The Bitey End of the Dog
A podcast dedicated to helping dogs with aggression issues. Michael Shikashio CDBC chats with experts from around the world on the topic of aggression in dogs!
The Bitey End of the Dog
Transforming Shelter Life: Insights from Veterinary Behaviorist Dr. Sheila Segurson
What unique challenges do shelter animals face in their journey to find a forever home? Tune in to this enlightening conversation with Dr. Sheila Segurson, America's first veterinary behaviorist to specialize in animal shelters, as she walks us through her groundbreaking work and daily responsibilities at Maddie's Fund. Dr. Segurson shares her experiences consulting with shelter organizations and fostering community collaboration, providing insight into the stressors faced by shelter animals, including lack of sleep and limited choices. Her admiration for the dedication of shelter workers shines through, shedding light on their often underappreciated efforts.
Dr. Sheila Segurson is the Director of Community Solutions for Maddie’s Fund and a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. Dr. Segurson was the first veterinarian to complete an animal behavior specialty training program with a focus on shelter animals and has over 20 years of experience in varying roles such as shelter volunteer, dog trainer, foster caregiver, veterinarian, clinical veterinary behaviorist, shelter veterinary behaviorist, consultant, and teacher. Dr. Segurson utilizes her background to help animal welfare organizations keep pets out of the shelter, improve companion animal welfare and make objective decisions for pets with behavioral concerns or challenges.
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In this episode I have the wonderful opportunity to chat with somebody who has worn a lot of different hats. We often talk about the cross-pollination of ideas between different communities in the animal care industries and for this episode we consider the unique views of trainers, consultants, veterinarians and shelter teams who work with dogs who have a history of aggression. Dr Sheila Segerson is the Director of Community Solutions for Maddie's Fund and a diplomat of the American College of Veterinary Behaviors and joins me for this unique and enlightening discussion. Dr Segerson was the first veterinarian to complete an animal behavior specialty training program with a focus on shelter animals and has over 20 years of experience in varying roles, such as a shelter volunteer, dog trainer, foster caregiver, veterinarian, clinical veterinary, behaviorist, shelter veterinary, behaviorist, consultant and teacher. Dr Segerson utilizes her background to help animal welfare organizations keep pets out of the shelter, improve companion animal welfare and make objective decisions for pets with behavioral concerns or challenges.
Speaker 1:And if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom, where there's a variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming Aggression and Dogs Conference happening from October 11th to 13th 2024 in Scottsdale, arizona, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues. I also have a wide variety of webinars, upcoming courses, videos and articles, all from the foremost experts in training and behavior. We are your one-stop shop for all things related to aggression in dogs.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, welcome back to season five of the Bitey End of the Dog. I have a very special guest this week, dr Sheila Segerson, who is a veterinary behaviorist, among many other things, and I've had the pleasure of working with Sheila on a couple of little projects here and there, and that's why I was excited to bring her on for this show, because we're going to dive into all things shelter, shelter, behavior considerations in that environment, but really more about what we need to be looking for in terms of the behavioral well-being of dogs in these environments. So we're going to take a deep dive into that. So welcome to the show, sheila.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, Mike. I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's get a little bit more about your background, because when we hear veterinary behavior, so at least us trainers, we're thinking okay, so somebody that's working deeply with behavior in a practice setting, seeing patients, or maybe in academia. But you're a little bit different in that regard. So why don't you fill us in a little bit on what you do, sort of like the daily routine of Sheila?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So my background as a veterinary behaviorist. I was the first veterinary behaviorist in the United States to do a postgraduate residency training program with a focus on behavior in animal shelters. So that was my focus from before I was a veterinary behaviorist. So my job these days I work for an organization called Maddie's Fund, a national animal welfare organization, and my job involves doing things like consulting with sheltering organizations. I consult about individual animals as well as about their overall behavior programs and including things like foster care and marketing, because it's all tied together. Actually I have my colleague does the marketing and foster care piece, because that's not my area of expertise. But lots of consulting, lots of bringing groups of animal shelter behavior people together to talk about what's going on and learn from each other. A little bit of research here and there, some education too is is what I do these days so you wear many, many hats, as many veterinary behaviors do.
Speaker 1:But in addition to that, you have a lot of organizational aspects that go into your daily routine as well, and bringing people together, it sounds like. So that's wonderful and I would love to dive into that aspect. You know, in terms of as the folks in the shelter world and that's how I lovingly refer to them, the folks in the shelter world, because of the daily tasks and challenges that they face and I want to give a shout out to all the shelter peeps in the world because of all of the amount of labor and love that they give to their jobs, for often low pay, understaffed positions, limited budgets, government involvement sometimes and all the other challenges, and including that doesn't even start talking about the animals that face challenges as well. So let's dive into that. You know considerations between shelter dogs or shelter animals versus a home environment or a dog that is you know, quote unquote owned or is in a home environment already. Can you talk more about that and the differences from a behavioral aspect and what you have to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love to talk about that. Thank you so much for giving a shout out to all the people who work in shelters. Almost makes me tear up hearing you talk about that, because, having worked in a shelter myself, I don't anymore, but I talk and work with them on a day-to-day basis and these are people who are working so, so hard to help the animals in their communities and it's not an easy job animals in their communities and it's not an easy job. But with regard to differences between shelters and living in a home, obviously there's a lot of them. Some of the biggest ones are all the things that make an animal in a shelter environment potentially more stressed, so things like separation from family, everything they know, weird noises, not being able to sleep the lack of ability to sleep is a huge one.
Speaker 2:We've learned over the past years thanks to some wonderful research and the really big one is the lack of choice. When I think about my dog at home and I actually made a video of this one year my dog Herbie he pretty much would just sit on the couch sleeping all day. He really didn't do anything. And so you think well, that's not that different than a dog that is in a shelter that's sitting in their kennel. They're both just sitting there. But the big difference between my dog at home, Herbie, and the shelter dog is choice. And so my dog, Herbie, has a choice whether he sits on that couch or whether he goes into another room. Kirby has a choice whether he sits on that couch or whether he goes into another room, and that just makes such a huge difference in terms of our mental well-being that it's a big one in the shelter world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and another consideration is just the differences in the types of shelters that are out there and what resources they have, Because a lot of it does boil down to the resources and having the opportunity to give those animals that choice you were just talking about. You know, I've had the fortunate opportunity to travel to probably hundreds of shelters around the world now and get tours, originally thanks to Trish McMillan, who helped introduce me to that shelter world very deeply. But over the years I've been able to take many, many tours of shelters, and they are all created differently. I will say there's obviously lots of similarities in some of the larger humane societies and shelters, but you get all kinds of variety in terms of staffing, in terms of resources, in terms of the environment.
Speaker 1:Some shelters are struggling with leaky floors that are 50 to 70 years old and haven't been remodeled at all, and you have some that are state-of-the-art hundreds of staff members, and some of the other places are struggling with maybe a limited budget and two staff members, so that can be a really challenging aspect of, I'm sure, what you see. So what are your thoughts on that? You know, just kind of like an overall. Then we can dive into the nuances, but like an overall what shelters experience from that challenging point of view.
Speaker 2:There's differences in terms of resources and you already highlighted that, and when I am consulting with shelters, the resources that they have are really, really important to me, because a shelter that has a behavior person on staff, the recommendations that I'm going to make for individual animals is going to be different than a shelter that doesn't have a behavior person on staff. So what they have really needs to be factored into when they're deciding whether they can help an animal versus not help an animal. They need to look at their resources to determine, and it's not easy for anyone. When you have a lot of resources, everybody has challenges. Even when you have a lot of resources, nobody has enough resources.
Speaker 2:And then there's also differences in shelters related to the type of shelter that they are. So some shelters are shelters that primarily transfer animals from other organizations into their shelter, and other shelters are shelters that are taking strays and owner surrenders from the public. So different types of shelters in terms of what they take in also makes a difference in terms of the type of animals that they have and care. Some people think that because if an organization is a shelter that picks and chooses who they allow to come into their organization, that they only take the easy dogs and the easy cats, and while that might be true of some organizations most of the organizations that I know that have more resources nowadays they are taking in more challenging animals because they know they have the resources to do so, and so their job. Everyone who works in a shelter has a really challenging job, but for different reasons, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think it's a reason for us to empathize with, because it's easy to point fingers right when we see a dog that might be euthanized for behavior in one particular organization but we see subjected to a long-term stay in another, we might see adopted out in another organization, and I think it really is. Depends much on what you're talking about there the resources available, the risk, tolerance and so many other factors of course. But again, I find a lot of criticism sometimes of organizations without full realization of the struggles that organization is facing. So I think it is important to empathize with all of those variables the staffing, the resources, the risk assessment, the tolerance, the government influence, the tolerance, the government influence. You know there's so many variables. So in that regard, let's kind of talk about that risk assessment for a moment. And let's say we have dogs with a bite history in a shelter environment. I know it's a broad question, but can you expand more upon your thoughts about how a shelter should assess risk, since we're often talking about aggression in this podcast, thoughts about how?
Speaker 2:a shelter should assess risk, since we're often talking about aggression in this podcast. Yeah, so assessing risk once again depends on the shelter and the resources that it has available. So that's the first thing is the shelter needs to know and understand who and what they have available, both within their organization and outside their organization, to support. So if they have a slightly more challenging case, let's say a dog with significant separation anxiety, who in the community do they have to consult with with support or do they not have anybody at all? So that's a big piece of things and part of what I do is helping organizations know where they can go to look like IAABC, for resources to learn who's out there in their community. So resources are the big underlying everything. But in terms of factors and actually before I go there, so some organizations are organizations that have hardly any resources, hardly any resources. So when it comes to decision-making and factors to consider, it's both very, very easy and very, very difficult for them because they just don't have the capacity to be able to support.
Speaker 2:So, as an example, years ago probably over 10 years ago now when I was at the Center for Shelter Dogs, we did research on resource guarding and we found that the vast majority of the dogs that we placed into homes with a history of food aggression did really well in I shouldn't say the vast majority. The majority did well in homes and did not have a problem that the owners noticed with food aggression in the homes. And that resulted in that and other work resulted in many organizations considering placing animals with a history of food aggression into homes and in many situations that saved lots of lives and that's been really really well. But in other situations it's resulted in animals with food aggression getting adopted out by organizations who don't have the ability to do the things that we did at the Animal Rescue League of Boston. We counseled the adopters, we formed a relationship with those adopters, we knew the dog really really well and we supported the adopter once the pet went into the home.
Speaker 2:So an organization that doesn't have the ability to do that kind of thing and unfortunately there are many I do want to help them to build their capacity. They can use volunteers. There's lots of things they can do to build over time, but until they're at that place it is probably not a good idea for them to be adopting out a dog with a high risk behavior that they are unable to support. So that's the one category of shelters. So does that make sense for that category of shelters?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I always like to mention them because we're all in different places and I don't want people thinking that all shelters need to be going through all these detailed risk assessments. In an ideal world, yes, but some shelters just don't have the capacity to be going through all these detailed risk assessments. In an ideal world, yes, but some shelters just don't have the capacity to be able to provide that support. But for shelters that do have a little bit more capacity and are able to provide more support and are able to safely place animals with histories of aggression into home environments, there's a number of factors that I go through with the shelters that I work with to decide whether an animal is safe to place, and that starts with talking about the dog's background and history.
Speaker 2:What do we know about this dog? Has he successfully lived in a home environment before, or has his dog been adopted and returned three times? And in all three of those homes the dog has been stressed and the people have been stressed. So, background and history, and also looking at whether the dog has any underlying factors. So does the dog have an underlying medical condition? Does the dog have multiple behavior conditions? So is this a dog who is demonstrating aggressive behavior towards dogs and cats and people, that is a dog that's going to be a lot more challenging to play. So looking at the big picture of the dog is definitely what I start with in terms of assessing a dog with this type of behavior, and then I go into individual things that I look at with regard to the dog's aggressive behavior, which I can talk to you about next.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah Well, I was going to get into the topic also of how assessments have changed over the years and moving away from some of the things we've done in the past in terms of getting information about that dog's behavior as well. So we could take that angle and I think it'd be useful for some of our listeners to hear about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, I haven't talked about behavior assessments in a little while, but it's a topic I love to talk about. Before I became a veterinary behaviorist, when I started my residency, one of the things that I was really interested in was developing a validated behavior test that we could use to determine whether a dog was safe to place in a home environment. And through my residency I learned that there were so many factors that came into play when we were doing a behavior assessment test, and stress of the shelter environment was such a huge factor. It made me really, really question whether we were ever going to be able to find or develop a validated behavior assessment test. And then I went to work for the Center for Shelter Dogs at the Animal Rescue League of Boston and there we did research on Dr Amy Marder's behavior assessment test matchup too, and the research that we did told us that the behavior we were seeing on that assessment test was not predictive of behavior in the home environment, which is what we really care about. The home environment, which is what we really care about. And there's been research done on modified assessor pets and safer tests and other behavior assessment tests, some that show a little bit of promising results and others that tell us that it's really really difficult to predict aggressive behavior because there's so many factors that come into play in terms of why that behavior is happening. And more recent research is telling us that behavior assessment tests might be able to predict friendly behavior and fearful behavior, but can't predict aggressive behavior. And because of that, many of us are doing behavior assessment tests because we want to find out who's going to be aggressive, but the tests aren't good at predicting that.
Speaker 2:So we've really moved away from doing formal standardized behavior assessment tests. Some organizations still do them, and if they do have the resources to do it, great that's. Another concern is just that if we have limited resources like we've already talked about, spending those resources doing a test that is not predictive of future behavior versus spending time with the dog and getting to know it in a positive way. I'd much rather spend the time getting to know it in a positive way. So it's not about we're not getting to know it in a positive way. So it's not about we're not getting to know the dogs at all. That's definitely not the case. It's that we're getting to know the dogs through as natural interactions as possible, understanding that we're in a very unnatural environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's moved on significantly to getting past history, talking to basically everybody who's ever interacted with the dog whenever possible, whether it's previous adopters or animal control or shelter staff or veterinary behaviors. Basically, that's going to form a much more robust picture about potential behavior than just a single test at a single moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great example. So collecting all the historical information that we have and, if we don't have historical information, doing everything we can to get that pet into a foster home so that we can learn about their behavior in a more natural environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can imagine just how demanding that must be to ask somebody that's already limited on time and staffing to also do these tests when they can get the same information through just their daily interactions, if not more, especially if it's multiple people interacting with that dog Obviously good note and data taking, so everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 1:So let's jump back to what you were talking about earlier, the aggression side of things and making decisions around that, because, again you had mentioned, it really is dependent a lot on the organization's resources and the information they actually do have about the dog at the time. So can you talk further about the aggression side of things? You had mentioned looking and we've talked at length about things like bite levels and the severity of the bite, but that's not the only factor we should be looking at Kind of going off into a lot of different directions here, but I would love to get again focus on the aggression side of things and how shelter organizations can look at this assessment of risk, you know, and considering all the other factors, you know, the public involvement and the risk, the liability aspects all these things come into play vomit and the risk, the liability aspects all these things come into play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, risk assessment is one of the topics that I'm most interested in these days. You and I work together in a dog bite assessment working group to try to think about, talk about, develop, learn about factors that come into play when we're assessing dogs with a history of aggressive behavior. So we had a number of people in this working group and we spent a lot of time surveying shelters, surveying behaviors, surveying veterinary behaviors to learn about how different people were assessing behavior, what was working and what wasn't working. A lot of us use the Dunbar Bite Scale to assess dog bites and that bite scale focuses primarily on the damage caused by the bites. And while the Dunbar scale is a wonderful way that, if I say it's a level three bite, if you know what the Dunbar scale is, you know what that means, and actually I feel like this conversation could go in so many ways. I just said that. But that's not true, because when I talk to different people about this is a level three bite and then I see a picture of it, we don't all agree about what a level three bite is necessarily, and that's a whole, nother topic.
Speaker 2:But in our dog bite assessment working group we developed a list of factors and from that list that we developed in that project I combined that with another project that I had been working on to develop a list of considerations that I make when we're making decisions the big factor, things that go into this decision making, the categories that I look at background and history, which I already talked about. The next category is the bite itself and we can go into more details about any of these categories, but I'll give the big categories first. The bite itself, the circumstances around that bite, the organization's capacity to support the dog and to help the dog, how that dog does over time, if time has passed, and then adoption considerations Can we find a home for this dog? Can we safely place the dog in a home? So those are the broad categories that I look at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it makes you think again. Going back to each shelter or organization is going to be slightly different and have different tolerances for that. So again I want to empathize with. What can happen sometimes is some finger wagging or finger pointing at you know, one shelter organization making a decision. You could take the same dog and put it in a totally different facility and it could be two different outcomes depending on what the resources available are, what the tolerance is, the location of the country or world for that matter, and the culture of, you know, the acceptance of dogs who might or might not bite in a certain location. So lots of considerations when you think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lots of considerations. And my personal experience in working with shelters is that some shelters moved from a place where they would never even consider placing a dog who even growled at someone to deciding that in some situations it's safe to place a dog who bites. And I want to be clear that I have seen many, many situations where we have placed dogs with bite histories in homes and they've done really, really well. I've also seen situations where we place dogs with bite histories and they don't. So anything can happen.
Speaker 2:But one of the challenges that I've seen with organizations is that they decided to place dogs in homes that had a bite history, but not really thinking through all the details behind the bite. How much damage was caused? Was it a sustained attack? Did the dog display warning signals? Was the dog trying to get away and a person approached them? So one of the things that I really try to work on with shelters is learning and thinking about those things, all these factors that come into play. Those things, all these factors that come into play. And for many organizations it's really changed how they operate because now when a bite happens, they're getting pictures of the bite. If they can get pictures of the bite, they're asking certain questions around what happened before, what happened during, what happened after, to help them make a more informed decision and hopefully, much better decisions for the animal and for our communities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's really no template, so to speak, like a checklist. Okay, this is, we're checking these boxes and we're going to declare this dog adoptable or not, because, again, all of the nuances depending on where that dog is located in the organization right on where that dog is located in the organization, right. So you have another thought I can see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yes, very much that when I work with organizations, I'm working with that individual organization. So I do have a spreadsheet that I go through. When we're making a decision about an individual dog, but that dog at one organization we're going to make a really different decision for than a dog at another. So it's not a checklist, it's a list of things that we look at that help to guide our decision making.
Speaker 1:So I would like to kind of switch gears a little bit and talk about how we can help these dogs as well and just in the shelter environment in general. And I know there's a lot of things we can dive into. But one of the first things you had mentioned earlier was about foster care or finding foster homes for many of these dogs and how beneficial that can be. So let's dive into that topic for a moment, because then we can talk about what we can do in shelter as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am a huge proponent of foster care. I first started fostering over 20 years ago now and fostered many, many dogs. That they're why I'm such a proponent of them. One dog in particular was a little. She was probably a Catahoula mix. She was white merle dog with a short coat. I met her when she was about three months old and the shelter had done a behavior assessment test. This was a long time ago back when we did behavior assessment tests and little Lucy bit the fake hand on the food aggression test and the shelter decided that Lucy was not safe to place and they didn't have options for her and needed to make the decision to euthanize her.
Speaker 2:Little Lucy was sweet, happy. Little Lucy was sweet, happy, energetic dog and I decided you know what I just and this was during my residency, or actually it was after my residency shortly after said I'm just not comfortable making this decision. I'm concerned it's because Lucy was stressed in the shelter environment. I'm going to try taking her to my home and see how she does environment. I'm going to try taking her to my home and see how she does. So I fostered Lucy and how I tend to foster dogs with food aggression is I don't get in their face. I let them eat, I let them do their thing, let them adjust to my home. I let them have the resources that they want to have for the first couple of days to allow them to adjust into my home environment. And I did that with Lucy and within three days with Lucy I could trade for treats easily. She had no evidence of food aggression or resource guarding towards anything at all Ended up placing little Lucy with my friend Cass, and Cass kept this dog until she passed away 15 years later and Lucy never had food aggression. So I saw the power of foster care in terms of helping us to differentiate whether behavior that we're seeing in the shelter is related to stress stress of the shelter environment, I should say versus a problem that we actually might need to be concerned about in a home environment. So both from evaluating behavior and also seeing that.
Speaker 2:Another thing that happened in my career was working in the shelter environment and starting to do behavior modification in the shelter environment to try to help some of these more challenging dogs.
Speaker 2:I was always fighting against the stress of the shelter environment in that I would start these behavior modification plans but the dog would oftentimes deteriorate over time, even though we were doing play groups, we were doing walks, we were doing quiet time, we were doing enrichment, we were doing everything with them, but they would still. Especially the dogs that really needed behavior modification tend to deteriorate over time because of the stress of the shelter. And yet when I took these dogs into my home for foster care or sent them out to foster care, these dogs would oftentimes do much, much better and we'd see a completely different dog out of the shelter. So I work very closely with someone, kelly Doerr, who's a foster care specialist and she and I work really hand in hand. I talk about the behavior side of things. She talks about the foster side of things, because I feel like foster programs are a critical piece of a successful behavior program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you mentioned something really important. There is the LOS, or the length of stay for a lot of dogs, and I would love to dive more into that as well. These, you know, the association of shelter veterinarians or the ASV guidelines, which kind of is a really well put together package on all the things we should be looking for, not from just a behavioral standpoint, from medical and all the other factors that can help dogs. But I'm going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back to talk about those ASV guidelines. Hey friends, it's me again and I hope you are enjoying this episode. Don't forget to join me for the fifth annual Aggression and Dogs Conference, either in person or online from Scottsdale, Arizona, from October 11th to the 13th 2024. This year's lineup includes many incredible speakers, including Dr Clive Wynn, Dr Jessica Heckman, Emma Parsons, Sarah Kallnice, Lori Lawless, Carmeletta Ofterheide, Jess Feliciano, Dr Amy Cook and many more. Head on over to AggressiveDogcom and click on the conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts and dog body language to working with aggression and shelter environments, to genetic influences on behavior. Dr Amy Cook will be bringing her entertaining and energetic personality to the grand reception and cocktail party, which, by the way, will be live streamed as well as in person, and, as usual, you'll find a wonderful, kind, caring and supportive community at the conference, both in person and online. I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets.
Speaker 1:Did you know that approximately 1 million shelter animals are euthanized in the US every year? At the same time, many of our country's veterans are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety and or depression. Pets for Vets founder and executive director, Clarissa Black, created a solution for these problems by rescuing and training animals for veterans. Pets for Vets has a unique program model that customizes each match between a veteran and a shelter animal to create what is known as a super bond. Each animal is selected and trained specifically for each veteran, based on the nuanced relationship between animal behavior and human personality, to ensure a successful, reciprocal and enriched relationship. Pets for Vets has a positive reinforcement mentality at its core for animals, veterans and trainers. In addition to helping veterans and rescue animals, Clurisr has created a generous opportunity for positive reinforcement trainers to join our organization. Trainers are able to participate anywhere in the US while receiving stipends, professional development opportunities and maintaining a flexible schedule. Pets for Vets is also seeking new partnerships with animal shelters and rescue groups from around the country. For more information, please visit petsforvetscom.
Speaker 1:All right, we're back here with Dr Sheila Segerson and we were just talking about the ASV guidelines in terms of it's really a great package, that kind of details, all the things to be considering in the shelter environment, as well as the length of stay we were just talking about. So why don't we touch base on that first and then we'll get back into the shelter environment? So length of stay, the amount of time regardless oftentimes the amount of enrichment and exercise and all of these things we can do. Sometimes we still see the behavior deteriorate and you had mentioned stress of the shelter environment. But what are some further thoughts? Is there more research about this now? Is there other things that you see are benefiting the dogs in this kind of long-term stay situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll talk about it from the framework of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters. Just a little background about the guidelines. They originally developed in 2010, when a group of experienced shelter veterinarians came together and developed guidelines for care and shelters just as it's described, based on research so all the research that we've accumulated over the years. We recently revised the guidelines. I was on the task force for the revision of the guidelines and so a little over a year ago December 2022, got to remember my years we released the second edition of the ASV guidelines and, like you said, there's many different sections to it. One thing that we talk about throughout the guidelines is capacity for care and really thinking about do we have the capacity to support this animal? Do we have the capacity to meet the animal's needs? And length of stay really, really ties into that. There's certainly research that tells us that the longer an animal is in a shelter, the more likely they are to get infectious diseases like upper respiratory infections and kennel cough and things like that. There's also some research that shows that behavior changes related to length of stay and, in my personal experience, certainly see behavior change over time with longer length of stay and I was working with a shelter with some quite long lengths of stay.
Speaker 2:It was an organization who had over 50 dogs that had been in the organization's care for over a year.
Speaker 2:Some of these dogs were certainly in foster care. When I took some of these dogs for short-term foster so to the hotel I was staying in overnight, some of these dogs had behaviors that were consistent with a trauma history or almost even PTSD-like symptoms in terms of hypervigilance, being super sensitive to noises, things like that, where they were on high alert and made me think, don't know if it was true, but they weren't used to being outside of their shelter environment and out in the world again and it was really really tough for them to adjust to it. And this was an organization that was doing a really really good job of meeting the dog's needs and they cared for them really really well, and an organization that isn't able to meet the needs. Then obviously we see other types of signs like spinning and circling and bouncing against the wall and things like that with longer length of stay, and once a dog gets to that place it can be a lot more challenging to help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it really sells the need for foster homes and a good foster network whenever possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the need for foster homes, for sure, and really looking at our capacity and paying and looking at the animals in our care and paying very close attention to them. When we're super, super busy, it's easy to deal with fires and this needs attention and that needs attention. But there's really a lot of effort that goes into planning and paying attention to dogs on a daily basis. And do we have a plan for this dog? What are we doing to help get this dog out? That's a super important piece of what shelters can do.
Speaker 1:What about medication for some of these dogs? Because people listen to the show a lot. We talk about medication a lot on this show, but in the shelter environment it's going to be different. And what are your thoughts on administering medication to dogs? Is it more common in that kind of situation? Less common? More beneficial?
Speaker 2:Great question, and how I talk about medication these days is very, very different than I talked about medication 20 years ago. 20 years ago, in the shelter environment, I was not using medication at all. But now that we are keeping dogs for longer periods of time, now that we know a lot more about trauma and the impact of trauma on a dog's behavior, we know that some of the dogs coming into the shelter have a trauma history. We also know that the shelter is, as much as we try to make it a good place for the animals, it is a traumatic environment. It oftentimes is a traumatic environment for the animals who come into our care. So, because of that behavior, medication is sometimes an essential piece to help a normal animal cope with an abnormal environment, and so we're not drugging them to sedate them in the shelter environment, but we're using medications to lower their fear, anxiety and stress, so that we can see the dogs who they really are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's an important distinction to note that there's a stigma around meds too. Yeah, and I think it's an important distinction to note that there's a stigma around meds too. You know almost to say like oh, this dog's on medication, so there's something and I'll put air quotes up again wrong with this dog, so it almost brands them with like a label of oh, there's a problem with this dog if they're on medication. But I think we need to really move away from that stigma because oftentimes it's just this dog needs the medication. It would be cruel and unusual not to give this particular dog meds to help them cope with that environment, would you say that's a correct statement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great statement to make, and I think maybe even thinking about COVID and our behavior and our experience during the COVID pandemic can help us to think about this a lot, because our lives changed so much during the pandemic. We were isolated from people Dogs in the shelter are isolated too, but in a much more significant way and many of our sleep patterns changed. We got depressed, we were a lot more stressed, and I don't know what happened in the psychiatry and psychology world for people, but I'm guessing that more medications were prescribed to help people cope with this unnatural living situation that we were all dealing with during that time. And so I think the shelter environment we can think of somewhat related to that concept. It's an unnatural environment.
Speaker 2:It's not natural for a dog to live in a kennel for long periods of time, and a young, active dog isn't going to do well in that environment. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with him. It just means that we have him in a place that's not good for him. And if we are doing everything we can, we're doing things like enrichment, we're doing things like trying to find a foster home. But while we're trying to find that foster home and get him adopted if needed. We're also doing things like using short-term medications and sometimes longer-term medications to help them cope with the anxiety of living in a shelter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and anecdotally I mean, I can speak to what I've seen with medication really benefiting dogs in the shelter environment. In one organization that I visited they take in mostly fearful dogs and they work with these dogs to help them become adoptable. And we're talking about some of these dogs are profoundly fearful but I would say a majority of the dogs are on medication or were put on some medication protocol to a high degree of success. So you know, from my observations I can see just how beneficial it can be, especially with dogs in that particular behavioral I won't call it a category but that sort of presentation of profound fear. So, yeah, we need to get rid of this stigma that can surround dogs sometimes, or giving dogs meds right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a challenge in terms of people being worried about putting the animal on medication, as well as a challenge related to concerns that adopters aren't going to want to adopt an animal because they're on medication, and we can talk about it in a way that people can understand that this was a stressful environment for this animal and once he adapts to the home environment, we'll be able to take them off of the medication. And if you take the time to get to know people and explain it to them, my experience is that people are really, really understanding and you do have the occasional person who they take the pet home and they just take it off the medication. I've had that happen more times than I can count, but, fingers crossed, they all tend to do well.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, don't do that. If you're listening in, listen to your veterinarian's advice about how to make that change.
Speaker 2:And sorry, before you go on, because you said, listen to that. And I just want to clarify that many of these behavioral medications are medications that we don't want to take a dog off cold turkey and if we do take them off all of a sudden, they can have side effects from it, so we almost always wean them off of the medication, and so that's why we talk to our veterinarian about the medication.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, very important point to make. Let's talk about other things now that we can do to help dogs in the shelter environment with all of these stressors that come naturally in a foreign place for many dogs. There's many beautiful things in that guideline the ASV guidelines about what we can do from a behavioral enrichment standpoint. So what do you want to dive into first? Maybe playgroups, because that seems like not something that's attainable for a lot of shelters I've been in, but it's so beneficial when I have seen that implemented. So your thoughts there, playgroups in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, playgroups can be super beneficial for dogs. When we are starting a playgroup program, it's really important to, number one, have structure and plans around it, because anytime we have dogs who don't know each other interacting with each other, there is a risk that something negative can happen and a fight could break out. So, having structures and plans, but really paying attention to the individual dogs.
Speaker 2:Playgroups changed my life when we first started using them at the Animal Rescue League of Boston, probably back around 2010 or so, because I got to go out with the dogs every morning and hang out with them and I got to know them so much better and it was so much fun and the dogs enjoyed it so much and there were different groups of dogs.
Speaker 2:And definitely something we recommend doing is if you have playgroup groups having types of dogs that are similar together and that there's many dogs who don't want to play with other dogs but they really enjoy play group because it gives them that choice, it gives them that freedom, so it gives them that time to walk around the play yard and just do their own thing, which is amazing, that type of dog sometimes if I force them into a play group with a bunch of really, really active, energetic dogs, that dog is going to be miserable. So play groups are great if we're doing them thoughtfully and carefully and paying attention to what the dogs want and what the dogs are telling us, so that we can give them access to choice.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you also see a lot of dogs start to open up socially with other dogs once those playgroups are involved. So maybe you have some real wallflower kind of dog and an argument from somebody observing that but like, oh, that dog doesn't want to actually be in the playgroup. But then after a few sessions suddenly you have this social butterfly with other dogs. And it's kind of interesting to me because sometimes we make as trainers we'll be like, oh no, that's a bad idea, Don't do that. You can see how the dog wants to avoid it. But sometimes we have to maybe know when to push a little bit to see, give that, make sure we're affording that dog that opportunity. So have you seen that similar phenomenon where it's just, you see, dogs just start to really become social butterflies.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. Social facilitation is a wonderful thing and definitely have seen many, many dogs who, when they first go into playgroup, the thought is, oh wow, this is not going to work, the dog isn't going to do well, and sometimes, even within that same play group, they completely turn around. Sometimes it does take a couple of times. Oftentimes it's seeing the other dogs playing and interacting and nothing bad happening. That helps them come out of their shell. I've also seen it help in terms of human interaction because they come out of their shell, they're playing, they're doing positive things. Positive welfare is something that we talk about in the ASV guidelines. They're doing positive things that help to add good things to their life and it can change their whole attitude about things. So, yeah for sure, if the first time doesn't go well, I'm going to be careful about who I'm placing that dog with. I don't want to put that dog with a dog who's going to be poke, poke, poking at them. But if we give them time, many dogs say, hey, this is actually a fun thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they also. Some of the other benefits I've witnessed and also heard many times is that the dog starts to dog might be somewhat fearful or reserved around people, but that handler keeps coming to their kennel door every single day to bring them to playgroup. Suddenly they're their new best friend, because that person predicts the fun event is about to happen.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting to see that yeah, both in private practice and in the shelter environment is with really, really fearful dogs who don't want to walk outside, just taking them to that positive place. So the dog can learn that if I can get you outside, good things happen. And once they learn that there's this whole world of fun things, then they're like oh okay, I can walk through the shelter, good things are gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. Now let's I can walk through the shelter. Good things are going to happen. Yeah, it's awesome. Now let's talk about enrichment items and spaces. Some of the really wonderful things I've seen is shelters, creating different substrates, different scents almost like a snifari in a way, but they've got dried shrimp, shells or people bring in different animal products from home and they put these scents around the yard. They have all kinds of different surfaces for the dogs to walk around on, so they get used to like, say, sand and water or wading pools or gravel and all kinds of different ideas to keep the dogs enriched and seeking out new experiences, both from an olfactory and a tactile, and a vision sense, like so many different ways. So what is something you've seen that's been really successful? Or maybe you have a story about enrichment?
Speaker 2:So enrichment is one of those things that I feel like early on in my career that was all I ever talked about and I feel like I don't talk about it that much nowadays, but it is such an important thing. I think two things. One you mentioned olfactory, and I think olfactory enrichment is so, so valuable. I used to do search and rescue with one of my dogs and I could give my dog the exact same amount of exercise, but one was sniffing to find that lost person. The other was just a regular walk and he was 10 times more tired from using his brain while he was smelling. And so olfactory enrichment, which sometimes seems like something that is not really helping and we don't necessarily have the research, but there's a lot out there that tells us that it can really help research, but there's a lot out there that tells us that it can really help.
Speaker 2:My favorite kind of enrichment is not always the easiest type of enrichment and it it unfortunately goes against the veterinary community a little bit, in that I love natural surfaces and exposing dogs to nature and taking them on walks in nature and taking them on hikes. So taking them on field trips away from the shelter is one of my favorite favorite things. One of the ways we can expose them to at least a little bit of nature in the shelter are things like digging pits, where we take a kiddie pool and put dirt in there and hide treats in there or hide a stuff conged in there, so that they have to dig through the dirt to get to what they need. There's research in people that tells us that nature is very, very healing for us. We don't have the same evidence in dogs yet, but it makes sense that it is, and I certainly see dogs enjoy it.
Speaker 1:And I guess.
Speaker 2:I just thought of a story related to that see dogs enjoy it. And I guess I just thought of a story related to that. So I, when I was working at the Animal Rescue League of Boston, we had a group of about three dogs who came from a situation where they were being kept in a basement for dog fighting. They'd never seen the light of day as far as we knew, and one of the dogs had died and the other dogs we got out of that environment and one of them, raven, I ended up fostering and taking to my house and I will never forget the bringing him to my house.
Speaker 2:I lived in this was in Massachusetts and I lived on a five acre property that had trees and a meadow and a stream running through it. It was beautiful and wonderful and taking Raven, who had lived in a basement his whole life, out to nature and seeing him sniff a branch for the first time I don't this is very much anthropomorphizing, but he had almost a look of wonder on his face about just experiencing nature and the world and just so important.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it really is, and I 100% agree with that, because when you see a dog go into an environment that it's like Disney World to them. You know that, just so many you know, we kind of forget the power of that, the power of their nose, and just you just have to wonder. All of the experiences they get when they've been in often what's really a barren environment when it comes to olfactory smells or maybe unpleasant smells even in some cases, to a world like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably in a lot of cases unpleasant because the chemicals that we use for cleaning and disinfection and that's why I say I'm anti shelter medicine, because shelter medicine we don't like nature, because you cannot disinfect nature. But in the shelter environment we do use disinfectants and there are chemicals that smell, that aren't pleasant, so they're definitely are negative. And then also just the smell of other dogs being fearful and anxious and of the not the cleanest. They don't get out as often as they want to, so having urine and feces in the kennel. So lots of unpleasant smells in the shelter environments, unfortunately in some situations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's some things we don't think about because we don't have the same level of sense. So we talked about lots of different ways of helping dogs from a behavioral well-being standpoint. So we talked about enrichment and social experiences with both humans and other dogs play groups, exercise, good nutrition, of course, is something we didn't talk about, but addressing underlying medical issues, all these things that we can really help with dogs. But you mentioned earlier sleep. That's another one I don't think gets talked about often and why that's so important sleep and rest throughout the day and also, of course, overnight. What are some things shelters can do to increase the likelihood for good rest in a dog? Good amount of sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so some of Dr Lisa Gunter's research suggests that sleep is one of the biggest things that dogs are missing in the shelter environment and one of the best ways that, besides getting them on field trips, getting them to spend a little bit of time in an office, getting them to foster care those are all great things, but you can't help as many dogs by doing that.
Speaker 2:You can help a smaller number of dogs with that unless you have an amazing foster program, and so one of the things that I've seen work really well is basically creating a nap time for the shelter dogs for two hours per day, where it's a time where everyone in the shelter knows that it's the dog's nap time and so it's a time of day where everybody works on their paperwork and things, so that we do everything we can to decrease the likelihood that people are going to be walking through the kennels and getting the dogs all excited, so the dogs can sleep and rest and take a nap, and I've seen many organizations do this really, really successfully, and we don't have research showing that it helps, but we all know how important sleep is.
Speaker 1:So now I have a question for you. If you had to choose one thing, you could wave your magic wand and every single shelter in the world is going to have this aspect of all the things we're just talking about put in place. What would it be? Would it be the play groups? Would it be the enrichment? Would it be make sure they get enough sleep? What would be your number one answer? Maybe it's a trick question.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, that's a really, really difficult one, but I would say that time with people would be the biggest one for me. There's a lot of research out there that tells us that spending time with people really, really helps. Dogs and play groups are great because we can get a number of dogs out at once and people time is oftentimes more one-on-one, so it is certainly more time intensive. But there are so many different ways people can interact. We can do quiet time where we're just hanging out with the dogs, which is super, super important. We can do activities, we can do training. We can do so many different things and our dogs are social animals and we want these dogs to live in a home with people. So spending time with people is so, so important, difficult to provide, and that's why our volunteers are so important and I love our volunteers so much.
Speaker 1:I do too, Because I know just I and I love the folks that have to work with the volunteers as well, because I know that can be a challenge for my travels. You know, maintaining and training volunteers, making sure everybody's safe, making sure the schedules work out it's a challenge in its own, but keep on doing what you're doing. Everybody out there that does have a volunteer program, because I just see so many benefits versus not having one in place, though I do empathize with the challenges of that as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's change topics a little bit here, because I do want to talk about this, even though it's a difficult topic, and we've had episodes in the past about behavioral euthanasia and those difficult decisions.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important to also understand the folks in the shelter world. We often view them as like, oh, they don't really have an attachment, or they're just euthanizing dogs or they're just going by numbers, but so many times they're seeing these dogs day in and day out, or they grow an attachment to a particular dog or one that may not be deemed adoptable or safe, but they grow attached to that dog and when that difficult decision is decided, I guess, by the organization, then how much of a detrimental effect that can have, how much difficulty and stress that can place on the team or the person that's bonded with that dog. So I kind of want to talk about that a little bit more, and also with people or, you know, pet guardians that also have to face that decision. So I guess my question is support for those that are going through that decision, whether it's the shelter staff or a person in the shelter environment having to these dogs.
Speaker 2:These dogs are their families. Many of us who work in the sheltering world have multiple dogs and would do anything to be able to adopt that next one dog that we love, but we can't, because the dogs we have in our home don't want any more dogs in our home environment, and so these are. These are dogs, are our family, family, and yet we live in a world where we don't have a safe place for some of these dogs to go. I work with the hope that someday things are going to be different, but right now there are dogs who we don't have a safe place for them to go, and when we do make this very, very difficult decision, it's really, really tough and shelters when they're coming close to making this decision, especially an organization that doesn't make the decision. Often. Oftentimes there's meetings and discussions and everybody is allowed to provide input and offer suggestions. Have you thought about doing X? Have you thought about calling the previous owner? Have you thought about calling the foster person? Have we done all this? Have we looked into whether there's another organization that can meet the animal's needs? So part of the support is allowing people to be a part of things and understanding why the decision is being made and that no one wants it to happen. But we don't have another, better option for the dog. So helping people to understand and then being there and supporting them when it happens.
Speaker 2:I just met with an organization earlier today that is coming close to euthanizing a dog who's been in their care for a year and a half and they love him dearly. And this is a dog who, in the shelter, is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful dog. He's a happy dog and people love him. But he's been adopted and returned four or five times because in a home environment he doesn't do well. He bites. In a home environment they're not significant bites, but he does bite and after being returned that many times it's just really really challenging. He's not safe to place. They've come to that decision and so what I did during that meeting, part of what I did during that meeting today, was talk to them about the fact that you have done everything you can and we understand that this is difficult and we're all here to talk about and support each other so that we're all on the same team instead of everybody fighting with each other about it.
Speaker 1:That's such an incredibly important point is the support that's needed and to work as a team on the decision making, because sometimes I'm sure feels that there is no support if somebody especially if an outsider or somebody looking at it from an outside lens is just pointing fingers, and that unfortunately happens just so often in our communities.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, with social media, you see people pointing fingers at a particular organization for oh, they're just euthanizing all their dogs or they euthanize for behavior when they're not aware of all those subtle decisions and the critical thought that needs to go into a decision like that. It's kind of you know you and I were chatting earlier about when a pet guardian brings their dog to their veterinarian for behavioral euthanasia but the veterinarian refuses to do so, and a lot of times in those conversations the fingers start pointing and you know people start throwing blame or this person's bad for not doing this, or this person's bad for considering it. But there's much more that goes into that and the empathy that's needed to understand why somebody might be making that decision or maybe the veterinarian refusing to do so. And I think you would be the perfect person to talk about that because you are a veterinarian. You also are a behaviorist with training background and you're also a pet guardian, so you see it through, I'm sure, all of those lenses Do you want to talk more about that?
Speaker 2:and then the different views, that those different roles might have and have heard stories of people going to their veterinarian for a dog with very significant behavior challenges. That has harmed the people, and the people have done everything they can going to finally make that horrible decision to euthanize the dog and the veterinarian saying no. And I've been doing a lot of thinking about that lately and remembering that I graduated from vet school a long time ago, back in 1996. And back then we had a really, really different world when it came to euthanasia and when I was in my ethics class in veterinary school we were taught that when a person comes to you asking you to euthanize their dog or their cat, you need to really dive into and find out why they are euthanizing that animal, to make sure that it's the right decision and not just automatically euthanizing any animal that comes in, which I think that is still valuable to this day.
Speaker 2:But I think sometimes veterinarians are so busy they want to do what's right for their community and when a person comes in to euthanize their dog and they don't have all that history of what that person has been through with the dog and so they start that same questioning process of oh he bit someone.
Speaker 2:A veterinary behaviorist can help that A behavior consultant can help, that you need to go, do X, y and Z and I think, as you said, having those discussions, taking time to get to know people and talk to people and understand where they are. I am someone that once my client or friend has made a euthanasia decision, my job is to support them in that decision because I know and I try to say this without crying I know how hard it is for them to have to had come to that decision, and I've heard that it does happen a lot more nowadays, and so our younger veterinarians have a different educational process than I did. But that empathy and that understanding and getting to know what the person has done, so that we are supporting people and recognizing that there are some animals that are really really challenging to live with, which is hard to accept, but it's true.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and remembering that every situation is so unique because the same dog might have a different outcome in two different homes. The same person might have a different outcome with two different dogs. I mean, it's just so many variables to consider and that's, I think, a good take-home lesson from this episode is just to remember to empathize with somebody's situation, Because you never know the full story unless you're deeply involved with the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's true, related to people, and that's true related to dogs as well, to dogs as well, and that so many animals that I've gotten to know over the years that on paper, if I'm just looking at their history, I think why is the shelter considering placing this dog in a home? He has severe separation anxiety and has destroyed three different homes. And then you go to that shelter environment and you meet that dog and, yes, the dog does have separation anxiety but he's also a wonderful, wonderful dog. So, taking the time to get to know people, taking the time to get to know the dogs in our care, so that we can understand them and get to know them and learn from them and try to make the best decisions we can for our pets and for our communities.
Speaker 1:Excellent, Excellent way to wrap up. Sheila, thank you so much for coming on the show and educating us about so many things to look for in the shelter environment. It was really great chatting with you, even through the difficult topics here, but I would love to find out and for the listeners as well what are you up to this year? Where can people find you?
Speaker 2:So I, as mentioned earlier, I work for Maddie's Fund. Our website is maddiesfundorg. We also have an online forum, which is maddiespetforumorg, and Maddie's Pet Forum is a place where animal sheltering people and rescue people and people who support animals out in the community can come together. It's a free online forum to talk about issues that we've talked about today and really anything related to helping communities and our animals. So that's maddyspetforumorg. And then we also have Maddie's University, where we have free online courses to help to train and help animal shelter staff and volunteers to learn about a really wide variety of topics, and we have recorded webcasts. We also have courses in there that take longer. We also have instructor-led courses where there's an instructor who's teaching you every week and everything is free. So I really encourage everybody to check out Mattis University as well.
Speaker 1:And I'll be sure to link to those in the show notes, as usual, sheila, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on and I hope to see you again in the future.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, Mike. It was great to be here.
Speaker 1:It's always wonderful chatting with the veterinary behaviorists who have been guests on the podcast, and I'm truly glad to have the opportunity to discuss sometimes difficult but necessary topics with Sheila.
Speaker 1:She really is a gift to our community and offers such a unique but crucial perspective, having experience in so many facets of animal care. I look forward to continued collaborations with Sheila and Maddie's Fund as well, and don't forget to head on over to aggressivedogcom for more information about helping dogs with aggression, from the Aggression in Dogs Master Course to webinars from world-renowned experts and even an annual conference. We have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression in dogs. We also have the Help for Dogs with Agg aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggressions, such as resource guarding, dog to dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear-based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe on the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you're listening in on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening in and, as always, stay well, my friends you.