The Life–Saving Impact of Shelter Medicine

by Alexis Fasseas | Oct 31, 2012

Large rooms filled with small, sterile cages, echoing cries and whimpers and loud barking. People with clipboards walking by, keeping lists of who will live to see another day and whose life will be extinguished. There is method to the madness. A single sneeze, a stuffed nose, a throaty cough, teary eyes, loose stool: all calculated offenses for a death sentence. But mere proximity counts, too. The offending cat or dog will be killed, and so will the cats or dogs in cages immediately surrounding the offender. A single incident of more virulent diseases warrants a culling of the entire population. Hundreds of dead, furry bodies pile in refrigerators, awaiting transport to a large incinerator

The old and out-dated model of running private shelters as a revolving door of unlimited intake and frequent death is being supplanted by the No Kill movement and the burgeoning field of shelter medicine. While No Kill shelters have always been dedicated to the life of each individual pet in their care, shelter veterinary protocols historically mimicked private veterinary practices. But the David Duffield family