Chew On This!

Do you know what 'shelter medicine' really means?

When you hear the term "shelter medicine," what comes to mind?

When TV veterinarian Dr. Marty Becker recently shared a story about the Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida with his half-million Facebook fans, it quickly became clear that many of his followers, pet owners and veterinarians alike, thought it referred to veterinarians working in shelter-affiliated clinics serving the public.

Shelter medicine is something entirely different. It's the management of the health, housing and behavior needs of animals who are in shelters. It's about preventing and responding to disease outbreaks. It's about ensuring pets in shelters are happy, healthy and headed for adoption in the shortest possible time.

The practice of shelter medicine means veterinarians with special training in the needs of shelter animals are in charge of making decisions and policy about their care and well-being in animal shelters.

Shelter medicine is also a newly-recognized specialty in veterinary medicine, with the first group of shelter medicine veterinarians scheduled to sit for exams to become board-certified this fall.

At Maddie's Fund, we know that without shelter medicine, we can't save all the healthy and treatable pets in our nation's shelters, and can never become a no-kill nation. That's why we're the largest funder of shelter medicine education programs in the world.

You can learn more about the past, present, and future of shelter medicine in this Maddie's Fund mini-documentary.

 

How animal shelters can keep up with 'Worms and Germs'

If you just can't get enough of diseases spread between animals and humans -- well, reading about them, anyway! -- you need to follow the Worms and Germs blog from Drs. Scott Weese and Maureen Anderson of the Ontario Veterinary College's Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses.

In recent posts, the authors debunked the really bad, horrible, truly terrible hype masquerading as science about cats, mental illness and toxoplasmosis. They gave us all a reassuring reality check on canine giardiasis, and took a hard, critical look at rescue transport and disease. (For a second opinion on that last subject, check out Dr. Elizabeth Berliner's recommendations here.)

Education about zoonotic disease isn't always the most appealing sheltering topic. Rarely do posts about zoonoses go viral on Facebook, and they're not the stuff of Instagram celebrity pets' bios. They're typically not the workshops everyone's buzzing about at conferences, either.

But if you scan the newspaper headlines, you'll find health risks to humans from animals get a lot of hype -- hype that can be as deadly as the diseases themselves when pets are wrongly blamed for health threats all or mostly attributable to other causes.

And for those of us in the shelter world, a lack of understanding of zoonotic disease can turn into a medical and PR nightmare if the wrong microbe gets past our doors.

You can stay up to date on the bugs of biggest concern to sheltered pets by subscribing to Worms and Germs via RSS or email -- the sign-up links are in the right hand column at www.wormsandgermsblog.com

Do you really know what 'capacity for care' means?

An animal sheltering buzzword that's been used more and more in the last couple of years is "capacity for care." Do you know what it means?

"Capacity for care" simply means the number of animals a shelter can care for while still providing what they need to be healthy and happy during their stay. It's not simply a function of cage or kennel numbers, but of staff hours, access to veterinary care, square footage, and basics like food and water as well as, of course, money.

A shelter with 10,000 kennels and cages but no staff, no volunteers, and no money doesn't have a capacity for 10,000 animals; it has capacity for zero animals.

Another shelter that may have only 10 kennels but has an expansive foster care network of 700 homes, a dedicated staff, a great volunteer program, good funding and community support doesn't have capacity for only 10 animals, but for 710 or more.

Most importantly, capacity for care determines how many pets you can handle at a given time without causing harm to them by overcrowding, stress, untreated illness and injuries, exposure to disease, or inadequate food, water, enrichment and exercise. Exceeding your capacity for care also means the need, particularly of cats, for quiet time and a sense of security will likely not be met.

How can you expand your capacity for care? For many shelters, that means expanding their current facilities or building new ones. This won't automatically increase capacity for care, however, if veterinary, financial, staff and other resources don't increase as well. All that takes time and costs a lot of money, too.

Fortunately, you can expand your organization's capacity by developing, maintaining and growing a great volunteer and foster care network.

Learn more about capacity for care in this Maddie's Institute learning track.

Decreasing shelter length of stay means animals live, not die

Are you confused about what "reducing length of stay" means for your animal shelter or rescue group?

Few things can save more animals than reducing length of stay. It not only means more animals get adopted, but increases the number of animals the organization can care for in any given year.

There's a lot of confusion, however, in the shelter and rescue world about what "length of stay" really means, and the implications of reducing it.

In the literal sense, "length of stay" is exactly what it sounds like: How long pets are in the shelter's care on average. Keeping the math at its simplest:

• If you have 10 pets and they all stay 1 month each, then your length of stay is 1 month.
• If you have 10 pets and five stay two weeks and five stay four weeks, your average length of stay is 3 weeks.

Often, however, when discussions of reducing length of stay come up, animal advocates oppose it because they interpret it to mean "after some amount of time passes, the pet's out of time and will be killed." This represents a complete misunderstanding of what managing length of stay is.

As Dr. Kate Hurley writes on the Million Cat Challenge website:

Euthanasia should never be substituted for a live outcome as a means of reducing length of stay. Rather, systematic efforts should be made to minimize length of stay to an appropriate outcome for every animal, whether that is return to owner, rescue, transfer, adoption, return to location of origin, or in the case of managed intake, perhaps never entering the shelter at all.

So why does fully understanding what "length of stay" means matter? Because reducing length of stay is how we save more lives!

For instance, the longer pets remain housed in a shelter, the more likely they are to become ill from overcrowding, stress, or exposure to sick pets. This can drive down adoption rates, as well as being hard on the pets and a drain on the organization's resources.

Even if pets are housed in foster homes, keeping them there longer than necessary is also a drain on the organization, and prevents it from being able to move at-risk pets into those foster homes.

Here are some specific ways in which organizations can reduce length of stay and save more pets:

Become more organized when pets are taken into the shelter. This way, pets who need vet care can get it immediately, so those at risk of disease can be appropriately separated from the general population, and so those who are ready to be adopted can go right into the adoption area or to adoption events. Learn more about intake here.

Become better at doing adoptions so more pets are adopted more quickly. Get tips on improving adoptions here.

Build relationships with rescue groups, veterinarians, and other shelters so you can help each other care for more animals. Learn more about collaborating here.

Become better at returning pets to their owners. Nationally, these numbers are dismally low, resulting in a huge strain on the shelter and rescue system as well as suffering for families and pets. Improving RTO rates can dramatically reduce length of stay. Get more RTO tips here.

So the next time you hear someone say reducing length of stay means animals die, tell them no, it means they live!

 

How to build a treatment program for cats with ringworm

Tens of thousands of cats are euthanized each year solely because they have been diagnosed with ringworm, a highly contagious but highly treatable skin infection about as serious as Athlete’s Foot.

Learn how to set up a ward where affected kitties can be isolated from other animal populations and treated until they are cleared of the disease and ready for adoption in this 25 minute presentation from the 2015 American Pets Alive! Conference, given by Brittany Dell’Aglio-Mitchell, Ringworm Ward Manager for Austin Pets Alive!

 

Do kittens grow out of ringworm?

Do kittens grow out of ringworm as their immune systems mature and strengthen? And does this fungal disease ever just clear up on its own?

Ringworm is a serious concern in animal shelters because it's transmissible to humans and can make it difficult to get cats adopted. In a FAQ prepared from questions presented during her recent Maddie's Institute webcast on ringworm, Karen Moriello, DVM, DACVD, Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, had this to say:

Immune responses to diseases, in general, are comprised of two types: humoral (antibody response) or cell-mediated. Recovery from ringworm is associated with a strong cell-mediated response.

If a kitten is sick or immune-suppressed due to illness or stress, the kitten is more susceptible to infection. So yes, as the kitten’s overall health improves the immune system will be able to mount an immune response to eliminate the infection.

Is there such a thing as "immune to ringworm"? In studies we have conducted, juvenile cats will recover from ringworm with no treatment at all within 70 to 100 days. Ringworm is a self-curing disease and treatment is instituted to help speed recovery, minimize spread to other animals, and lessen contamination of the environment.

Learn more and view the complete webcast here!

Orphaned kitten care for shelters and foster homes

Kitten season is upon us! Learn more about how to best care for orphaned and/or neonatal kittens - and share expert advice and resources with your staff and volunteers. We've created this learning track with your veterinary, animal health and foster caregiver teams in mind.

Critical Care of the Sick Neonatal Kitten
Neonatal kittens' lives are fragile under the best of circumstances, and that fragility increases when they are orphaned or sick. How can shelter veterinarians, and those working with kitten nursery programs or rescue groups, provide the best care for this population? Find out from Elizabeth J. Thomovsky, MS, DVM, DACVECC.

Shelters Embrace New Model
The Jacksonville Humane Society in Jacksonville, FL, and California's San Diego Humane Society and SPCA talk about the emerging model of operating kitten nurseries to provide round-the-clock care for kittens in a shelter environment. 

Orphaned Kitten Care How-to Videos
These short videos from Laurie Peek, DVM, and Heidi Beyer, CVT, will provide essential care instructions for orphaned kittens. Whether you are a seasoned foster parent or just getting started saving these orphaned baby lives, these videos will guide you through the basics.

Caring for Orphaned Kittens
Based on years of personal experience, Maddie's Fund Director of Veterinary Programs Laurie Peek, DVM, provides a step-by-step guide to caring for orphaned kittens, including how to recognize, avoid and respond to the most common threats they face.

Orphaned Kittens: Saving the Tiniest Lives
In this two-part webcast, Ellen Jefferson, DVM, discusses her organization's kitten nursery and foster-based care program while Heidi Beyer, CVT, gives foster caregivers a leg up with practical tips for orphaned kitten care.

Shelter medicine tip of the week: What's all this about 'daily rounds'?

Do you want to take better care of the pets in your shelter, move them safely through to adoption much more quickly, spend less money on veterinary care, and improve overall operations in the facility? Then you can't afford not to do daily rounds!

Daily rounds means having an established protocol of visiting each pet in the shelter every single day, and making paper or digital records of their health, appearance, attitude, and housing. From Brian A. DiGangi, DVM, MS, Diplomate AVCIM, and Stephanie Jacks, DVM, PhD, Diplomate AVCIM, here are the five questions you need to answer for each pet, every day:

First of all, who are you? Does this animal have identification? Is it the correct identification? Does the description on the cage card match the animal that's in the cage?

How are you? How is the animal medically?

How is the animal behaviorally?

Are you where you should be? Is this a sick animal that's mixed in with the general population that we need to identify a different space for him to live? Is it a neonatal kitten in with a bunch of adult cats that have specific infectious disease risks? We need to know those things and identify them.

And then, do you need something today?

While a veterinarian should be involved in creating the daily rounds checklist, any trained individual or team can perform the rounds.

Want more information? A complete video presentation from Dr. DiGangi and Dr. Jacks, along with transcripts, on how and why to perform daily rounds in animal shelters is available here.

Stopping the scales, greasiness and odor of seborrhea in shelter dogs

Is the smell and look of a dog with seborrhea making it hard to get him or her adopted?

Seborrhea in dogs can be caused by underlying skin disease or by a primary skin defect. While not life-threatening, the odor and appearance can make it very difficult to find a home for even the friendliest, most appealing dog. What can shelters and foster homes do to resolve this condition in dogs they're caring for?

On Thursday, May 21, 2015, at 9 PM ET, Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Karen Moriello, will present a free webcast, Stopping the Scales, Greasiness and Odor of Seborrhea in Shelter and Foster Home Dogs.

Get more information and sign up here!

Remember to sign up even if you can't attend, so you'll get a link to the on-demand version as soon as it's ready!

Also of interest:

What to do about ear problems in shelter and foster home dogs

How to stop itching in dogs

How to stop itching in cats

Preventing and treating diarrhea in shelter cats and dogs

Diarrhea in shelter dogs and cats is almost always either preventable or treatable, usually easily and inexpensively.

While loose or frequent stool may be a sign of serious illness, most shelter veterinarians find treatable conditions such as parasites, stress, diet change or minor illness are the real culprits behind canine and feline diarrhea in animal shelters.

In compiling the resources below, Maddie's Institute^SM reached out to shelter medical experts, foster caregivers, and adopters for their experiences, protocols and outcomes working with cats and dogs with diarrhea.

What we found is that diarrhea can often be prevented or treated in its earliest stages by focusing on simple steps and protocols. Check out what we learned!

Don't Run From Diarrhea: Easy Steps for the Prevention and Management of Diarrhea in Shelter Dogs and Cats

In this overview of shelter dog and cat diarrhea, Dr. Barbara Hanek of PAWS Chicago, Dr. Heather Budgin of Tony LaRussa's Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek, CA, and Dr. Elizabeth Berliner, Director of Clinical Programs for Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at Cornell University, share their experiences of beating diarrhea while still moving pets as quickly as possible from intake to adoption.

A Protocoled Response to Dog and Cat Diarrhea in a Shelter Setting

Dr. Ellen Jefferson on how a "herd medicine" approach of standardized protocols helped make Austin, TX, the nation's largest no-kill community.

The Role of Nutrition and Diet in Shelter Dog and Cat Diarrhea

What role do diet change and nutritional problems play in shelter pet diarrhea? Dr. Justin Schmalberg gives the perspective of a veterinarian board-certified in small animal nutrition. His conclusions and advice may surprise you!

Video: The ABCs of Treating Shelter Pet Diarrhea

How tough is it to fight diarrhea in shelter cats and dogs? For most pets, it's not tough at all, as long as you keep it simple. Dr. Elizabeth Berliner outlines the basics in this short video.