Читать книгу Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters - Группа авторов - Страница 34

Infectious diseases, stress, and problem behaviors are common in cats and dogs housed in animal shelters. Pets entering shelters are highly stressed and at significant risk of acquiring infections and developing disease. The stress of even short‐term confinement in a shelter can compromise both physical and behavioral health, negatively affect animal welfare and make cats and dogs less desirable to potential adopters. Though considerable progress has been made in recent years to increase the live release rate of animals in shelters, individual animals with compromised physical or behavioral health are still less likely to be adopted and more likely to be euthanized. Furthermore, when animals experience stress chronically, the attendant physiological and behavioral manifestations may persist even after adoption, compromising behavioral health and welfare in the long term.

The maintenance of good health or wellness of animals in shelters presents challenges for several reasons. Risk factors for the development of infectious disease include the frequent introduction of new animals often with unknown histories to the facility, high‐density housing, housing animals of different ages and susceptibility levels in close proximity, induction of stress, and lack of adequate vaccination or insufficient time to respond to vaccination. All these risk factors, and others, exist in the shelter setting; therefore, a certain risk of infectious disease is inherent. In addition, certain diseases become endemic in facilities where populations of animals are housed, especially if wellness and disease control protocols are inadequate, or if staff lack training or if facility design and sanitation are poor.

Confinement of companion animals in a shelter can result in the display of a wide variety of behavioral indicators of stress, fear, anxiety, and/or frustration, including activity depression, hyperactivity, stereotypic behavior (such as pacing or circling), and barrier aggression, among others. Programs that reduce stress and related negative emotional states also serve to minimize the morbidity of endemic infectious diseases because stress has a profound influence on disease transmission as well as behavior. Shelter environments must be enriched to minimize stress, fear, anxiety, and frustration.

It is neither acceptable nor humane to house animals under conditions likely to induce illness and poor welfare. In addition, if animal shelters are to compete with other sources of animals for adoption, they must be able to present healthy animals in a healthy environment. Though very few regulations and mechanisms for oversight of animal shelters exist, shelters have an ethical obligation (and are increasingly expected by the public) to provide humane care for the well‐being of every animal being handled. In order to meet this obligation, there is a critical need for a wellness program in every shelter.