Improving Shelter Welfare with Online Training Focused on the Association of Shelter Veterinarians’ Guidelines

Abstract

Shelter care of animals and shelter medicine are both a growing field with expectations of improved welfare for shelter animals. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV) published The Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters in 2010. The ASV Guidelines outline minimum care expectations for shelters, using a ‘must,’ ‘should,’ and ‘ideal’ ranking. Frequently shelters have limited resources, staff with a variety of training or experience, and often only consulting veterinarians – or even no veterinary coverage in certain locations. The ASV Guidelines are open access, freely available, and provide a roadmap for skills expectations. We performed comprehensive training searches to determine how available training could be crafted to meet or exceed the ASV Guidelines. The search for internet training resources was moderately successful. While useful resources were discovered, many others known to be available by the authors were not included in the search results. This article reviews our search methodology, reporting what was found and identifying certain ‘missed’ training activities. We then outline a basic online training program which could address each major topic identified in the ASV Guidelines and offer encouragement for shelter managers seeking to enhance local training experiences.