Shelter Dog Heroes – LIFE AS A HUMAN

I can’t imagine what it is like to be “homeless.” I’ve worked hard to make a life for myself and I have been fortunate that circumstance has not dealt me more than I could handle. But even in that unlikely event, I would know that there are places to reach out for help. Dogs are not so lucky. While most dogs in our western culture live blissfully comfortable lives, the shock of ending up in an animal shelter must be terrifying for them. In the midst of trying to figure out how to co-exist with humans, dogs sometimes find themselves deposited in these canine halfway-houses.

But half way to where? New homes or the end of their existence? It’s a lot to cope with for a dog. Fortunately for them, there is help. Tens of thousands of people work at animal shelters and dog rescue organizations every day to ease the transition of these dogs from an unworkable situation into a more permanent placement. These people are heroes in the truest sense of the word. Theirs is an important and incredibly difficult job. They meet dogs at their most vulnerable and must find a way to help them find a successful placement in a home that wants to love and care for them.

Triage and chaos

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the local animal shelter. To say that the experience was overwhelming would be a massive understatement. Just the sheer number of dogs that needed attention on a daily basis was daunting. But once I was able to understand the individual needs of these dogs, the task seemed almost unmanageable to me. Some dogs had minor health issues that needed to be dealt with. Others needed basic manners training. And still others had developed severe behavioural problems that needed addressing. I wondered how you assembled a staff to cope with such a wide variety of problems. It takes a very special kind of person to do this work week after week.

While the staff at this shelter were dedicated, none of them were experts in any one aspect of animal care. Their collective expertise lay in their ability to take in, assess, care for, rehabilitate, and place dogs in new homes to the best of their ability. The process of accepting a dog, evaluating its behaviour, assessing it’s medical needs, and reviewing potential homes for placement requires the involvement of several shelter staff. Each person contributes to what they hope will be the success of each dog.

But the difficulty in dealing with these dogs is time. There is never enough time. For all the dogs being cared for, there seems to be an endless stream of dogs coming in who also need time and attention. Managing for their basic necessities is a huge task in itself. Efforts to work on their training and behaviour issues can be frustrated by a lack of time. Sometimes it seems as if containing the chaos is the best that can be done on a given day.

Working smarter instead of harder

Fortunately, the past decade has seen some very innovative approaches to shelter and kennel management. New tools have been developed for assessing, managing, and teaching behaviours to shelter dogs not just to make the shelter environment more manageable but to increase the chances of a dog being successful after being placed in a new home. A less stressful shelter environment means that both staff and potential adopters get a clearer picture of the individual dogs seeking homes. Basic training and behavioural work provided by shelter staff means that the return rates from unsuccessful adoptions goes way down. So, what is changing and why?

Common problems at shelters include constant barking, reactive dogs, and the potential for injury from bites or scratching from stressed dogs. For decades shelters have done their best to employ the right techniques and equipment to stop unwanted behaviour for the safety of both dogs and staff. But lessons from the positive training movement have shown that it is not enough to try to stop unwanted behaviour. It can be far more effective to teach new, more desirable behaviours, to replace the bad behaviours.

Today many shelters are getting beyond the “manage and contain” strategies of more traditional training philosophies and have begun to implement more progressive programs using behaviour modification techniques like clicker training. This pro-active approach is giving shelter staff the tools they need to do more with the dogs while spending less time “correcting” or managing unwanted behaviours.

Getting a handle on the dogs

A critical part of the shelter’s job is assessing an individual for its suitability to be re-homed. Some dogs are surrendered from good homes due to unforeseen circumstance and these dogs may require only a gentle hand and some reassurance before being adopted out. Other dogs may have come from much more difficult circumstances and may have issues from fear to aggression that need to be diagnosed and, if possible, treated before being adopted. Still others will have medical issues that may require attention before any temperament or behavioural assessment can be done.

Fortunately, some of the best trainers in the positive training world are active in the shelter community and provide services and programs designed to help shelters move away from traditional, stressful techniques. Author and behavioural training advocate Jean Donaldson (The Culture Clash) developed and ran the Academy For Dog Trainers as part of the San Francisco SPCA for over 10 years. The program helped both SPCA staff and thousands of trainers from around the world to be better advocates and educators for dogs. Author and trainer Karen Pryor (Don’t Shoot The Dog, Reaching The Animal Mind) has advocated for positive training in shelter environments for over a decade and now offers an online course called Shelter Training & Enrichment to educate shelter staff on ways to more effectively treat and manage dogs in their care.

Dog training pioneer Dr. Ian Dunbar has established “Shelter Dog Prevention Month” in January of each year to deal with puppies being surrendered after the Christmas holiday. Dunbar’s program turns castoff dogs into great companions and helps to place them in permanent homes. And there are only a few of the many great programs being started in shelters around the world. And “Relationship Centered Training” advocate Suzanne Clothier’s Animal Response Assessment Tool (CARAT) is gaining popularity as a leading edge tool for assessing dogs as they are brought into shelters.

For the staff as much as the dogs

These new programs offer hope for shelter staff that are too often over worked and overwhelmed by needs that surround them daily. I cannot say how much I appreciate the efforts of these people, some paid and some volunteers, in trying to create something good out of a very unfortunate situation. They are truly heroes. But even heroes need help sometimes. The efforts of the leading thinkers in animal health, behaviour, and training are all working to bring better techniques to shelters that can relieve stress on the dogs and provide them a more enriching and educational environment to make them better prospects for adoption.

But these programs offer hope for the staff as well as the dogs. The shelter and rescue system has mostly taken a back seat to larger segments of the dog world like pet dog ownership and training. But now it seems that professionals are paying attention and are offering help to rescue services that deserve our support. Education programs for staff, books and articles online to teach new techniques, and progressive management at shelters are creating environments where shelter workers can stop seeing themselves as “wardens” for these dogs and be the teachers and trainers we need them to be.

The issues that created a need for shelters are complex. Over-breeding, under-educated pet owners, general attitudes about what dogs are and are not in our modern society, and many other factors all converge to create a reality that requires that shelters and rescue organizations are necessary. If you are reading this column, it’s very likely you love dogs. It’s also likely you support your local animal shelter or even volunteer there. We are all, in our own ways, working to improve the lives of countless dogs but, despite our best efforts, some of them slip through the cracks.

Thankfully, there are Shelter Dog Heroes out there who make it their priority every day to do everything they can for those dogs in transition. I hope that the world of positive dog training can contribute not just in educating pet owners but in easing the burden of shelter workers by helping them do more with the dogs they care for with less effort and stress.

Perhaps take a moment and stop into to your local animal shelter. Say “Thank You” to the people who work there and care for all the dogs that we can’t. Drop off some food or treats or toys. They can use all the help they can get. Or maybe even just drop an email or a post to a Facebook page to say, “I’m glad you are out there.” Like most heroes in our modern world, their efforts mostly go unnoticed. But they are heroes just the same.

Thank you for taking care of the dogs.

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