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| Cindy, Trish and Nell - helping shelters help everyone. |
When I grew up, animal shelters were
chaotic, overcrowded, feared destinations from which animals were unlikely to
return. That has changed rapidly. Shelters are transforming into adoption
centres, pro-actively promoting animal welfare and increasingly analysing data
to improve their performance. Two people who have been influential in this
field are Nell Thompson and Dr Cindy Karsten.
Nell was appointed as Coordinator of the
national Getting 2 Zero program in July 2012. Nell has worked in the animal
welfare, care and veterinary sectors for over 20 years and was the Victorian
G2Z representative since the development of the G2Z program. Her background in
shelter operations and management and animal health is a great resource for Councils,
shelters and all groups and individuals involved in the program. Nell is
passionate about improving outcomes for pets who enter the shelter and pound
systems and strongly believes that the best results occur when animal welfare
and animal management are working together towards the same goals.
Cynthia (Cindy)
Karsten, DVM graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary
Medicine in 2010 and went on to complete a shelter medicine internship at
Colorado State University. She finished
her Shelter Medicine Residency at UC Davis in 2014 and is now the Outreach
Veterinarian with the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program. Her main areas of interest include infectious disease control,
population management, intake diversion/pet retention programs and community
medicine. She has participated in numerous game-changing shelter consultations
at both rural and urban, national and international animal care facilities,
where she has identified far-reaching solutions in the face of limited
resources.
How
did you get together and end up collaborating?
I was looking for a speaker to present on shelter med
issues for the 6th National G2Z Summit (a biennial nationalconference on companion animal welfare and management issues) and contacted Dr Kate Hurley of the UC DavisKoret Shelter Medicine program. Kate presented for us in 2011 and suggested Dr
Cynthia Karsten would be a good match for our needs and audience. Needless to
say Cindy was a huge success and we invited her and Trish McMillan Loehr to
visit an Australian shelter with us to do a shelter consultation.
The combination of the shelter med and behaviour
perspectives was identified as being extremely valuable and covered the
spectrum of shelter issues and challenges very nicely providing holistic
solutions and recommendations. This visit was so successful that we decided to
offer the Australian shelter, rescue and pound community the opportunity to tap
into this expert resource and we have just completed a 3-week road trip
covering two states and visiting 7 organisations. The feedback has once again
been fantastic and we are looking forward to travelling to other states next
year to spread the progressive sheltering word!
Why,
in the age of huge awareness about responsible pet ownership, do we still find
so many companion animals in shelters?
“Responsible pet ownership” means many different things
to different people. I think we need to be clearer on what we (in the sector)
need this to mean to people i.e. Desex, Identify, Train and Keep Safe. We also
need to empower people to do this by employing supportive, non-judgemental and non-enforcement
means.
Basic vet care (i.e. desexing surgeries, vaccination,
microchips) is out of the reach of many pet owners. Just as basic health care
would be out of their reach if we didn’t have Medicare. Perhaps we should be
considering spending the enormous amount of money, spent by not-for-profit and
Local Government each year on housing and disposing of stray and unwanted pets,
on preventive strategies such as low/no cost desexing, low/no cost pet training
classes and a myriad of other supportive measures.
The topic of ‘responsible pet ownership’ has been a very
common topic for discussion lately and was actually a special session at the
recent 2016 HSUS Animal Care Expo in Las Vegas.
A recent HSUS blog post discusses an important way to consider‘responsible pet ownership’.
How
can the numbers of animals in shelters be reduced?
Most pets end up in pounds and shelters as strays and
many of these are microchipped but the details are often not up to date making
contacting the owner difficult, if not impossible. This is a message we have
not successfully integrated into the community. Are we furnishing newly adopted
and reclaimed pets with a good ole fashioned collar and tag? The research shows
this works best when physically placed onto the pet at the time of release. [Ed. Definitely very helpful - often means that animals are returned to owners within minutes, if not hours, of being lost].
Cats are still the main issue when it comes to
overpopulation, we need to ut more resources into low/no cost desexing
while also considering changes to management of cats by shelters and pounds in
general.
Educating and training veterinarians on paediatric
desexing of cats is extremely important as cats can be ready to breed by4 months of age. The data shows that >90%of owned cats are desexed but this
is unfortunately taken from the information relating to registered cats. There
are many people who still do not register their cats (for a variety of reasons)
so this is giving a false impression of the numbers of pet cats that are
desexed. It also does not take into account those cats that were desexed after
they had an “oops” litter which is happening commonly with cats. Desexing them
after they have bred is great but it would be better to have done it before the
horse left the stable in the first place. The three main reasons why people do
not desex are: lack of knowledge (didn’t realise siblings can breed, didn’t
realise cats can breed so young etc.), lack of resources (money, etc.) and
access to affordable services. You can live in the suburbs but if you do not
have a car or someone to drive you, a cat carrier and the spare money it can
all get too hard really quickly.
The other major driver of pets into pounds and shelters
is the lack of pet friendly accommodation. The HSUS is taking this on with
their new initiative Pets Are Welcome.
Some shelters talk about resurrender of animals following a “honeymoon period”. What is
the honeymoon period?
Not sure about this one so can’t comment. I’ve never really heard shelters talk about
this but I do always talk with shelters how the adoption is the start of a
relationship with folks in the community and not the end of the relationship
with the animal. Let folks know that the
shelter is there to support the new owner and the pet in any way that they
can. However, if it is not working out,
no pressure, the animal is also always welcomed back or support them in
rehoming the pet on their own.
What
can be done to reduce resurrender of animals?
We can try to make the best match that we can at the time
of the adoption and then support, support, support! What do we need to do to help
keep that pet in the home?
If a pet is resurrendered after a recent adoption, then
we need to take the opportunity to learn more about how that pet was in the
home so that we can find a new home that is more suitable or help that pet
through rehabilitation if required. We can also try to find a more suitable pet
for that adopter rather than push them away which will mean pushing them
towards a pet shop or online purchase.
This goes for pets being surrendered in the first place
as well as strays being reclaimed by their owners. Are they having problems
with behaviour? Fencing issues? Affording food and/or medical care? It will be less expensive for us in the long
run if we can meet people where they are at and work with them to keep their
own pet.
One
criticism of the “adopt-don’t-shop” model is that many suitable pet owners are
not deemed suitable as adopters by shelters. Is this a recognised problem?
Looking at the prohibitive messages that many shelters
and rescues have on their websites, before the potential adopter has even got
in front of the pets in their care I would say yes. Add to this some of the
less than flattering descriptions and write ups commonly seen on cage cards and
internet profiles it’s not surprising that many people are still sourcing their
pets from online sources and pet stores.
Requirements such as home visits, landlord checks, no
kids under whatever age, etc., etc. are just putting barriers in the way of
potential adopters. Add to that the cost of adopting a pet and it’s enough to
tip people over the edge. While it is still possible to obtain a kitten free to
good home in the community we cannot afford to be putting excessive adoption
fees on our pets (particularly cats). Fee waived does not mean care waived. We
can still use our regular adoption processes (as long as they are reasonable!)
but ask for a donation at the time of adoption rather than a required fee. It’s
not reducing the value of the pet in the adopter’s eyes, there is plenty of
research around this that shows these pets are just as valued as thosepurchased elsewhere for higher amounts.
It’s also not impulse buying. Once again research shows
that these pets are remaining with their adoptive owners as long as other pets
sourced from other providers. One of the activities that we ran during our
recent shelter visits was a "“stand up sit down” game using common
adoption requirements. In one of the sessions, none of us, including all the
staff, would have been allowed to adopt a pet! We could hear the minds blowing
that afternoon…
What
can be done about it?
We have to trust, support and enable the community to do
the “right” thing. Just hanging onto these pets in our shelters is not the
answer. They don’t get “better” being incarcerated. It’s not even the answer in
a foster home as we need to make way for the next one needing our help.
We
hear about puppy factories and see footage in the news of ghastly, squalid
conditions. Surely this can’t be that common in Australia?
It is fairly common in Australia, they are often located
in rural areas and out of the way so many people do not realise how many there
are. People may also not pick up their new pet from the actual location it was
bred in (i.e. purchasing online, pet store or meeting at a pick up location) so
they do not realise where the pet originated. Many of these dogs are sold
on-line and thus buyers do not have a clear picture of where the dogs are
coming from and the lack of welfare afforded to them.
What
can be done about puppy factories?
It is certainly an animal welfare issue due to the
conditions these animals live in but it is probably not the greatest
contributor to our companion animal welfare and management issues. We need to
encourage legislation such as Breeder Permit legislation which requires an inspection using best practice (not minimum standard)
compulsory standards and the breeder using a traceable permit number when
advertising their offspring. This way the consumer can trace the origins of the
pet, be confident it was bred and raised in the very best of conditions and the
welfare of all animals involved is assured.
What
could we do to make the world better for non-human animals?
In terms of our stray and unwanted companion animals we
need to look at our data. This sector has not been great at collecting and reviewing
relevant data. We need to do this in order to develop and implement strategies
to solve the issues facing the sector. Who are the animals coming in to our
facilities? Where are they coming from? What are the barriers facing them in
regards to leaving these facilities healthy and happy?
A good place to start is ensuring that all pet owners
have access to affordable (to them) pet care and food/supplies needed for their
pet. Supporting all pet owners to allow
them to care for their pets to the best of their capacity will keep both pets
and people happy together.
Any
advice you’d like to share with veterinarians and future veterinarians?
Learn more about Shelter Medicine! It’s not just about
desexing, vaccinating and euthanizing. It’s the science behind good shelter and
pound management, the whole story.
Learn to desex paediatrics and take those skills into
your new job. If your bosses are not comfortable doing it ask them if you can
offer that service. Learn about companion animal behaviour, and human
behaviour!
And remember why you went into this profession in the
first place. When you can be anything,
be kind.
Thank you Nell and Cindy. Its great to see these kind of initiatives empowering shelters. For more info check out the Getting 2 Zero site here.
