Chew On This!

Quality of life for shelter animals: What we know and don’t know

What does “quality of life” really mean? Far from being an afterthought or even a luxury, the quality of life for shelter pets is directly related to disease outbreaks, development of behavior problems, the chances a pet will be adopted, and whether that adoption will be successful or if the pet will end up back at the shelter.

On Sunday, July 14, at the 2013 ASPCA/Cornell/Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Conference in Ithaca, NY, Frank McMillan, DVM, Director of Well-being Studies at Best Friends Animal Society, will give two presentations on the critical issue of quality of life in animal shelters. From the schedule:

Quality of life in the animal shelter: What we know and don’t know
1:00pm – 2:00pm

Quality of life for animals in the shelter has a far greater impact than simply making the animals’ life more enjoyable during the stay in the shelter – it can have an impact on the animals’ happiness well after he or she has left the shelter. It can affect the animal’s ability to make successful adjustments to the human home environment, the chances of the animal being returned to the shelter or drifting from foster home to foster home, and of being adopted at all. On top of this, the strong intuitive sense that quality of life is straightforward and “everyone knows what it means” is an illusion. This presentation will point out what we know and don’t know about animal quality of life in the shelter environment.

Assessing quality of life in the animal shelter
2:05pm – 3:05pm

Quality of life assessment is the paramount method for recognizing deficiencies in the animal’s care as desired by that animal. It permits the determination of enhancements and deteriorations in the pleasantness of the animal’s life experience, so that intervention can be instituted and its effectiveness measured. This talk will present the latest knowledge in how we can best assess quality of life in animals residing in the animal shelter environment.

The conference will be held July 13-14, 2013, at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The complete schedule is available here (PDF).

Fees to attend are $75 for veterinarians, $25 for veterinary technicians, $10 for individuals and free for students. You can register and see continuing education credit information here.

Tips for coping with kitten season

Who doesn’t love a kitten? Practically no one. Who doesn’t love 1,000 kittens? That’s a different story.

Although many adopters are looking for kittens rather than adult cats, kitten season can put some serious pressure on any adoption program. Not only are there the usual numbers of adult cats, but in many communities, warm weather brings litter after litter of kittens into the shelters.

In Austin, TX, the nation’s largest no-kill community, kitten season is long and busy. In addition to innovative programs for orphaned and very young kittens, Austin Pets Alive! Director Dr. Ellen Jefferson and her team have developed a series of protocols for saving both adults and babies during kitten season. These programs have allowed them to save over 4,000 bottle babies, 2,500 kittens, and 2,400 “teen cats.”

At the 2012 Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Conference at the University of Florida, Dr. Jefferson shared some of Austin’s secrets for kitten season success.

First, make hay while the sun shines. Instead of putting your adoption-ready kittens into foster homes, put your adult cats into foster homes until a time when they’re not competing with so many kittens for space or adopter interest.

Second, start a “recycling program” for kittens. The kittens came from the community, so get them back out into it where people will see them, instead of expecting people to come to your shelter to see the kittens.

“We know people don’t go out of their way to adopt cats,” said Dr. Jefferson. “They can find cats on any street corner. If they’re in the market to adopt a cat, the first cat they see is probably the one they’re going to adopt.”

Her solution? “We try to be everywhere with cats,” she continued. “We spread them out over every PetSmart, every Petco that didn’t already have a group in it. We did events on the weekends where we bring cats out in front of those stores. We set up at fairs. We did online marketing, anything that we could think of.”

Third, rely on foster home networking. “The other thing that really works is asking people to ping their own networks,” said Dr. Jefferson. “Those are the networks we don’t even have access to. They’re not on our e-mail list. They’re not on our Facebook. These people – every single person that has an animal in their foster care – they have the ability to send one e-mail out with a cute picture that says, ‘I’ve got adorable kittens that need a home.’ And so that goes out to all of their friends and, more often than not, those animals get adopted through their own networks.”

Get more tips, and watch the entire presentation, here.

Let them eat! Another look at food guarding in shelter dogs

Food guarding – possessive, defensive or aggressive behavior around food or food bowls – is not a death sentence for a shelter dog. How to assess and modify this behavior is something all animal shelters can and should learn in order to save the lives of more dogs, and ensure their safe and successful placement in new homes.

On Saturday, July 13, at the 2013 ASPCA/Cornell/Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Conference in Ithaca, NY, Emily Weiss, PhD, CAAB, Vice President of Shelter Research and Development for the ASPCA, will share what the latest research has to tell animal shelters about food guarding in dogs.

From the schedule:

Let them eat!
8:45am – 9:45am

Research on food guarding from the ASPCA’s Shelter Research and Development department has led to a significant increase in the number of dogs leaving shelters alive. Attendees will explore the differences between food guarding and possession aggression and learn about a simple protocol that can quickly modify the behavior and ensure an increase in live releases.

The conference will be held July 13-14, 2013, at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The complete schedule is available here (PDF).

Fees to attend are $75 for veterinarians, $25 for veterinary technicians, $10 for individuals and free for students. You can register and see continuing education credit information here.

Also of interest: Study finds dogs who guarded food bowls in shelter did not continue behavior in homes

How much to feed that shelter pet

Sheltered pets often have problems related to their diets, and knowing how much to feed them for their life stage and health status can be tricky, especially if you’re working with donated foods that aren’t consistent meal to meal. Such calculations are critical, particularly when feeding starved or underweight pets, or pregnant animals.

This process is also difficult and time-consuming. Fortunately, ASPCAPro has made it easy with their free shelter food calculator:

Our calculator takes the higher math out of this task. You can plug in a few numbers, and then print out charts that show the appropriate amount of food by weight and life stage for both dogs and cats.

Download it here.

Slideshow: Happy Endings for Orphaned Kittens

Feeling overwhelmed by life in general, or burned out by your work rescuing, sheltering, adopting or fostering? Need something to help you keep you going? Nothing can lighten the load like a happy adoption story or two... or seven. Especially when they’re orphaned kittens.

Click on the photo to check out our slideshow of seven kittens rescued, bottle-fed, cared for, adopted and living happily ever after as adults in their forever homes!

Animal causes rule the social media jungle

When it comes to fundraising and spreading awareness through social media, are animal welfare organizations making the most of their own popularity?

The Ad Council blog, Ad Libbing, recently invited non-profit social media expert Heather Mansfield to walk organizations through “12 Must-Know Stats About Social Media, Fundraising, and Cause Awareness.” One of her main messages: Animal causes rank at the very top in terms of social media supporters, followers and fans.

 

Some of her key points:

• Donations made through social media are growing each year; the current average donation is $59 compared to only $38 two years ago.
• Using Twitter during fundraising events can increase online donations ten-fold.
• 57 percent of those who “like” an animal cause on Facebook do so to publicly show their support for an organization.

Get the big picture here.

National conference focuses on research about homeless cats

Is what we don’t know about homeless cats hurting them? That’s the question the National
Council on Pet Population (NCPP) and the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA)
will be addressing at the first annual Research Day, “a scientific symposium on improving the
lives of millions of homeless cats in North America.”

The symposium, entitled “CATS, the Ins and Outs: Improving their Future through Research,”
will be held November 9, 2013, in conjunction with the SAWA Annual Conference in Tempe,
AZ. From the JAVMA News:

“Our goals are to bring together both researchers and animal welfare and control
professionals, to offer a safe place for open dialogue, to translate the analyzed data
outcomes so that they can be used to improve or create shelter programs, and to offer
effective alternatives to continue on the path to save more lives,” said Pamela Burns,
chair of the NCPP board of directors.

[...]

“Much useful information exists in the peer-reviewed literature, but those who can
use it best to solve problems do not have the access or time to retrieve and use this
information,” said Dr. John New Jr., a member of the NCPP board.

Read more here.

 

Register now for the 2013 ASPCA/Cornell/Maddie's Shelter Medicine Conference

It sold out quickly last year – have you registered for the 2013 ASPCA/Cornell/Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Conference yet? Tracks designed for veterinarians, shelter administrators, veterinary technicians, veterinary students and volunteers will present research data, insights and proven strategies for saving lives in animal shelters.

Presentations will include:

• Beyond the cutting edge: non-surgical tools for contraception and sterilization of dogs and cats, with Joyce Briggs, President, Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs.
• Shelterer to Rehomer, Parts 1 and 2, with Bert Troughton, MSW, and Emily Weiss, PhD, CAAB.
• Fundraising, Parts 1 and 2, with Karen L. Medicus, CFRE.
• Research on Food Guarding and Big Dog Relinquishment, with Emily Weiss, PhD, CAAB.
• Understanding aggression in dogs as it relates to our work in the shelter, with Kelley Bollen, MS, CABC.
• Quality of life in the animal shelter: What we know and don’t know, with Dr. Frank McMillan.
• And more!

The conference will be held July 13-14, 2013, at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The complete schedule is available here (PDF).

Fees to attend are $75 for veterinarians, $25 for veterinary technicians, $10 for individuals and free for students. You can register and see continuing education credit information here.

Does TNR threaten public health?

Trap-neuter-release programs for community cats help protect human health. That’s not just because altered cats are less likely to fight and roam, thus creating fewer opportunities for disease spread. It’s also because TNR programs routinely vaccinate their feline patients against rabies, a disease nearly always fatal to humans.

From the 2012 Maddie’s^® Institute webcast Shelter Crowd Control: Keeping Community Cats Out of Shelters, given by Julie Levy, DVM, PhD, DACVIM, Director of Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida:

There are a number of papers that have been published to show that even a single vaccine given to a kitten or an adult cat is very likely to give them years of protection.

And we’ve also vaccinated cats in our program and then re-trapped them a couple months later to see how well they responded. ... (T)here was a very low proportion of cats that have protective antibodies against rabies before they were vaccinated, and when we re- trapped them a couple months later, 99 percent of the cats were protected against rabies. And that’s the same proportion that you would get from vaccinating pet animals.

Because we know even a single vaccine lasts for years, we think we’re promoting public health in a very dramatic way.

You can view Dr. Levy’s complete presentation here.

A surprising tool to fight disease outbreaks in shelters

Infectious diseases are the single biggest threat to keeping shelter animals healthy during their shelter stay. Data -- boring facts, figures and statistics -- is the best tool you have for getting on top of disease outbreaks.

Dr. Jan Scarlett, DVM, MPH, PhD, Director of Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at Cornell University, shared the secrets of effective use of data to fight shelter disease at the 2012 ASPCA/Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Conference 2012. View the video of the presentation by clicking on the image below, or here.