Management of Animals in Shelter Medicine

Minimizing stress in shelter animals decreases infectious disease transmission and improves animal welfare and human safety. General stress reduction programs can be augmented by tailored stress reduction responses for individual animals.

General stress reduction programs should provide enrichment and socialization through the following measures, as appropriate for each animal:

• exercise

• positive social interactions with people

• time with conspecifics

• playing of soft, calming music

• other sensory stimulation (eg, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory/pheromone)

• use of feeding puzzles

Other important measures include decreasing extraneous noise, providing animals with the opportunity to hide, and giving animals a sense of control over their environment by providing choices as much as possible.

Some individual animals may benefit from anxiolytic medications such as trazodone for a transitional period after arriving at the facility.

Every animal shelter has a threshold capacity for care.

"Capacity for care" does not refer to the number of cages in the facility (ie, the holding capacity) but rather to the shelter's overall ability to provide humane care during each animal’s stay.

Capacity for care is determined by the housing and care needed for various populations, including the following:

• animals for adoption

• animals on "stray hold" (the legally required minimum amount of time that an animal must be held before being put up for adoption)

• animals awaiting court decisions

• animals undergoing medical or behavioral rehabilitation

• animals remaining for sanctuary (lifetime care)

In most cases, the most humane, welfare-oriented accommodation is to house each animal in its own primary enclosure, although bonded pairs, litters, and shelter-matched pairs of individuals can sometimes do better when cohoused.

Each animal requires a specified care program to meet its needs. The care program includes an intake evaluation, daily feeding and cleaning, exercise and enrichment, medical and surgical care, and adoption or transfer meetings. Staffing requirements can be calculated on the basis of how much time each task should take on average, multiplied by the number of animals in the shelter and the frequency of each activity. Such calculation helps determine how many people in various roles (eg, shelter staff, behavioral staff, veterinary staff, volunteers) are needed to meet the needs of each animal, each day.

Volunteer programs can appreciably increase capacity for care; however, volunteers require and deserve as much training, supervision, and other resources as are provided to employees. Increasing volunteer participation means increasing resources to support those volunteers. Many shelters use volunteers on-site to assist with direct animal care, behavior evaluations, socialization, animal training, adoptions, and even training and supervision of other volunteers.

Foster volunteers can be especially helpful. These volunteers take shelter animals into their homes on a temporary basis and often specialize in meeting certain needs, such as bottle-raising orphaned kittens or teaching manners to boisterous adolescent dogs. The expanded capacity created by foster homes increases the need for staff or volunteers to handle communication and to coordinate visits for veterinary care and adoptions.

Animal adoption policies may be shaped by the mission or mandate of the organization. Some policies are very restrictive, such as “no first-time dog owners,” “breed experience required,” or “fenced yard required.” Such overly prescriptive edicts slow animal flow through the shelter facility. Good animal welfare can be achieved in a variety of settings by various methods. With customer service in mind, open dialogue about an adopter’s needs and resources and an individual animal’s personality and needs can help identify a safe and lasting placement without relying on strict and potentially irrelevant rules.

Whether animals are identified as “adoptable” depends on the agency; however, it is not appropriate to place animals if they are dangerous or irredeemably suffering. Most individuals in the community expect that animal-sheltering organizations make every effort to find placement options for the animals in their care. However, shelters require discretion to make the best decisions for animals and the communities in which they live, in the context of the shelter’s resources.

All adopted animals should be ensured a continuum of care. Adopters should be educated about the animal’s lifestyle and veterinary needs. The animal shelter should seek written agreement that the animal will see a veterinarian for a postadoption examination to establish a valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship and to develop a medical plan for ongoing and routine preventive care.

Transfer programs(cooperative partnerships between shelters or with other organizations) increase placement options for animals. Animals can be transferred from areas of oversupply to areas with higher demand for adoption.

Some rescue organizations specialize in a breed or type of animal, such as neonates or geriatrics. Others are dedicated to animals with special medical or behavioral needs.

Sometimes, transferring an animal that has been languishing in one shelter to another facility exposes the animal to new staff and potential adopters and facilitates a quick placement.

It is important to get to know rescue partners—their policies, facilities, and abilities. Any transfer program should start slowly, with identified responsible contact people at both ends, and a written understanding to ensure clear communication about which organization is responsible for each aspect of animal care before transfer. Feedback from receiving organizations about successful placements is a positive morale booster for both agencies.

Wildlife rehabilitation is a specialty unto itself. Some animal shelters undertake wildlife rehabilitation; however, legal and other issues pertaining to wildlife and their hybrids (eg, wolf-dog hybrids or Savannah cat hybrids) are complex and vary to some extent from state to state. Local regulations may limit wildlife sheltering to licensed rehabilitation specialists. Consulting with the state wildlife management agency is the best place for shelter veterinarians to start when faced with a wildlife species in need of care.

Wildlife rehabilitation in animal shelters is difficult because predator species must be kept separate from prey species and because appropriate diets, climatic conditions, and housing are required. Wildlife species also pose increased risks of serious or fatal zoonotic diseases such as rabies, avian influenza, salmonellosis, and infection with Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm).

Most animal shelters can provide emergency stabilization and transfer to a wildlife veterinary facility or can perform humane euthanasia.

Euthanasia of shelter animals should be a last option to spare animals from further hardship and suffering.

Euthanasia decisions, even for animals with severe behavioral or medical issues, can be contentious for the shelter, volunteers, and local community. It is important to be forthright about euthanasia practices and policies during the hiring and onboarding of staff and volunteers.

Euthanasia requires treating the animal to be euthanized with dignity and respect. Staff performing euthanasia must be adequately trained in all aspects of the procedure.

The preferred method for euthanasia of dogs, cats, and other small companion animals is injection of a barbiturate (eg, sodium pentobarbital or a pentobarbital combination product). Veterinary formulations vary in concentration; veterinarians should refer to the product label or appropriate species references for recommended doses. See also the American Veterinary Medical Association's guidelines for animal euthanasia.

Veterinarians can work with animal shelters to develop euthanasia training programs, protocols for gentle preprocedure handling and sedation, and euthanasia methods. Some states mandate certification for technicians involved in performing euthanasia.

Consistently following a clearly articulated euthanasia decision-making process can lessen the negative impact on staff and volunteer morale. Specific operating procedures, transparency, and consistency are crucial. Transparent and consistent communication of outcomes, data, and trends also assist with community relations.

Working or volunteering at an animal shelter can be emotionally draining. Often, people who are attracted to the work have giving or caring personalities; however, such personality traits can put those individuals at increased risk for emotional harm from the work.

Shelter managers, employees, and volunteers should receive training in how to recognize compassion fatigue and burnout in themselves and those around them.

Signs of compassion fatigue and burnout include the following:

• anger

• anxiety

• depression

• emotional exhaustion

• feelings of ineffectiveness and negativity

• headaches

• stomachaches

• irritability

• difficulty sleeping

Good nutrition, regular exercise, meditation, and attending animal welfare conferences can help diffuse the impact of the stresses associated with animal welfare work. Staff should be encouraged to make the most of their time off and not pursue animal rescue activities in their free time.

Staff and volunteers do not have to be in direct caregiving roles to suffer vicarious trauma from the emotional work at the animal shelter. Those in non–animal care roles can also experience compassion fatigue and burnout.

Employee assistance programs can provide confidential assessment, referral, and short-term counseling services to shelter employees and, in some cases, volunteers.

Animal shelter veterinarians play an important role in developing shelter facilities. Veterinary input on how to decrease disease transmission and decrease stress for animal occupants is essential to the shelter design process.

Considerations must be given to the following:

• activities (eg, programs and services, veterinary evaluation, vaccination, spay and neuter surgery, adoptions)

• capacity (eg, housing units, staffing levels)

• materials (durability, ability to be cleaned and disinfected, comfort [eg, surfaces that are comfortable for dogs to walk on])

• lighting

• sound control

• ventilation

• visual stimulation (ability to observe surroundings, visual contact with other animals and people, a view of the outdoors or a television)

• visitor and population flow

For some animals, seeing conspecifics or other species can be stressful; therefore, shelter design should incorporate features for limiting visual contact, such as shades or curtains.

The needs of various animal populations also need to be taken into account. Animal populations that need to be accommodated in a shelter design can include the following:

• animals on view and available for adoption

• animals away from public view on stray hold

• dogs on long-term hold pending hearings about dangerous behavior or law enforcement investigations

• animals under veterinary care

• animals isolated or quarantined for infectious disease

Shelter design should accommodate the behavior needs of animals by including enriched space for single-housed and group-housed animals with opportunities for retreat, as well as features to enable safe animal handling.

A shelter's capacity for care is determined not only by how many animals the building can physically hold but also by staffing levels and training as well as other factors (such as mean length of stay and intake and adoption rates).

Good animal shelter design accommodates ample work, meeting, training, and break space for the human occupants as well.

• Calculating shelter capacity. UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program.

• Enrichment and stress reduction for sheltered dogs and cats: targeting the five senses. IAABC Foundation Journal.

• Playgroups: getting started. Human Animal Support Services.

• AVMA guidelines for the euthanasia of animals: 2020 edition. American Veterinary Medical Association.

• See also pet owner content regarding euthanasia.