Do Shelter Dogs Deserve Less From Their Behavioral Care?
It would seem that the answer to this question is a no brainer. Of course shelter dogs do not deserve less. But as the shelter and rescue world struggles under the weight of the last few years and cracks in the system that were never truly filled widen, a lot of old ideas that had largely fallen out of favor for good reason are looking to some like a means of relief and hard won progress on behavioral care is losing ground.
If we wish to change this and prevent a pendulum swing away from progressive sheltering, we need a foundational shift in mindset. Behavioral care must be considered a basic function of animal shelters.
Letting a dog’s physical well-being deteriorate is not considered acceptable at most shelters. Neither should letting a dog’s mental and emotional well-being deteriorate be considered acceptable.
Medical care is guided by industry standard qualified professionals and (should) adhere to ethical best practice standards. So too should behavioral care.
A dog should not leave the shelter behaviorally worse off than they arrived. If this is happening at a shelter, the why should be explored and improvements diligently sought.
The clear connection between behavioral care and live outcomes must be acknowledged and embraced. Failing to provide appropriate behavioral care hinders live outcomes. Dogs become more difficult to handle in shelter and more difficult to place in homes.
The clear connection between behavioral care and public safety must be acknowledged and embraced. Appropriately trained staff and volunteers are better positioned to identify dogs who may struggle in homes or present a potential handling risk. They can also provide more effective counseling to fosters and adopters and are likely to know the dogs better. Dogs receiving appropriate behavioral care are better positioned to succeed in a home setting, with lower stress levels and more skills to make the transition.
Every dog who comes through a shelter’s doors deserves to be treated with competence and compassion. This is true whether they are a fast and easy placement in a home, a long stay, a dog who requires extra intervention, a dog visiting the shelter for rabies quarantine or a cruelty hold, or a dog for whom behavioral euthanasia genuinely is the right choice. Every dog.
The practice of justifying less for shelter dogs in general or separating shelter dogs into categories and providing less for some is a path that hurts the dogs, hurts the animal shelter and dog behavior industries, and comes at a cost to the humans caring for those dogs as well as to the entire pet owning public. Selective compassion and competence normalize bad practices. They make the care we provide less effective, less safe, and less ethical and model that standard of care to the public.
Not only can we do better, we stand to gain so much from choosing better. Happier, behaviorally healthier dogs. Higher morale and deeper knowledge bases for shelter staff and volunteers. Improved shelter and community safety. More effective matchmaking and placement support. And modeling appropriate behavioral care for our communities.
While behavioral care is only one piece of the puzzle, it is a critical piece that is long overdue to be treated as such and we cannot afford to lose the small amount of ground we have gained over the last decade.
We ask you in this moment of struggle not to give up on a better way.
