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ASPCA awards grant to shelter veterinary program
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Animal Shelter Specialists.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) awarded a $100,000 three-year renewable grant to the Center for Companion Animal Health at the University of California at Davis.
The grant will fund the Koret Shelter Medicine Program which trains veterinarians to be, Animal Shelter Specialists.
The program was established to advance shelter medicine and improve the quality of life for animals living there. Dr. Kate Hurley is the new director of the U.C. Davis program. She became interested in shelter medicine in 1999, after her first day on the job as a veterinarian for the Dane County Humane Society in Madison, WI.
When Dr. Hurley walked into the shelter she found they were in the middle of a ringworm outbreak. “Though ringworm is easy to treat in private practice,” Dr. Hurley said in an interview with JAVMA news, she soon learned it is difficult to control – and often fatal – in a shelter setting. Her training as a private practitioner hadn’t prepared her for the situations a shelter veterinarian faces.
Private veterinarians generally focus on the health of individual animals. They aren’t trained to take into consideration the consequences of an illness when large groups of animals share a common living space.
Animal Shelter Specialists on the other hand are taught how to quickly alleviate the outbreak of infectious diseases. They are also prepared to tackle other areas specific to the needs of shelters: high-volumne spay and neuter surgeries, evaluating patients for signs of abuse or behavior problems and managing a shelter enviornment.
The first class about shelter medicine was offered at Cornell University, only a few years ago and was funded by Maddie’s Fund. Soon other universities followed with full-blown programs. They are located at: UC Davis, University of Florida and Louisiana State University. And Maddie’s Fund added two more programs at Iowa State University and Auburn.
The ultimate goal of Animal Shelter Specialty programs is to decrease the number of pets entering shelters and keep the ones that have to come there, as healthy as possible so they can find new homes.
Ed Sayres, ASPCA President and CEO says, "We're working to develop more training for veterinarians, perform more shelter evaluations, and increase the amount of information available to shelters regarding the physical and behavioral health of shelter animals."
The ASPCA National Shelter Program estimates there are 4,000 to 6,000 animal shelters across the country and less than a quarter of them have veterinary services. With help from their grant the organization hopes to get more qualified and enthusiastic specialists into shelters so they can provide quality care to the vulnerable animals.
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