A Companion Animal Care Article from All-Creatures.org

 

(Willful) Ignorance is not bliss

 

FROM Nathan Winograd, Substack.com
April 2022

A new study finds that shelter managers and senior staff tend toward regressive views about dog welfare and may not be committed to keeping shelter dogs healthy and happy.

The last two decades have seen a meteoric rise in the number of university professors and other scholars focusing their research on understanding and improving dog welfare in animal shelters. This includes studies that show that:

• Dogs “experience fear and anxiety immediately upon admission” to a shelter. Unless those “shelters” provide clean environments and social enrichment, dogs will experience continuing stress and physically and mentally deteriorate over time.
• Dogs who are housed alone likewise suffer and should be pair or group-housed (if they get along with other dogs).
• Isolating dogs in barren kennels harms them.
• Dogs are set up to fail unreliable temperament testing.

Much of that research has confirmed what people outside of the shelter who care about dogs already know: that, in order to thrive, dogs need love, routine, nutritious food, exercise, veterinary care, boundaries/reasonable rules, a clean environment, socialization with people and other dogs, and a sense of belonging.

....

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

---

Return to Companion Animal Care