick) or to take it off, then press Save animal types. A fixed list, rather than words you type, is what makes a fee rule for “dogs” cover every dog: typed freely, “Dog”, “dog” and “Dogs” would be three species. If you choose none, intake asks staff to type the species instead. If your organization has a species stored from before the list was fixed, the page names it and asks you to pick the closest match and save. Only an Organization admin can save this list.Breeds
Settings → Animal management → Breeds is the list of breeds intake offers for each species. Choose the species at the top to see its list. Every species starts with a list of common breeds, given to it the first time its list is opened. From then on the list is yours: add, rename and remove. Add the common breeds puts back any of the starting list that is missing, skipping what is already there, and says how many it added. The list is a picker, not a rule. An animal can always be given a breed that is not listed, and removing a breed here changes no animal: the animals that have it keep it. If a species’ list is empty, intake asks for the breed as free text. To add a breed, type it in Breed name and press Add. Rename and Remove are on each breed. The same name cannot be listed twice for one species, whatever its capital letters. Changing the list needs Configure on Animals.Breed or Kind
For dogs, cats, rabbits and equines, the list holds breeds, and the field on an animal reads Breed. For small mammals, large mammals, birds, barnyard animals, fish, reptiles and exotics, the list holds what the animal is: a guinea pig, a ferret, a cockatiel, a goat, a gecko. On the animal, that field reads Kind, and a second box, Breed or variety, holds the detail. See Breed, or Kind on the animal record.Age groups
Settings → Animal management → Age groups decides what counts as a kitten, an adult or a senior. The groups are used by the age filter on the animals list and by adoption fee rules. Each species you work with has its own groups, because a two-year-old dog and a two-year-old rabbit are not at the same stage. A species without groups of its own yet starts from a copy of the general set, ready to adjust. Until you choose species under Species, one set, All animals, covers every animal. Each species’ groups are a table:
A group’s minimum is the previous group’s maximum: they are the same number, so changing either changes both. Ages are a number and a unit (days, weeks, months or years), with the number of days shown beside them so that “6 weeks” and “5 months” are easy to put in order.
Three rules apply, and the page states them: the groups must cover all ages with no gaps, no two groups may overlap, and the oldest group has no maximum. Save age groups stays unavailable, with the reason shown, until they hold.
Add age group inserts a new group before the last one. The bin beside a group removes it. A group that an adoption fee rule uses is marked used by a fee rule and cannot be removed until that rule changes.
Changing a boundary re-sorts existing animals immediately. Nothing is stored on the animal: its group is worked out from its date of birth each time.
Animal statuses
Settings → Animal management → Animal statuses is the list of statuses an animal can have, such as Available for Adoption or Hold - Medical, arranged under headings. Changing it needs Configure on Animals; anyone else is told they do not have access. Across the top are counts of the groups, the statuses, how many are public and how many are built in. Search statuses narrows the list by name. While a search is on, the arrows for reordering are hidden: clear the search to reorder. Nothing is saved until you press Save changes, which saves the whole list at once. Each status row has:
The arrows and the drag handle move a status up or down the list.
Care state
The care state is the one setting on a status with consequences. It decides whether an animal with that status counts as in your care, which drives occupancy counts and the dashboard’s Animals in care figure. It cannot be changed while any animal has that status: move them to another status first. A built-in status keeps its care state always.Public statuses
An animal appears on your public site only when its own record is set to be shown publicly and its status is one ticked Public. Ticking Public on a status is how you publish, for example, strays being held: the built-in Hold - Stray is public under the name Found, because that is the word an owner searching for a lost animal types.Status groups
Groups are only headings: they change nothing about how a status behaves. Drag a status onto a group, or move it with the arrows past a heading, to put it in that group. Add group adds a heading. Each group heading has a name you can edit, a count, Add status, Delete group, and arrows to move the group. Deleting a group deletes the statuses under it, after you confirm; it is refused while any of them is built in or has animals.Built-in statuses
Every organization starts with these. They can be renamed, recolored, regrouped and reordered, but not removed, because other parts of RescueConsole rely on them.Application stages
Settings → Animal management → Application stages is the list of steps an adoption or foster application moves through before it is approved or denied, in your own words. Approved, denied and withdrawn are not stages: they are decisions, recorded on the application itself. See Applications. Each stage shows its name, a lock if it is built in, and how many applications are at it now (Nobody here, or a count). The built-in stages are Draft, Submitted, Assigned, Under review, Pending third party, Meet scheduled and Hold for a better match. A stage sits inside the review: choosing one on an application marks the application under review, or meet scheduled for that stage. With Configure on Animals, each stage has:
To add a stage, type A new stage, choose who it is For, and press Add stage. No two stages may have the same name.
Anyone else sees each stage with who it applies to, and whether it is switched off.
Behaviour
Settings → Animal management → Behaviour is the list of behavioral traits your records use, such as “Good with dogs” or “Leash reactive”, and where each may go beyond the animal’s record. Changing it needs Configure on Animals. A trait typed on an animal that matches one of these by name follows its settings. Any other trait stays on the record and the cage card, and goes no further. Nothing here changes an animal: renaming, retiring or removing an attribute leaves every animal’s traits as they are. Each attribute has three switches, which save the moment you tick them:
When Tell adopters is on, a box asks What adopters are told. Leave it blank to show the name alone, or write a sentence and press Save wording.
To add an attribute, type it in Attribute and press Add. On each attribute:
- Rename changes its name.
- Retire keeps it but stops it being offered on intake; Restore brings it back.
- Remove takes it out of the list, after you confirm. Animals keep the trait; it just loses its switches.
Medical
Settings → Animal management → Medical holds the lists the Medical tab of an animal picks from. Choose a list with the buttons at the top: Diagnoses, Diagnostic tests, Vaccines, Treatments, Procedures or Medications.The medical lists
The first five lists start with RescueConsole’s own set and are yours from then on. Changing them needs Configure on Animals. To add an item, type its name and press Add. On each item:- Rename changes its name. Records already written keep the name they were written with.
- Edit fields (on tests, vaccines, treatments and procedures) sets what a record of it asks for. See Result fields.
- Retire stops it being offered when a new record is added; Restore brings it back. Records already written keep it.
- Remove takes it out of the list, after you confirm. Records already written keep it as free text.
Result fields
Fields are the questions a record of an item asks.- For a test, they are what its result is made of: a fecal’s Negative or Positive, a blood count’s numbers. A test with no fields takes a status and notes only.
- For a vaccine or a treatment, they are whatever that product asks beyond the standard ones every record carries. Every vaccine record already carries the time, lot, product expiry, method and site; every treatment record carries the route, amount, frequency, duration and doses.
- For a procedure, every record already carries the request and the surgery form.
Press Save fields to keep them.
Medications
Medications is a catalog of what you give and at what strength, not a stock count. Adding and retiring medications needs Change on Animals. Press Add medication and fill in:
Retire takes a medication off the list. Every prescription already written still points at it.
When your organization has no medications at all, the page offers to add the common ones most rescues keep, each with its strength and, where the label gives one, the manufacturer’s label dose. A label dose is a starting point, not a prescription: check each with your veterinarian, change what they would change, and retire what you do not use.