whenever possible; healthy feral and free‐roaming cats can benefit from appropriately managed neuter and return programs in which healthy cats are vaccinated, surgically sterilized, and returned to their original site of capture (e.g. their home base).
The importance of proper staff training to recognize and prevent stress is critical for animal welfare and cannot be overemphasized. Long‐term behavioral coping is extremely difficult for most animals, thus behavioral deterioration can be expected as LOS increases. This further underscores the importance of employing management strategies that minimize each animal's time in the shelter while maximizing the best outcomes.
2.8 Enrichment
Enrichment refers to a process for improving the environment and behavioral care of confined animals within the context of their behavioral needs. The purpose of enrichment is to reduce stress and improve wellbeing by providing physical and mental stimulation, encouraging species‐typical behaviors, and allowing animals more control over their environment. Successful enrichment programs prevent the development and display of abnormal behavior and provide for the psychological wellbeing of the animals.
The ASV Guidelines state that “enrichment should be given the same significance as other components of animal care and should not be considered optional.” It is not a task that can be neglected on busy days; instead, it bears repeating that it is a fundamentally important, core component of daily routine animal care that should be a part of every shelter's wellness protocol. Enrichment can be therapeutic and should be tailored to meet the needs of individual animals and improve behavioral health and emotional wellbeing. Enrichment opportunities for animals being treated for infectious disease are just as important as for healthy animals but must be tailored to meet their individual conditions and utilize appropriate biosecurity measures to minimize the risk of disease transmission. Ultimately, enrichment reduces stress and promotes positive emotional states.
Perhaps the most effective enrichment in a shelter is a trained animal care staff that enjoy working with animals and that are willing and able to spend ample quality time interacting with them daily to ensure social contact and tractability. Cats and dogs become accustomed to daily routines and generally respond strongly to their human caregivers. Whenever possible, caregivers should be assigned to care for the same animals on a regular basis and preferably at the same time each day so that they become aware of the habits and personality of each animal. This familiarity is necessary for better detection of physical or behavioral problems and enables staff to make better adoption matches. Caregivers should schedule time each day to interact with “their” animals in addition to the activities of feeding and cleaning. Some cats and dogs may prefer to be petted and handled while others will prefer to interact via a toy (e.g. cats chasing dangling feathers or dogs fetching a ball). Regular aerobic exercise is essential for dogs; the intensity and duration are defined by the individual's needs. Many dogs benefit greatly from participation in play‐groups. Health, age, gender and reproductive status, personality and play‐style should be used to guide the selection of groups. Play should be monitored to ensure that participants are comfortable with the types of play that are taking place and that they take natural breaks in their play.
Other forms of stimulation that engage the mind, body, and senses are important to enrich the environment and promote healthy mental and physical activities – dogs and cats need a variety of pleasant things to look at and listen to, good things to smell, and satisfying things to scratch or chew and taste as well as activities that provide exercise and social contact. They should be provided with sanitizable or disposable toys to stimulate normal behaviors and activities. Providing treats and novel sources of food is an important source of stimulation for both cats and dogs, and importantly provides dogs with opportunities for healthy chewing. It is easily accomplished by hiding food in commercially available food puzzle toys or cardboard tubes or boxes, empty plastic bottles, sections of PVC pipe, or similar items. The provision of scratching boards is especially important for cats. Empty cardboard boxes and paper bags are inexpensive and disposable, and they stimulate exploration and play behavior in addition to scratching.
Positive training (including clicker training) with food or play rewards can provide additional stimulation, activity and social contact for both dogs and cats. In addition to providing mental stimulation, teaching animals to engage with people and display good manners makes them more appealing to adopters and sets another example of good pet care. Commercially available synthetic cat pheromones (cheek gland‐ F3, and appeasing‐ F4) or a dog‐appeasing pheromone may be beneficial to cats and dogs, respectively, as these products have been shown to help reduce anxiety in some animals. For singly housed animals and long‐term residents, appropriate levels of additional enrichment should be provided daily. Cats and dogs need variety, control and choice, and individuals possess different preferences for environmental conditions, levels of activity, and social interactions with other animals and humans. The best enrichment program will provide for all these choices.
2.9 Environmental Wellness
The shelter environment has a profound influence on animal health and well‐being; thus, systematic wellness protocols to address both the emotional and physical environment must be established. Environmental wellness protocols should include comprehensive practices to mitigate animal stress and fear; consistent daily routines; positive predictable interactions and events; provisions to ensure the maintenance of proper population density; animal segregation and traffic patterns; regular cleaning and sanitation; other facility operations; and staff training (See Table 2.3).
2.9.1 Emotional Environment
A healthy emotional environment provides regular and predictable caregiving by compassionate, well‐trained staff members and actively reduces potential stressors and fear‐inducing stimuli such as loud noises, other intense or overwhelming stimuli, haphazard schedules, and frequent interruptions. Positive predictable handling is crucial. Staff members should be well trained to recognize signs of stress and fear in patients and to mitigate them through environmental management and positive, calming interactions. Minimal, gentle restraint should be used to handle tractable patients since research indicates that gentle human contact can attenuate the adverse effects of unpleasant stimuli, eliminate fear responses, and alleviate signs of pain in animals (McMillan 2002). Animals quickly become accustomed to schedules of care (e.g. feeding, cleaning, enrichment activities), and rapidly learn to adapt to new and novel stimuli if fear responses are not overwhelming or sensitizing. For these reasons, from the moment an animal enters the shelter, steps should be taken to reduce stress and fear.
Housing design and soundproofing can help to control noises. Loud noise must be avoided (e.g. slamming the cage door while the animal is in the cage, loud equipment or loud music, etc.). In addition, white‐noise recordings (such as the sounds of a fan blowing or rain falling) can be used to drown out other noises; the goal is to hide other sounds that might be distressing or disturbing. For example, many shelters might benefit from using white noise in cat areas to drown out the sounds of barking dogs. Also, for barking dogs, an evaluation of the motivation of the barker may help to solve the problem and alleviate the individual's distress as well as the impact on the environment. A solution for the problem may be as simple as moving a dog away from a door where there is constant provocative activity.
For cats, special care should be taken not to place them within spatial, visual or auditory range of other species, especially dogs. Creature comforts should be provided for all animals, including comfortable bedding and a hiding place or secure refuge. Soft bedding also allows animals to establish a familiar scent that aids in acclimation to a new environment. Importantly, cats instinctively feel more secure when they can perch at a high point; studies indicate that feline stress responses are significantly reduced when cats are housed in elevated cages compared to floor‐level cages (McCobb et al. 2005). For these reasons, carriers containing cats should never be placed on the floor and
