Publicação
Identifying good practices, practices to improve, and practices considered risk alerts, concerning medical and behaviour aspects of animal welfare in a sample of shelters in Portugal and the UK
| Resumo: | A survey was carried out on five Portuguese shelters and four United Kingdom (UK) shelters, from January to April 2016, to assess behavioural and medical problems. A free web-based tool, the UC-Davis Virtual ConsultantTM, was used and adapted to build a comprehensive seventy-eight questions questionnaire to identify good practices (GP), practices to improve (TI), and practices considered as risk alerts (RA) for medical and behavioural problems of dogs and cats. Amongst the 502 different answers collected, the proportion of GP was the most rated (77.5%), both in medical (80.2%) and behavioural health (75.1%), either in the UK (85.5%) or in Portugal (71.7%) which are encouraging results. Behavioural health was the category that most influenced negatively the outcome, pinpointing the need for quick intervention and improvement, namely on Portuguese shelters. UK ones showed a better percentage of GP in medical (83.8%) and behavioural health (87.1%) than the Portuguese shelters that scored respectively 77.4% and 66.7%. Major health areas of concern were: health check-up on intake; routine re-examinations after sheltering; hygiene methods between clinical exams. Vaccination risk alerts were only found in cat shelters. Yet a worrisome heterogeneity was detected at the timing and period of vaccination. Key controversial matters of medical health were pediatric spay and neuter, and shelter strategies to deal with feral or aggressive animals for behavioural health. Most rated behavioural practices to improve were: ability to recognize body language and other behaviours indicating animal stress, pain and suffering; environmental enrichment; promoting dog and cats social contact with conspecifics and people; use of play groups. A final report was displayed to inform shelter managers about the evaluation of their everyday practices, to provide them with practical and targeted solutions to improve health and animal care of their populations, and to help them making positive changes. |
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| Autores principais: | Morais, Catarina de Sousa Mendonça |
| Assunto: | Shelter survey UK Portugal animal welfare Abrigos Inglaterra Portugal bem-estar animal |
| Ano: | 2017 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | A survey was carried out on five Portuguese shelters and four United Kingdom (UK) shelters, from January to April 2016, to assess behavioural and medical problems. A free web-based tool, the UC-Davis Virtual ConsultantTM, was used and adapted to build a comprehensive seventy-eight questions questionnaire to identify good practices (GP), practices to improve (TI), and practices considered as risk alerts (RA) for medical and behavioural problems of dogs and cats. Amongst the 502 different answers collected, the proportion of GP was the most rated (77.5%), both in medical (80.2%) and behavioural health (75.1%), either in the UK (85.5%) or in Portugal (71.7%) which are encouraging results. Behavioural health was the category that most influenced negatively the outcome, pinpointing the need for quick intervention and improvement, namely on Portuguese shelters. UK ones showed a better percentage of GP in medical (83.8%) and behavioural health (87.1%) than the Portuguese shelters that scored respectively 77.4% and 66.7%. Major health areas of concern were: health check-up on intake; routine re-examinations after sheltering; hygiene methods between clinical exams. Vaccination risk alerts were only found in cat shelters. Yet a worrisome heterogeneity was detected at the timing and period of vaccination. Key controversial matters of medical health were pediatric spay and neuter, and shelter strategies to deal with feral or aggressive animals for behavioural health. Most rated behavioural practices to improve were: ability to recognize body language and other behaviours indicating animal stress, pain and suffering; environmental enrichment; promoting dog and cats social contact with conspecifics and people; use of play groups. A final report was displayed to inform shelter managers about the evaluation of their everyday practices, to provide them with practical and targeted solutions to improve health and animal care of their populations, and to help them making positive changes. |
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