Hello and welcome to episode 7 of Animale Therapie, the animal behaviour podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about adopting dogs from shelters or associations. And as you know, this is a topic that’s close to my heart as I founded and run an animal protection association in the Toulouse region since 2016 and I’ve seen thousands of animals from all walks of life come and go. Today, I’d really like to take stock of this issue. I’m not going to be talking about it on my own, because I’ve got a great guest coming to talk to us about her experience, and she’s Valentine. Hi Valentine!
Valentine
Hello ! Thank you so much for seeing me.
Marion
I’m really very happy to have you with us today. We passed a certification together, the CSAT certification, specialising in separation anxiety. That’s where we met and where I discovered your fabulous work with shelter dogs.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your experience, your background and so on?
Valentine
Of course I’m Valentine. I’m Valentine. I founded Le Monde de Maikan in 2018 and I support private individuals in all things behavioural modification for their dogs. I also work in shelters. I’ve been an external service provider at an SPA in the South of France, in Vallerargues, for just over two years now. My job in this shelter is to help the teams manage the most difficult dogs, but also to put in place a number of facilities, activities, etc., aimed at improving the dogs’ well-being, limiting the undesirable behaviour that often increases in shelters, increasing the safety of humans and other animals in the shelter and, ultimately, encouraging adoptions. I’m Elite Fear Free certified. This is a certification that aims to limit fear, anxiety and stress in the animals I care for, mainly dogs. I’m also a Fear Free Shelter. It’s the same principle, but specialises in everything to do with shelter dogs. And for a few months now I’ve also been a CSAT, a certified trainer for separation anxiety disorders.
Marion
Thanks for your presentation, it’s really cool. This Fear Free certification is starting to arrive in France. We’re starting to see more and more professionals who are committed to the well-being of dogs, and all animals for that matter, precisely to prevent them from expressing fears and anxieties as much as possible, in any case with the resources we have in the conditions in which we’re going to work and accompany these dogs as well as their humans. Now we’re going to get to the heart of the matter. How is adopting a dog from a shelter different from adopting a dog from somewhere else, from a kennel, on the internet or anywhere else? How is adoption an almost militant act? What will it change for the person?
Valentine
Adopting a dog from a shelter means having to deal with adopting a dog you don’t know much about. Unlike at a kennel, or sometimes on leboncoin or at the neighbour’s, when you go to pick up a dog, it’s usually puppies. In shelters, there are dogs of all ages and profiles, from puppies to what I call big puppies between 6 and 10 months old, as well as adult dogs and older dogs. These are dogs that have come to the shelter either after being abandoned, i.e. dogs that have lived with a family and are going to be placed in a shelter for a whole host of different reasons, or dogs that are going to be released from a pound, i.e. dogs that have been found as strays on the public highway, that have been recovered by the pound and transferred to the shelter, or dogs that are coming out of a requisition, i.e. dogs that have been removed from their home for ill-treatment. These are often dogs for which we have very little information. If there has been a family, if it’s an abandonment, we may have some information, at least the teams do. I don’t play much part in this process myself, but the shelter teams may have information about the dog’s profile, behaviour and experiences, but it’s all pretty vague. On the other hand, if the dog is impounded or requisitioned, very often we don’t have any information and the teams discover the dogs as they come into the shelter, when they are going to feed them, take them out, look after them, and so on. So, let’s say there are a lot of blanks in the CV of a shelter dog. And that can be a little unsettling because you might think you don’t know the dog very well, you don’t really know what he’s been through. And it’s true that, on top of that, the conditions in a shelter can be very difficult for the dog. They don’t necessarily have the opportunity to satisfy all their needs. They’re exposed to a lot of stimuli, some of which can be very anxiety-provoking. So it’s true that undesirable behaviour can occur, as can fear, stress and so on. That’s everything that people who go to a shelter to pick up a dog are exposed to.
Despite everything, I think it’s a really commendable action to get a dog out of there, because as we know today, shelters are clearly saturated, particularly at this time of year when we’re just coming out of summer, and we know that abandonments often explode in the summer, unfortunately. So it’s really about giving a second chance to all these dogs who may have been damaged physically, mentally and emotionally too. I think you really have to ask yourself what you want and why you’re going to adopt a dog, whether it’s from a shelter or elsewhere, but you really have to think that there are a lot of dogs in shelters who are waiting for their families, who are in a situation that can be difficult and who can really be offered a new life by having all their needs met, a second chance to finally blossom in a home that suits them and to have a great pooch.
Marion
Everything you’re telling me reminds me of when we take in animals. Here we have the ACTP-SPA, which sometimes takes in puppies and doesn’t necessarily have the space to keep them. So they call on other associations to take in or look after puppies with special needs. Because they can’t, because they don’t have the space or because they don’t have the technical resources to manage the care of this or that animal or this or that type of pathology. For example, we are often called in for deaf dogs or kittens that have not yet been weaned. They know very well that when they go to the pound, they don’t necessarily have the number of volunteers they need. So that’s it, in a nutshell. And, in effect, it leaves these animals completely out in the cold. We don’t know where they come from. They’re sometimes left outside the gate because, of course, that’s often where the abandonment process comes in, unfortunately. As a result, we don’t know where the animals came from, what conditions they were abandoned in or why. But on the other hand, what I’ve noticed, and you’ll tell me if it’s true for you too, is that even if you don’t necessarily have the animal’s history, it’s relatively easy to see what the consequences of its training have been. It’s fairly easy to find out how it relates to other dogs, for example. What is its relationship to humans, to the human hand too? How does he envisage moving around in his environment? Does he explore? Does he hide away in a corner and wait for things to pass? What will happen in the end? And what will be the consequences of this learning? Have you noticed this kind of thing and does it also help to orientate, even if we don’t know, because we’ll never have proof of what happened in the dog’s life, it still helps to evaluate the dog a little.
Valentine
Absolutely, it’s very interesting what you’re saying. I often say to adopters, to my own clients, on a day-to-day basis and to the teams in the shelters I work with, that just because we know the exact cause of the behaviour, for example a dog that’s scared, we may never know why it’s scared, but that doesn’t mean we can’t put things in place to make it better, to help it cope better with the situation. In fact, as I was saying, observation by the animal handlers who look after the dogs every day is going to be extremely important because they will be in direct contact with the dog on a daily basis. They’re going to be able to observe how the dog behaves when it approaches, how it behaves towards dogs, how it behaves towards food and so on. And so, in fact, I’m not an employee of the SPA, I’m an external service provider, so I’m there every week. And every time, whatever the dog, I’m going to be very observant of its behaviour.
How will he behave when I approach his stall? Does he eat? Does it not eat? Does it react strongly? Is there a bit of reactivity, a bit of fear? And I’m going to adapt my own behaviour to that, my future training plan to all that and I’m going to try, effectively based on what I’m observing today, because everything that happened yesterday and the previous months, finally, we’re doing a bit of a reset and we’re really going to base ourselves on *today*, what do I see and how can I best adapt to that? And I’ll use this as a behavioural database to create training plans that are best suited to the dog in question, that will enable him to regain a certain serenity if there are fears or stresses, etc., or modify certain behaviours that may be disturbing within the refuge and, above all, pass all this on to the teams so that there’s real continuity and we can really work together. The work doesn’t just happen on the days I’m there, but the people can continue it on an almost daily basis as easily and smoothly as possible, so that there’s real long-term development for the dog.
Marion
In fact, what you’re saying there echoes a lot in that… I don’t know if you remember when we did the CSAT certification, there was one thing that particularly struck me, and that was the fact that you can’t anticipate how a dog is going to develop. In this case, we were talking about separation anxiety, but you can imagine that it’s the same thing from the moment you change the dog’s environment, because it’s going to move from a shelter environment to a family environment. And even with the best will in the world, you can’t anticipate every single behaviour with the change of environment. And that’s something that’s sometimes difficult, both in terms of assessing the dog when it arrives at the shelter, because then we’ll only have data based on what we’ve seen in the shelter. It’s not necessarily, as I sometimes hear, ill-will on the part of the animal officers or the volunteers who look after the animal. It’s simply because sometimes behaviour changes depending on the context in which the dog is exposed. That’s something I see quite regularly.
That’s something that really struck me in the training, in the CSAT certification, is that you can’t envisage being able to assess how separation anxiety is going to develop in a dog coming out of a shelter and having just been adopted. Have you noticed this kind of thing in other types of “problem” dogs? What do you think?
Valentine
You really can’t anticipate how the dog will develop, how its behaviour will evolve, etc. So what we can tell adopters is really what we’ve observed. So what we can tell adopters is really what we’ve observed. But more and more, and when I meet adopters, I emphasise this point a lot, and I know that now the teams also talk about it a lot, is that behaviour can change completely at home. For the better, sometimes for the worse too. There’s also often, whether it’s when the dog arrives at the shelter or when it goes home, a short period of what I call inhibition, where it doesn’t display all its behaviours because it’s not yet completely at ease in this new place, and we’ll see new behaviours in the weeks or months that follow. Once again, it’s not always ‘negative’ behaviour. It may just be the dog really opening up to the world, exploring himself a lot more, starting to play, asking for cuddles, and so on. But sometimes, we can also see little behaviours such as a little bit of uncleanliness, a little bit of destruction, some barking, etc, which didn’t happen at all at the beginning and which start to take hold.
It’s really like us, when we arrive in a new environment, for example in a new job, at first we may feel a bit uncomfortable, so we’re not totally ourselves. But gradually, once you’ve got to know your colleagues and the work you have to do, etc., you’re going to relax a bit and be a bit more open to others, a bit more ourselves, etc. So that’s really important. So that’s really important, I think, to communicate to adopters, to tell them that it’s absolutely normal and it’s not a big deal if they observe disturbing behaviour. At that point, there’s a whole host of professionals available to help them, whether it’s the shelter, to call them back and reassure them too. So that’s what happens, is it normal? Yes, isn’t it? But there are also canine behaviour professionals, vets and veterinary behaviourists. I think we now have a huge number of professionals who are very specific in their field of expertise. And you really shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help and support. But really, it’s normal. Sometimes there are behaviours that appear for a few days and then disappear. It can fluctuate a little. It’s a big change for the dog, whether it’s arriving in a shelter or a new family. Everything changes. There aren’t really any points of reference any more. They meet new people. But really, it’s normal. Sometimes there are behaviours that appear for a few days and then disappear. It can fluctuate a little. It’s a big change for the dog, whether it’s arriving in a shelter or a new family. Everything changes. There aren’t really any points of reference any more. It’s new people they may have seen a few times, but the bond of attachment is not yet completely established and will build up gradually.
So there’s really no need to worry if it happens. But in fact, and this is a bit of a challenge every day, I think, in our jobs, it’s to say to yourself ‘OK, today, my work plan, my training plan, is this one, but we’ll see if it really works as I have it in my head and on my paper, if the dog responds well to what I’m expecting, etc.’. You really have to be able to readjust, always be able to readjust to the dog and its progress today, without saying to yourself ‘This is what I’m going to do tomorrow and next week because it will be fine’, because the truth is that you don’t know anything at all. So you really have to tell yourself that it’s just normal, that you can clearly get help and even, as a professional, you can call on your professional network when you sometimes feel a bit blocked by your behaviour. But that’s the challenge, clearly, this lack of predictability in dog behaviour.
Marion
And especially with shelter dogs where, in this case, we really have a very limited history of the dog. We have a very limited history. So, for example, if you have a dog that is going to suffer from separation anxiety when it leaves the shelter, yes, you can get help today from professionals who are specialised in this field and who will be able to supplement any work plan that may have been put in place with your usual trainer, for example, to be able to really take charge of the dog in a holistic way and get out of this sort of vicious circle, where the dog gets trapped in more and more stress because there are so many changes all at once, because there are so many things that, for him, are difficult to cope with and that holistic help from every point of view will really help him to get out of it. That ties in with what you’re saying, in any case. It also makes me think about puppies that are adopted from shelters, because often, the difficulty with puppies is that generally, I mean, you come in, you put the box in front of the gate, and you very rarely have any information about the parents. Sometimes the babies even have to be bottle-fed, so there’s really very little history and very little information about these puppies. We don’t know where they come from, we don’t know what breed they are, even when they arrive. So we don’t know how big they are. There really isn’t much. There’s really very little. All we know is that they’re living little bundles of joy and we’re going to have to try and help them as much as we can. Have you been regularly confronted with puppies like this arriving at the SPA?
Valentine
Regularly, no, but it’s happened several times. The little puppies, really, between 0 and 10 weeks, it’s a population that has quite a few, at least in the SPA where I am, but it still happens several times a year that there is either a mother with her puppies who arrives, and that I want to say, it’s the best case. Because there’s still the mum, who can feed them and who can play her role as mum on a social level too, for the puppies, in terms of interaction, etc, until they can leave for their family. But of course, there are also puppies who arrive without their mum, sometimes only a few days old. I remember this winter when, as you explained, a box of puppies arrived with their eyes still closed. So they were really tiny. They all survived. The girls in the teams, they took straight home. They were extraordinary. They woke up a lot during the night to bottle-feed them. So very quickly, they were able to come back to the refuge as soon as they were a little more independent.
So what we did was try to do as much as we could to socialise them, because in a refuge, the environment is limited and quite poor. But by putting on little playlists of music or noise, by spending time with them so that they get used to people, by presenting them with little necklaces, by doing little chewing activities or food enrichment. We also introduced them to some of the staff dogs, who were really cool and adult, so that they could also have contact with other dogs, without risking contamination with the shelter dogs in terms of health, etc. So we remain limited for all the dogs. So there are limits to what they can learn at their age, at their very young age. But we can still put things in place. After that, that’s really my experience at the SPA where I work. I don’t know exactly how things work everywhere, but it’s true that it can be difficult. And indeed, the question mark over “Who is this puppy? What breed is it? Who are its parents? What were the parents’ behaviours? or potentially the parents’ pathologies? All this is difficult because it’s true that you can’t tell adopters very much. Fortunately, vets can help a little with age and breed, but it’s still pretty approximate and you find out as the days go by what they’re going to look like, what they’re like, and so on.
Marion
What you’re saying is really interesting because, in fact, the organisation I work for doesn’t have a shelter. So, in fact, all the animals are immediately placed in foster homes. So we don’t really have the problem of a shelter with a relatively poor environment, even though we try to put a lot of things in place and there are a lot of things to do. As they are in a family, we end up in the situation where we systematically place them in a foster family with another dog, at least one other dog. They’re going to be confronted with family life, with family noises, when we hoover, when we do the housework, when we go for a walk. And so, in the end, we don’t have this problem at all, which is also a real problem, or at any rate one that needs to be taken into account for this sensitive period, which is the puppy’s apprenticeship, when he’s going to make all the discoveries, when he’s going to explore, when we can also discover his fears or his sensitivities, whatever they may be, or the first behavioural sequences that may be linked specifically to a breed. That’s something that I think is much easier to do in a host family than in a refuge setting where, unfortunately, you’re going to have a few fewer options. I haven’t really had to deal with this problem. Do you work with foster families or not at all?
Valentine
It’s in the process of being set up. It’s quite recent. Until now, there were some foster homes for really elderly dogs or dogs with serious pathologies, or, clearly, being in outdoor kennels, even though the kennels are really nice where I work, because there’s a heated or air-conditioned area in winter, etc. But there are clearly dogs who couldn’t stay in those conditions at all. But some dogs clearly couldn’t stay in those conditions at all. So we’ve started to set up facilities for these types of dogs. And now it’s being developed with the aim of being able, for example, to place small puppies, to always place these ageing dogs or dogs with pathologies in foster homes, but also for dogs who have been in the shelter for many years, who are not looked at much or not at all for physical or behavioural reasons, it doesn’t matter, but who could have a little relief in a foster home and probably already feel a little better than in their kennel, and this would finally also accompany, for those with minor behavioural problems, the behavioural work to be put in place. It’s a work in progress, it’s not completely done yet. It’s early days, we’re going to have to find families too”, etc. But in any case, it’s in the process of being put in place. So I think it’s very good, particularly for the dog profiles I mentioned. I think this will complement the shelter and help us to adapt even better to the dogs’ particular needs.
Marion
You have to understand that managing a foster family is very difficult and time-consuming too, because in a shelter you can manage a lot of dogs very quickly. With a foster family who is sometimes, not always, but sometimes inexperienced, you have to explain and teach them everything. That’s also something she’s going to have to do on her own, but she’s going to have lots of questions, lots of things like that. And it’s true that this involves people from the refuge, animal handlers or external service providers like you, who will have to spend time explaining all these things to these people. So, of course, it takes up resources. And so it’s not always easy to set up a shelter, because you don’t always have the time, because your priorities are going to be the animals that are there and you’re going to try and be as efficient as possible to try and save as many of them as possible. And it’s not always easy to deal with this aspect, so I also welcome the desire to be able to put these things in place to look after the welfare of these animals as much as possible, in any case, and to enable them to evolve as well as possible in the best possible conditions, and at the same time make it easier for them to be adopted.
Valentine
Clearly, yes, absolutely. It’s clear that logistically, it’s pretty heavy. That’s why I don’t know if there could be many of them. And, as you say, the host families also have to be very aware of the impact it can have on their daily lives, the investment involved, etc. So, we also have to find people who are willing to help. So you also need to find people who agree with all that. But it’s good that it’s starting to happen and we’ll see if it develops further.
Marion
Coming back to the puppies, there’s one thing I’d have liked to see discussed, and that’s the fact that we have very little information about the parents. This can often be a barrier to adoption. To the extent that we don’t know exactly… Beyond the physical aspect, I mean, because often that in itself can be a barrier. I get feedback from friendly associations or even animal shelters who tell me, “We’ve got people who want a dog weighing between 10 and 15 kilos. If the dog overflows, we don’t want it”. But the problem is, when you have little puppies, if they have stunted growth because they’ve been in terrible conditions and you don’t necessarily know that when they arrive, even if you can get an idea because the vet will obviously give you some guidance, but in any case, it’s hard to have a growth curve and be able to say ‘The dog will fit between this and that, we can guarantee that’. We can’t guarantee anything at that level, so that can also be a barrier to adoptions. And finally, to come back to what we were saying about the militant act of adoption by an association, in the end, that’s what it’s all about. There’s also the surprise of ‘we can have a puppy’ and then finally realising that it’s not at all what we expected. And that can be difficult for adopters to deal with, because beyond the physical aspect, it can also mean that it’s not quite the breed or racial type you were expecting, with all the behaviour that can result from an unexpected breed or one you weren’t expecting. So this also means that, potentially, adopters can expect anything in terms of behaviour, which in the end is even more difficult to envisage, I think, than adopting an adult dog that you already know, that has spent X amount of time in a shelter or association, and at least for him, in inverted commas, you can foresee a few more things than for the puppy, who will continue to evolve, continue to grow, continue to develop. And that can be a surprise.
Valentine
Clearly. Yes, absolutely. I think that puppies have one advantage over other people, which is that they’re puppies and they attract the eye and the heart. So people, I think, are a little more ready to say to themselves ‘OK, I’m jumping into the unknown, but he’s so cute and I want to invest so much in him that, whatever he becomes, I’m going to love him very much and I already love him very much’. But of course there are some people who will be put off by ‘We don’t really know what he’ll look like, how much he’ll weigh, how tall he’ll be’. What the teams where I work sometimes do is give a rather high range, saying ‘In view of what the vet has told us, etc., we’re going to expect such and such a size, perhaps enlarging it a little to make sure that people are ready for it to be a big dog or an average dog, etc.’ to avoid unpleasant surprises. If it’s people who don’t give a damn about size, etc., everything’s fine.
Try to warn them as much as possible and tell them everything we say, that there were no parents, they may have been bottle-fed, so we have very little information. But if we can find out a little bit, I don’t know, about the cross-breeding and the potential breeds involved in these little puppies, we can already do a bit of prevention, in fact, on the behaviour that can appear, etc. But it’s true that it’s not enough to know the parents, it’s also necessary to know the breeds. But it’s true that it’s not easy, but they do have the advantage of being very cute, which means that they don’t usually spend long in a shelter, which is great for them, and they find their family fairly quickly. Generally, they’re people who are really committed, or at least who don’t hesitate to call us back, and so on. That’s really great for the dogs and puppies.
Marion
Yes, it’s great. It always makes me think that in the category of information we don’t have, it’s about pathologies. We have entire litters that have had renal dysplasia. Renal dysplasia is a genetic kidney malformation with a genetic ancestry. This means that potentially, if the parents had nothing, it means that potentially, both were carriers and that this marriage created puppies that were affected by this pathology, in any case, the vast majority of a complete litter. So the advantage we have here is that we can recognise the symptoms fairly quickly now, which isn’t necessarily a good thing because it means we’ve been confronted with them. But as a result, there are drug treatments and follow-up that can be put in place as quickly as possible. But it also means that there are pathologies that don’t necessarily develop at two-and-a-half or three months of age, as in this case with renal dysplasia, and so the adoptive families were able to be warned in good time. There are other types of pathology that exist and that will be latent and develop much later in the puppy’s life. There are so many that I wouldn’t even know how to start again.
This is the kind of information that is often available at breeding farms, because technically, breeding farms carry out health tests on their breeding stock to find out about any pathologies and, of course, avoid them for their puppies and offspring. But that’s something that’s almost impossible to have in association. And it’s also something you have to bear in mind when you adopt a puppy in association, because you’re entering into the unknown on a whole host of points, including health. And you have to be able to say to yourself ‘Maybe I’m adopting a puppy, maybe he’ll have a shorter life than if I’d adopted this dog from a kennel with all the health tests done, with the breeding stock monitored, with ’I know exactly what I’m getting into. I know the parents, I’ve met them, I can see their behaviour. We don’t have all that information. That’s why it’s also in line with what we were saying at the start, in that it’s going to be a militant act, because you’re going to do it for the puppy in question, for yourself too of course, because you’re in the process of adopting, but also to help that puppy, whatever we’re going to expect. This is also an important factor to bear in mind, because if you’re not ready for it, you may already be emotionally very affected, because the dog is potentially going to develop a pathology that you weren’t expecting. In all cases, of course, you have to be prepared. This is also an important factor to bear in mind, because if you’re not ready for it, you may already be emotionally very affected, because the dog is potentially going to develop a pathology that you weren’t expecting. In all cases, of course, you’ll be emotionally affected, that’s not the point, but in any case, it’s something to bear in mind and to be able to say to yourself ‘I’m ready to face whatever may happen to this dog’.
Valentine
Yes, absolutely. In fact, there’s no guarantee that it’s actually for dogs or because they’re going to leave quite early. On top of that, they’re still very young, so we can’t yet see how they’re going to behave or how healthy they’re going to be. But in the end, even with adult dogs, where we sometimes realise that they walk a little strangely, where they’ve put on a lot of weight, we can. For me, particularly if I’m treating dogs at the SPA because they have behavioural problems, I often try to push for medical examinations because quite often there can be links with behaviour. But sometimes this isn’t possible for financial or logistical reasons. Where I work, there’s a vet’s surgery within the shelter, so that’s great, but it’s not equipped with scanners, X-rays, etc. This means that the dog has to be transported to the vet’s surgery. That means transporting the dog, taking it to the vet and so on. Depending on the dog’s profile, these things can be really quite onerous, and sometimes expensive too, and there isn’t necessarily the funding available.
So, clearly, adopting from a shelter means rescuing a dog from destitution, but with all that this can imply in terms of unknowns, excellent or much more disastrous surprises. So, whenever possible, especially with adult dogs, tests are carried out, such as thyroid blood tests, etc, but not always. And it’s true that, once again, it’s a bit of a lottery to expect when you want to adopt a dog from a shelter. But it’s not all difficult either. But that’s part of it, and it’s important to talk about it, because I think it raises the adopter’s awareness and helps avoid potential post-adoption problems, because the dog’s behaviour isn’t what you’d expect, its health isn’t what you’d expect or its size isn’t what you’d imagined. So I think it’s really important to be able to think about this beforehand and say to yourself, ‘OK, I’m going into the unknown a bit, but I’m ready for this and whatever happens will be OK and we’ll do the best we can together’.
Marion
Just to pick up on all that, between puppies, health, adults and all that: for seniors. Seniors often have greater health needs, things that weren’t there before. Let’s say he’s a little loulou, he’s been on site for years. Unfortunately, he wasn’t adopted because he’s not beautiful, or because his behaviour doesn’t allow him to be adopted, or whatever the reason, but perhaps at some point he’ll develop pathologies or other problems. How do we deal with this kind of situation? How do you deal with senior citizens in a refuge?
Valentine
Seniors are usually already taken care of. Once again, I’m going to speak for the experiences I’ve had in the SPA where I work. I can’t speak for all the shelters and associations in France, of course. But there, in any case, in general, veterinary care is already in place. In other words, we’ll see if there’s any pain, say, I don’t know, osteoarthritis or other physical pain, and we’ll see if we can already put something in place to relieve the dog with medication. Can we make the kennel more comfortable? For example, I don’t know, put in something non-slip. If his bed was raised, maybe lower him down if he has a bit more difficulty moving around. What we did quite recently was to teach a dog to use a ramp to get into a car, because he was more able to do so and there were behavioural assessments to be carried out, veterinary visits, etc. So to enable dogs, finally, to get out of a car, we had to use a ramp. So, in the end, dogs were able to move around more easily.
It’s a bit like adapting to ageing humans. We’re going to adapt the environment to make things easier for them, so that they can continue to be as independent as possible, but with an environment that’s completely adapted to their current capabilities. That could be it. Sometimes, dogs are put in the kitchen or in the office to avoid the cold, damp, etc. Or, when possible, they can be placed in the living room. Or, when possible, in a foster home, which is generally ideal for an ageing dog. And, of course, if you adopt an ageing dog, you also have to take into account the fact that veterinary costs may be a little higher, because the dog may need regular check-ups or, if it has a medical condition, follow-up, perhaps medical treatment, and so on. So that’s also something to take into account. This can completely be the case for an adult dog, but it’s true that proportionally, we see more of this in dogs as they age than in others.
Marion
It’s really interesting. In any case, when I see senior dogs being adopted, it’s generally a militant act. We have these people who come to get an elderly dog out of these conditions. It’s rarely a case of ‘we’ll come and walk on a whim’ because often, in that case, it’s the dogs, the puppies or the ‘pretty faces’, if I dare say so, that go first. Adopting a senior dog is really about people coming and saying to themselves ‘I’m going to take on a senior dog’ to enable it to have as peaceful a retirement as possible, with all that that implies. I think that’s really the most militant act. And then, the fact that people are going to get involved to that extent, it always gives me a little tug at the heartstrings to see that there are people who really come with that in mind. It’s so exceptional.
Valentine
This is what the SPA does. In this case, it’s national, and it’s called SOS operations. Senior dogs or dogs with serious pathologies are adopted in return for a free donation. There is no set amount. The adopter gives what they want. It’s a bit of a way of encouraging adoptions for dogs that are less likely to attract attention. A little old dog or a sick dog, you don’t necessarily want to get involved with a dog like that, but it’s to counter that a little. And as you say, it’s people who come with this in mind, who have quite often already had an ageing dog, for example, previously adopted or whatever, and who really want to give these dogs a great end of life. And I think it’s a great idea to set up this kind of operation, because it really does give visibility to dogs that might otherwise go unnoticed on a day-to-day basis, when there are visitors.
Marion
That’s for sure. And what’s more, when it comes to adoption, often what I’m going to see is… We were talking about it at the start, when there’s the transition from shelter to association and you welcome the dog home, you were talking about a period of inhibition, but it can also be the complete opposite. It can be almost like disinhibition, where we see behaviours appear that were totally invisible in the shelter. As far as I’m concerned, there’s one thing that hasn’t been mentioned and that I’d like to see mentioned: are there forms of chronic stress that can appear in shelters or associations, but often in shelters, and that can have an impact on the dog’s well-being, on its behaviour and on the way it develops, potentially, within its future family? Is this something you notice?
Valentine
Yes, clearly, there are a lot of dogs who are subjected to a lot of stress in a shelter. There’s a minority of dogs who live their best life, who eat, who go for walks, who sleep all day and where you feel it’s really OK to live like that. But it really is a minority. There are a huge number of dogs who are going to be very stressed by being locked up, by being confronted with dogs all day long, with humans all day long, by having little social contact, because even if the animal handlers go out of their way to offer them the best, it’s still a job where they have 1,000 things to do on the side too. And obviously, the hours spent in real contact with the dog are pretty short in the day. Then there are the dog’s natural behaviours – digging, running, chewing, etc. – which we sometimes have little or no opportunity to offer them. So, in practical terms, yes, a dog’s well-being can really be affected, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the dog. And these are things that can have repercussions on their life in a home afterwards.
There are quite a few things that can be done to improve their well-being and quite often, the simple fact of living with much more social contact, going for walks or outings, etc, that allow them to express their needs as a dog, already improves things a lot. After that, there may be things that remain, things that were perhaps already there before the shelter or that appeared during the shelter stay. At that point, once again, you shouldn’t hesitate to call in a vet, why not, to see if you can help the dog with medication, if necessary, but also professionals in education and behaviour, to try and set up training, work protocols that will improve things a little. But there can clearly be stress, and it’s a bit like post-traumatic stress, where sometimes there are noises that will make the dog react because they were used to hearing noises in a shelter, smells, etc., or words that they heard a lot at the shelter or that will make them feel a bit uncomfortable at home because it’s linked to the experience they had at the shelter, which wasn’t very pleasant.
But sometimes they arrive home and it’s as if they’ve been there all their lives too, and from the very first night they’re glued to their human as if they’d always lived with them. And everything works out for the best. And of course, that’s always what you want. But here’s what I think we really need to bear in mind: today we really, really have tools and solutions to improve their well-being, both in the shelter and afterwards. So you really shouldn’t hesitate to do what you need to do and ask experienced, certified people for help.
Marion
With all that in mind, would you have any advice for people who’d like to start adopting, who don’t really know where to start, who don’t really know, who want to help a dog in need, but aren’t sure how to go about it and are perhaps afraid of what they might encounter? Do you have any advice on how to help them?
Valentine
Yes, I think that the process of reflection before adoption is really important: to be able to really ask yourself the right questions. You can also fall in love with a child and often that leads to some really beautiful adoptions too. But for me, the three main questions are: “Do I have enough time to add an individual to my household? We all have busy lives, I think, between our work and everything else on the side. So welcoming a new person inevitably means giving them a lot of time too. So do we have the time we need? Are we prepared to make time for his needs, to avoid periods of solitude that are too long, to take him for walks, take him out, etc.? Secondly, do you have the necessary budget? Because when you say you’re adopting an animal, you’re talking about the potential financial costs of adoption, veterinary costs, food and equipment. If one day we decide to keep the animal in boarding kennels, everything to do with looking after it or, indeed, hiring professionals to help with behaviour, education and so on. You have to be able to quantify all this and be sure of being able to meet it in the long term, because you know when you adopt a dog, but you don’t know how long it will last.
So you have to be sure that you can provide for all these needs and the unexpected too, once again. And I think we should also ask ourselves “if things don’t turn out as we expected, are we ready to get help? Are you ready to call in a dog trainer, a behaviour consultant, a vet or a whole host of other specific professions that I won’t mention but that exist depending on what you’re encountering. I think these are really the three key points that come together in the end. And then there’s what I quite often suggest when I’m working with clients in this process, for example, because more and more, and I think it’s great, I get people who call me before taking in a dog and say ‘We want to be sure, we want to ask the right questions, get your opinion, etc.’. What I suggest we do first of all is really define the profile of our household in detail, i.e. for example, how many humans are there? Do we have young children?
Are there people with special physical needs? Aging people? Are there any other animals? Flats, houses? What is our immediate environment like? To make sure that the dog that’s going to arrive can adapt and suit that home and vice versa, that our home can suit it 100% and that everyone cohabits in the best possible way. That’s really the first thing, to list all the elements of your home, to define a little bit why you want to adopt a dog? What are my reasons? Why do I see myself today with a dog? What do I want to do? What do I want to offer him? And if I’m going away a lot, will he come with me? Am I at home? All that, really all that to really list.
Marion
This is a very important question because it will ultimately define your relationship with the dog. And as it happens, we’re going to adopt an association dog, and if what we had planned or what we would have liked to be able to do for him can’t be done straight away, because the dog, for example, doesn’t allow it or because he’s too stressed or because, for him, If, for that dog, we can’t immediately achieve what we would have liked to be able to achieve, have we planned a solution B? Have we planned anything? Because if we haven’t, it puts that adoption into question and it’s going to be a lot harder for us, as humans, to deal with on a day-to-day basis. I think that this question of “Why do I want to adopt? is also fundamental. What if things don’t turn out exactly as I planned?
Valentine
Absolutely. I think it’s also important to define the profile of the dog you’re expecting, in terms of physique, size, weight and sex, because if you have other animals, that can also influence things. But also, for example, what behaviours do I feel I can manage and potentially work on? Or, on the other hand, which I absolutely refuse to manage, which is completely OK, but it’s just important to ask yourself these questions. There are people who may be completely OK with a dog that jumps up a bit or chews, but who have no desire whatsoever to have the responsibility and management of a dog, for example, that is potentially going to attack its fellow dogs. And once again, that’s completely OK. The same goes for pathologies, at least if they’re known to the shelter, saying to yourself ‘I’m very sporty today and I want to do a lot of sport with my dog’. So it’s also important to define the dog’s somewhat ideal profile, so that you can say to yourself “Today, I’ve come up with a profile of my home, what I want from a dog, why do I want to adopt a dog? With all this information, you can be guided through the shelter. The animal welfare officers will be able to tell you, “Based on all these criteria, this dog is not really suited to you. But on the other hand, I think that this type of dog could blossom completely with you and vice versa”. I think it’s really a double entendre. That he’ll thrive with us and we’ll thrive with that dog because we’re a good match. All of this is, I think, a really important process of reflection to have beforehand and it’s what’s going to enable us to adopt the dog that suits us best and vice versa and which will effectively avoid post-adoption returns that can be difficult, both for humans and for dogs.
Marion
That’s clear. In any case, it’s very interesting. Thank you so much, Valentine, for accepting my invitation today, for being here with us, for sharing your experience. It means a lot. By the way, I invite you to follow Valentine on the social networks. I invite you to follow her work. She really does a fabulous job. Thank you again, Valentine.
Valentine
Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure and I’m very happy to be able to talk a little about shelter dogs, which is a very important part of my work today. So a big thank you to you.
Marion
Thank you very much for your time.
If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode, don’t hesitate to comment. In fact, in the comments section too, you’re more than welcome to suggest an upcoming topic that’s close to your heart. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook for more information, tips and free resources under the handle @animaletherapie. Do you have a behavioural concern with your pet or would you like ethical and professional support? You can contact me directly at contact@animaletherapie.com and I’ll see you soon for a new episode.
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