A perspective from the trenches
In the business of animal welfare, the community will constantly armchair quarterback the policies that you create to care for your animals. It is always a good idea to stick to standards that have been accepted throughout the animal welfare community. It is especially useful to use standards created by the American Veterinary Association.
This document should be the cornerstone of your policies for animal care.
As animal shelter intakes decline and the desire for increased placements, animal are being held for longer periods of time. Some animals adapt to long confinement, others do not; as such, it is necessary to maintain the Five Freedoms for each animal to make sure that our desire for higher release rates do not commit inhumane acts upon the animals in our care.
The Five Freedoms:
Freedom from hunger or thirst by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
Freedom from discomfort by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
Freedom from pain, injury or disease by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
Freedom to express (most) normal behaviour by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind.
Freedom from fear and distress by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.
In a job interview, one of our applicants said that integrity was doing the right thing when no one is watching. I discovered that it was easy to do the right thing when no one is watching, the challenge is to do the right thing when everyone is watching.
We are all born with the same amount of integrity; however, over the years we will engage in actions that will erode that integrity. We live in a world in which people will sacrifice their integrity for financial or political gain. Some have eroded their integrity to the point that there is no hope for them because lying has become a way of life.
We frequently see this erosion in animal shelter when people come up with excuses for abandoning their pet or volunteers wanting to lie about an animal to encourage its adoption.
The hardest part of directing an animal control program is standing guard of the organization’s integrity. Animal welfare is a profession of compromises; a good director will make sure that any compromises agreed to, do not compromise the integrity of the organization.
The greatest challenge facing animal shelters is the balance that must be made to protect people and to protect pets. Animal shelters must face the decision to put people first or to put pets first. In 95 percent of the time, it isn’t an issue. But in those remaining 5 percent, it becomes the battleground that creates the most media carnage for animal shelter personnel.
Should animal shelters release potentially dangerous dogs back into their community? On the surface this seems pretty simple, until you begin to fight the battle as to what determines a dangerous our an aggressive dog. Dog held for long periods of time can become aggressive as a result of their long confinement. Where along that process does a dog move from being adoptable to being unadoptable?
Is it worth euthanizing one “potentially” aggressive dog to prevent a future worry of the dog injuring a child? This is the constant worry that all animal shelters face. Many shelter personnel take the easy road and don’t question the adoptability of an animal: if the animal has a potential home, then let it leave the shelter. Many shelters that have taken this road become faced with the lawsuits of their careless actions.
Many dogs that have displayed aggression in the shelter eventually reassimulate into society to become perfect pets. We cannot look into the eyes of these animals and determine their behavior in the environment that we are sending them. Every adoption is based on a gradient from low risk to high risk.
The community that we serve seems to see only in black or white. Many people claim that we should give EVERY animal a chance and many believe that NONE of the high risk breeds should ever be released to the public. Although animal shelters conduct behavior tests, the tests run the failure of the bias of the evaluator. But the biggest hazard is the adopter.
No matter how much adoption staff empathizes the need for responsible pet ownership, the greatest failing point is the pet’s owner. It is amazing the number of new pet owners who call to report that their new pet ran away during the period of the car and the house because the owner didn’t think the dog should be on leash. One of the most common phases from dog owners prior to a dog bite is, “Don’t worry he won’t bite.”
When pet owners fail to act responsibly, it furthers the risk of a failed adoption. When an animal gets into trouble as the result of a bad pet owner, it is usually the animal shelter that gets into trouble for failing to have the foresight in seeing a bad combination of a questionable dog and a bad adopter.
Many shelters have taken a beating in the media as a result of not being physic. Every adoption presents a risk. The shelter is forced to decide if they will weigh the balance toward protecting people or saving a pet. Wherever you find that balance, you can be sure that someone will be under constant pressure to move that line one way or the other.
I am so grateful that most of my career was prior to social media. Social media has created such a mean spirited group of people online. It is most frequently used to bully others. In the animal welfare arena, social media is used to bully shelter staff into making questionable animals available for adoption. The no-kill movement used this bullying tactic to facilitate high adoption numbers.
In recently years, I discovered that shelter staff has become more concerned about having a positive social media presence, than to do their job to protect the community. The constant pressure that is placed on shelter staff is forcing extremely foolish decisions.
Adoption councilors are becoming more and more like used car salesman, asking potential pet owners to purchase an animal without looking under the hood. We are entering an era in which shelters are being sued for misrepresenting the aggressive backgrounds of dogs in their care; just so that animal shelter staff can be praised on social media.
In a few days, I will celebrate one year of retirement. The past year has allowed me to settle down and reflect on animal welfare as a profession. I witnessed the era before pitbulls and social media. This profession is much more challenging today for those who wish to make a career in this profession. The purpose of this blog is to prepare a person for the world of animal welfare.