Shelter Dogs and Their Destiny a Retrospective Analysis to Identify Predictive Factors: a Pilot Study

Consequences of a long stay in dog shelter have particular significance, because, since 1991, the Italian law (14/08/1991, n.281) prohibits euthanasia of dogs unless “they are seriously ill, incurable or proven dangerous”. Caught dogs are recovered for a quarantine period in the sanitary kennel, if they are not returned to the owner, they are moved to shelters until adoption or death. The aim of this work was to identify the relationship between dogs characteristics and their destiny in order to define useful predictors to better manage the stay of dogs in shelter. We analysed the records of all dogs recovered in a sanitary kennel from 2005 to 2010 and subsequently moved to shelters (n=771). Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed in order to investigate possible factors that might affect adoptability of sheltered dogs. The characteristics of dogs that spent more time in PVCS, before being transfer to the CR, were: large size, male gender and age between 11 months and 2 years (p ≤ 0,05). Male dogs spent more days in CR, as opposed to female (p ≤ 0,05). In our sample 76% dogs were adopted, 18% were still in the shelter, 4% died and 2% were euthanized. Female dogs were adopted more than males; young dogs more than elderly (over seven years); sizes medium and small more than large. It would be interesting use the data from this research and complete them with information regarding dogs behaviour, to better manage dogs during the stay in shelter and to improve their relocation.