Читать книгу Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters - Группа авторов - Страница 35

The goals of a shelter wellness program are to minimize infectious disease and problem behaviors while optimizing the physical and behavioral health of the animals. Shelter wellness programs should not be based on control of a single disease or problem but should offer broad‐based preventive strategies (a holistic approach). When shelters meet these goals, both public relations and adoption rates may be positively impacted. Further, shelter wellness programs must address both the health of individual animals and the health of the population. Shelter medicine has been compared to herd health (Hurley 2004). Indeed, much like a herd‐health approach, population medicine in the shelter utilizes a systematic approach for optimizing animal health in the group. Unlike a herd‐health program for large animals, where production (i.e. meat, milk, eggs, etc.) is the ultimate goal, ensuring the welfare of cats and dogs is the ultimate goal in the animal shelter. In order to implement a comprehensive wellness program for the shelter, establishing goals for and methods of monitoring the population is critical to ensuring animal health and welfare. Medical decisions must be weighed in the context of the population as well as the individual, while also considering animal welfare and the availability of resources. Finally, assessment and follow‐up must be performed on a population as well as an individual level.

Wellness programs will vary depending on the shelter's mission, philosophy, and resources, and may even vary within shelters depending on such factors as intake rate and time of year. However, under no circumstances should a shelter engage in any practice or omission that would result in animals being allowed to suffer unnecessarily or unjustifiably. Inadequate or delayed veterinary care constitutes neglect, which is illegal according to some state laws. When situations arise in which animal welfare cannot be managed, whether due to physical or behavioral disease or environmental conditions such as overcrowding, euthanasia must be considered if no other remedies exist or it is beyond the shelter's ability to relieve animal suffering. Euthanasia, however, should not be used as a substitute for providing animals with proper care. Shelters should implement earnest programs to decrease the euthanasia of adoptable animals and community cats and seek alternatives to admitting an animal if it is beyond the shelter's capacity to provide appropriate care. For example, intake diversion programs may help provide alternative means of providing care for animals that do not need to enter the shelter system, such as food banks, low‐cost veterinary clinics, or neuter‐return programs for community cats. Comprehensive shelter wellness programs that include the delivery of efficient care, thoughtful and timely planning, evaluation, and follow‐up are the foundations of shelter animal healthcare. These programs support the essential goals of animal sheltering: maximizing live release and animal welfare while minimizing euthanasia and suffering. Research is helping to better define protocols for limiting and treating physical and behavioral diseases common to shelter animal populations and to better assess their welfare or quality of life.