Well, at least this conversation was ever so slightly more civil. The first several minutes of it was with a different fellow, and that did the trick. He was much less intoxicated and much more reasonable, right up until his friend the "animal shelter
Today we learned that their shelter has the aid of two fewer animal control officers than mentioned five minutes past, and that they do zero vaccinations or vetting. This, after telling me they spare no expense and take each animal case-by-case, with zero budget worries. I asked him what they do for quarantine. He said nothing.
"His" shelter as he tells it keeps the dogs (dogs only?) in pens with state-required solid metal flooring and sidewalls. He believes this is enough to prevent dog-to-dog infections. I quickly pointed out that was NOT the case, and asked if they ever followed up to note just how many of their dogs get sick post-adoption. Okay, I didn't say that. I wanted to, though.
I did, however, point out that some infections are spread via aerosol and all they needed was for one dog to sneeze or cough. In rebuttal, he explained that his shelter controlled infections by spraying down kennels with hot water every day.
Ooooh good, we can merge ALL contaminants in warm water in puddles of commonly walked areas! Excellent way to control infections between your zillion dogs.
Look, washing things is perfect and exactly what you should do, but it does NOT take the place of quarantine or vetting. Dogs can come in looking fine and then show symptoms of rabies, distemper, parvo, kennel cough. Congratulations, you're adopting out dogs that may die and/or infect other dogs. Some diseases ARE killed by heat, but some need something stronger like bleach, UV sterilization, etc. There are plenty of excellent cleaning solutions available and almost all are concentrated, making it not that terribly expensive to invest in. How about spraying the kennels down with roccal or nolvasan?
To pretend that standards of hygiene, cross-contamination prevention, and disinfection are impractical is to admit that you have bitten off more than you can chew. Of course there will be odd and unpleasant surprises, but I said it last time - the capacity of animals you can handle is the exact number of creatures you can correctly, humanely, efficiently, and completely care for. You should absolutely be doing your part to control communicable diseases and to make sure all adoptable animals are in good health. Heck, many places here ONLY adopt out animals they've vaccinated and fixed. I don't care what your limiting factor is - staff, finances, or time. What you can handle is what you can handle, and telling me you don't do anything but the minimum state-mandated housing requirements to control the health of your animals does not impress or school me.
Hey guys? Now is a good time to point this out. I am a beginner. I've been working in and with animal shelters since I started high school, but I am still new to this. I've never run a shelter, and I'm still in my first year of vet tech classes - still a n00b. Sometimes I get really passionate about things and spout off like I know it all, but you are ABSOLUTELY allowed and encouraged to correct me at ANY point in time should I say something just totally and completely wrong, or even if you have something to add. I'm at a point in my life where I'm soaking up knowledge like a sponge and every source is welcome! Please do correct me.
I'm sure I'm going to re-read these in three or four years and shake my head at what a silly, loud-mouthed girl I was, but in the meantime, to speak and to be corrected is to learn. That, and you know, the zillion other ways I'm learning right now!
On the upside to the whole conversation with those fellas, I did get to point them toward a really great record software for shelters. I use it to keep track of my own fosters as well as enter in lost-and-found animals from Craigslist. It's free and if you'd like to check it out you can find it here. It has a million smoothly-integrated features, including crossreferencing lost, found, and in-house animals, maintaining vet records, donations, expenses, vaccinations, fosters, contacts, basically everything. I'm really glad they're looking into it, especially since I'm trying to pitch it to our local shelter soon. Our humane society recently changed management, but before, lost and found records weren't cross-referenced to anything. They were thrown in a binder with zero organization and were only pulled out if someone came in and wanted to look through them manually. The software, on the other hand, is free and took me about five minutes to learn how to use. It's a great thing!
-Mouse
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