Yesterday, the folks over at Maddies Fund posted the video below. The presentation is given by Brian DiGangi, DVM and professor at the University of Florida school of veterinary medicine.
The presentation is about 50 minutes long, but well worth watching for anyone who is involved in sheltering because he spends a lot of time discussing the first 60 minutes of an animal's life in a shelter and the importance of that first 60 minutes in the likelihood of the animal leaving the shelter safely.
The presentation, while not terribly dynamic in nature, does cover a lot of ground and gives a lot of good information. It covers how to properly scan for microchips (it's a bit more complex than you think), quickly taking intake photos, providing a physical and behavioral evaluation (including the importance of gathering any history you can get on the animal -- even someone who picked up a stray in their neighborhood 2 hours ago knows more abou that animal than you do), vaccination protocols (and the importance of doing this every time, and quickly), and on planned movement of people and animals through the shelter (this section, at about minute 21, is very interesting as well).
While I want you to watch the whole video, there are three things I want to talk about a little bit more.
#1) Determining a pathway for an animal early on -- This is something we've talked quite a bit about at our shelter is determining an animal's pathway out of the shelter early on after intake. It doesn't take a lot of effort to do a quick evaluation effort on an animal and envision how that animal is going to eventually leave the shelter. Well-fed, well-cared for elderly animals are the most likely to be reclaimed by owners. Animals with identification are likely to be returned home.
Are certain types of dogs more likely to go to rescue groups in your community (for instance, we know that certain breed-specific rescues in town are always willing to take dogs of certain breeds)? Are certain animals likely to be adopted quickly at the shelter? Are some likely to need foster care in order to come behavioral or health challenges? While you may change which "track" out of the shelter an animal is on over time, determining one early on can save a lot of headaches vs waiting for an animal to come off of stray hold and then wonder "now what do we do with it?". The speaker covers this idea early on -- about 3 minutes into the video.
#2) According to the statistics in the video, about 22% of dogs without microchips are reunited with owners. About 52% of dogs with chips are returned. For cats, a terrible 2% are reunited with owners without chips, but about 39% with chips are returned. Having a higher percentage of microchipped animals in a community is very important for owner reclaims and proper chip scanning is essential. This is all at about the 7 minute mark of the video.
#3) Vaccinations -- The speaker also gives some statistics on vaccinations. According to his numbers, more than 1/2 of the dogs that enter a shelter are not vaccinated against distemper, and about 30% aren't vaccinated against Parvo -- and there is really no way to tell if ones are vaccinated or not. So vaccinate them all -- not just for that animal's benefit, but to ensure the entire shelter population is kept safe.
Take a look and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Excellent video! Good information on microchip limitations and vaccinations. I have one concern on vaccinations and that is that it can take a varying number of days for the antibodies to become effective. Even then that would not imply 100% effectiveness. I have heard numbers from vets on something like 80% effective rate after 5-10 days. In a high volume shelter lets say 1000 animals to make the math easy that means 200 or so will not be protected even after 5-10 days. In open admission shelters that can become over crowded with multiple animals in kennels or dogs being walked for exercise and exposed to other dogs it seems like disease spread would be inevitible. Idealy each animal should have it own seperate run with no cross exposure to insure the health of all.
Posted by: Randy | December 19, 2012 at 01:12 PM
Randy, I agree to some extent on the vaccinations. Clearly some take some time to take effect, and not all are going to be effective 100% of the time. However, many will be effective VERY quickly because they were already vaccinated (and the follow up acts as a booster) and thus kicks in very quickly. The most important thing is that most animals will be vaccinated with an effective vaccine, dramatically decreasing the risk of disease spread.
Meanwhile, I think many shelters make a mistake in keeping animals so isolated from each other to avoid disease spread -- to which they isolate dogs, and increase kennel stress (many are destressed when they are together, or spend time with other dogs -- they're social creatures after all). The kennel stress then supresses the immune system, increasing the likelihood of getting sick.
There is no perfect solution with herd health, but early vaccination is essential to creating the best case scenario.
Posted by: Brent | December 19, 2012 at 01:23 PM
Agree Brent their are trade offs. I know of a modern designed shelter that allowed for isolation. Don't get me wrong they are not stuck in a hole with an iron door but contact with other animals is limited at least at the start. That shelter went 4 years with no animals lost to disease and did not vaccinate until adopted. Kind of like a zoo quarantine I guess. The trade off as you note is the risk of addtional kennel stress although combining animals that don't know each other in a run can be stressfull too. I guess at the end of the day since many shelters even if designed so that animal contact can be minimized are so full that it is not practicle to do so and vacccination can help fil that gap! Once again great video. I found the microchip part especially interesting since most just assume you can kind of wave the wand and get a no or a no go on the chip. I have shared that with several people I know.
Posted by: Randy | December 19, 2012 at 05:17 PM
I vaccinate on intake as long as dog is healthy enough; some need to be delayed and they are isolated with regular visits. My intake is very limited with the new MO law, so the lives here are way, way less than open admission shelters. I'm chipping on intake, not adoption; bathing asap, checking vitals (pulse, lung sounds, etc.) and watching poop. Super video - thanks for the sharing.
Posted by: Roberta | December 19, 2012 at 11:30 PM