A Solution for Stray Dogs
The problem was highlighted by the BBC’s Panorama programme “Britain’s unwanted pets” after cameras were invited into Battersea Dogs and Cats Home to show the harsh reality of this growing problem.
Based at the newly established Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (CEVM) at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, Dr Jenny Stavisky will spend the next three years trying to find out the true extent of the problem. She wants to know exactly how many animals are in shelters in the UK, how many animals are put down and what can be done to stop the unprecedented increase in dogs and cats being brought in to animal shelters and homes.
Dr Stavisky says: “People who run homes and shelters are working really hard to care for the UK’s unwanted pets but their resources are limited and we want to find more cost and time effective ways to target those limited resources. We need to take a step back from the situation to look at the bigger picture. This way we can characterise the problem and hopefully then we can find ways to improve the situation and reduce the growing number of healthy animals that are euthanised.”
Dr Rachel Dean, Director of the CEVM, said: “Jenny’s work is a very important part of the Centre’s work. We are studying both the owned and unowned pet population. If we are going to help these homeless animals we need to understand why they are relinquished in the first place and what factors affect whether they are re-homed or not.”
The Centre will be enrolling as many people and organisations as possible who are involved in running shelters and homes for stray and unwanted pets, as well as people who offer foster homes to homeless dogs and cats, to find out how many unwanted animals there are and what happens to them.
Ultimately Jenny and the CEVM team hope to establish a long term shelter surveillance project to monitor diseases which may be seen in rescued animals, and to detect the emergence of any new diseases in this population.
Veterinary practices are being urged to help owners safely dispose of any unused and expired pet medicines - not just antibiotics - during November's Animal Medicines Amnesty. 
