Animal shelter personnel have always had to face the danger of passing diseases throughout their shelter. We know that the most likely transmission of diseases between animals is through human contact. The worst offenders are our staff and volunteers. Some of our staff are just predisposed to kissing each animal that they come into contact with. During the Covid 19 outbreak, this practice has to stop.
We need to remind staff that their duty is to care for the an animal until the animal’s owner comes forward to reclaim the animal. It would be horrible to find out that shelter staff is the cause of spreading the Covid 19 virus from them, to the animal, and then to the animal’s owners.
Once an animal is made available for adoption, the risk of infection becomes greater in that multiple people will come into contact with the animal as it is presented for adoption.
As we have always concerned ourselves with the spread of disease within our animal shelter, we must now take further measure to in sure that we don’t let our guard down in spreading disease outside our shelter.