RICHMOND, Va. -- The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates that every year 6.3 million companion animals enter animal shelters in the U.S. But new research from Virginia Tech and Arizona State University is working to help more shelter dogs find loving and forever homes.
The research team at Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has found that implementing shorter-term fostering programs at animal shelters vastly improves adoptions for our canine friends.
"Spending time with a dog is one of the most consistently effective ways to improve a dog’s life in the shelter. Time out of the kennel with a person can reduce physiological measures of stress, as can a single night or more in a foster caregiver’s home," explained Virginia Tech in a press release.
In the study, researchers assessed the effects of outings of just a few hours and fostering stays of one to two nights on dogs' length of stay in the shelter and their adoption outcomes.
The researchers found that brief outings and temporary fostering stays increased dogs’ likelihood of adoption by five and more than 14 times, respectively. The team also found that these programs were more successful when a greater proportion of community members were providing outings and stays to the shelters’ dogs as well as when these programs were carried out by shelters with more resources.
“It’s a really exciting finding. Our prior work showed how beneficial sleepovers were for reducing dogs’ stress,” Erica Feuerbacher, an associate proffessor in the School of Animal Sciences said. “It’s wonderful to know that it also helps them get adopted.”
The results of the study showed that for foster outings, about 4% of the people ended up adopting the dog. For overnight stays, the number increased to about 12%. And both results showed the eventual adopters were not always the foster families.
“We saw that the majority of people adopting the dogs weren’t the caregivers that were taking the dogs on outings or letting them stay in their homes. These dogs were being seen in the community, meeting new people, and caregivers were sharing their stories,” assistant professor Lisa Gunter said. “This increased exposure likely helped the dogs find their adopters.”
Data was analyzed from 51 animal shelters in the United States and encompassed more than 27,000 dogs in shelters.
Researchers say that the study shows the value of foster programs at local shelters and that they hope this spurs more financial and human support for them.
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