Interventions to decrease stress in kenneled animals Flashcards
(16 cards)
What are basic current sheltering statistics in the US? How have they changed over time?
- over 78 million dogs in the US, more than 20% adopted from shelters, about 5.5 million will enter shelters in US, 14% (770,000) euthanized
- changes: fewer dogs entering shelter, adoptions increase, able to keep dogs longer, able to work more with challenging dogs
What is the difference between ultimate and proximate welfare?
Promimate welfare is the short-term collective state of an animal
* reducing stress
* maintaining heath and behavior
* improving behavioral issues
Ultimate welfare is the long term well-being
* getting adopted & staying adopted
What are potential stressors in the shelter?
- excessive noise
- spatial confinement
- social isolation
- unpredictability
Enrichment types
What are the effect of auditory enrichment?
- more time resting, more time quiet, less time standing (classical)
- heavy metal - more barking
- audiobook - more behavioral benefits than classical music
Enrichment types
What are the effect of olfactory enrichment?
- lavendar and chamomile - more resting and less vocalization
- can diffuse through kennel or give pieces of cloth with scent
- dog appeasing pherome -> reducing barking
Enrichment types
What are the effect of object enrichment?
- preference towards soft and destructable toys
- over time dogs engage less and less with an object, however a toy in kennel can help them get adopted
What are the benefits and issues with double kennels?
benefits - dogs eliminated more frequently on side away from food and water, experiencing going through a door
issues - stress of having to defecate in an area they don’t want to or trained not to
How does cohousing dogs affect behavior/welfare?
Dogs that were co-housed had a significant reduction for lip-licking standing, ears back, whining and single object play, therefore less stress. In addition, there was fair amount of play with physical contact and there was a lot of time they were near each other.
Limit - might be a hassle to handle dogs and get their leash on with other dogs inside
How does transport impact on different categories of dogs (transfer, return, owner-surrender, stray)?
Owner-surrendered dogs had the highest cortisol: creatinine with the transfer having the lowest.
How does single and paired housing affect cortisol:creatinine levels?
There is no significant difference and this can be due to there being multiple stressors. This also suggest that moving dogs to a new kennel can be stressful.
How does weight and housing predict a dog’s length of stay (LOS)?
The bigger the dog was the longer they would stay; increase of LOS by 1 day for every 10 kg increase.
Pair housed dogs had a shorter LOS by 3 days
What are the benefits of human interaction?
- reduced cortisol immediately (even with 15-30 mins of interaction)
- increase oxytocin, dopaimine, B-endorphin and prolactin
- decreased heart rate, increase HRV
- dogs vocalized less
- dogs shows greater decrease with female petters
How does short-term fostering affect cortisol:creatinine levels with shelter dogs?
It significantly reduced their cortisol during the foster period as well as has a carry over effect. This is thought to be because the dogs are getting more rest during the foster period.
How does shorter outings like 2- 4 hr field trips affect cortisol?
Cortisol increases after field trip, however, it increases their chances to get adopted by 5 times.
What are the variables that affect whether a dog is adopted and adopter behavior?
- adopters mostly pick based on looks, look more at the kennels at the beginning and don’t look at all the dogs (30%)
- age - younger dogs have short LOS
- size - smaller dogs are desirable
- looks - lighter colors, long haired dogs were more desirable
- no behavioral effects but training could help - questionable
What interventions can improve shelter cat stress?
- enrichment
- hiding places
- housing - communical living or enriched environment
- handling them more consistently
- managed rooms - minimal noise disruption, regular schedule
