Animal welfare assessment in nine dog shelters of southern Brazil
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Author
Galeb, Luciana do Amaral Gurgel
Borges, Tâmara Duarte
dos Santos, Camila Jardim
Pedernera, Cecília
Anater, Amanda
Biondo, Alexander Welker
Pimpão, Cláudia Turra
Publication date
2022-03-25ISSN
2176-9478
Abstract
The present study has tested the Shelter-Quality Protocol (SQ) and its
applicability in nine long-term dog shelters in the Curitiba metropolitan
area, State of Paraná, southern Brazil. Welfare indicators were scored
on three different levels including shelter, pen and dogs. Data were
qualitatively analyzed, presenting an average of 66.67 (±27.63) allocated
dogs per shelter, receiving only dry food, with meal frequencies varying
from once (44.4%), twice a day (33.3%), and ad libitum (22.2%).
Water was available ad libitum in 98.5% of pens and was clean in
(89.5%) of shelters. Most of the shelters grouped the dogs by size.
Animals were kept indoors (41.0%) or entirely outdoors with only close
movable shelters (41.3%), from which 78.5% had materials that could
hurt the animals. None of the dogs were panting, crowding, or had
any stereotypy behavior. No cough, swelling, and ectoparasites were
observed. Animals were in satisfactory body-score condition and clean;
no lameness was observed. In the human-animal relationship test,
15.3% of animals showed fearful and aggressive reactions. Hence, the
level of shelter-quality was feasible and provided relevant information
about the Brazilian dog shelter welfare. However, it is important in
future studies to include and adopt additional indicators to gather
other relevant aspects of dogs’ welfare, such as health management,
environmental enrichment, dogs’ socialization, people involved in the
chain, rate of adoption, and turnover of dogs.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Portuguese
Subject (CDU)
636 - Animal husbandry and breeding in general. Livestock rearing. Breeding of domestic animals
Pages
9
Publisher
Brazilian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (ABES)
Is part of
Revista Brasileira de Ciências Ambientais
Citation
Galeb, Luciana do Amaral Gurgel, Tâmara Duarte Borges, Camila Jardim dos Santos, Cecília Pedernera, Antonio Velarde, Amanda Anater, Alexander Welker Biondo, and Cláudia Turra Pimpão. 2021. "Animal Welfare Assessment In Nine Dog Shelters Of Southern Brazil". Revista Brasileira De Ciências Ambientais 57 (1): 84-92. doi:10.5327/z217694781197.
Program
Benestar Animal
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2555]
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