Today I received the nineteenth response to my questionnaire. Please see below:
Q1: What is your occupation?
Certified dog trainer at an open-admission, no-kill animal shelter
Q2: How do you believe current dog shelter designs affect dog behaviour - Positively / Negatively / No affect? Please state your reason for your choice.
Current dog shelter designs negatively affect behavior. Dogs exhibit behaviors in shelter environments that they would otherwise not exhibit.
Q3: Do you believe that if given the right environment to rehabilitate, more dogs would be less 'aggressive' in shelters, and have the chance of becoming more adoptable?
Too frequently, dogs are misdiagnosed as aggressive almost exclusively due to the environment in which they are evaluated. Dogs that may be marginally aggressive, (issues which could be solved or managed with professional assistance,) will deteriorate in a shelter environment. This makes them appear to adopters as aggressive or 'unadoptable.'
Q4: How would you describe an 'ideal' environment for dog rehabilitation? What key elements would it have?
An ideal environment would have significantly more space to house dogs. The dogs would be in a home-like environment with access to appropriate space to eliminate and dogs would not be able to see each other from their housing.
Q5: What do you believe are the best methods for dog rehabilitation?
Professional assistance. Shelters should employ certified trainers to coach potential adopters on transitions and be able to effectively follow up with adoptions.
Q6: Alongside rehabilitation methods, to what extent do you believe architecture has a role in rehabilitation?
Extremely Important
Q7: There are numerous examples of calming architecture, designed to calm people dealing with emotional trauma. Elements of this include panoramic views with lots of natural light, sound absorption and the integration of nature / outdoors.Based on your experiences, could this concept of calming architecture have a similar outcome for troubled dogs?
Unquestionably.
Q8: Are you aware of any Rehabilitation Centres that allow traumatised shelter dogs to recover?
No
Q9: If selected 'Yes' on previous question, please state the name of the Rehabilitation Centre and any additional information regarding their methods. Otherwise, please state 'N/A'.
N/A
Q10: Do you believe there needs to be more Rehabilitation Centres of this nature?
All animal shelters should have the ability to properly house all dogs that come into their care. Rehabilitation should be an active part of all animal shelters.
(SurveyMonkey, 1999-2014. SurveyMonkey [online]. Available at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/ [Accessed on 9th November 2014]. Published questionnaire available at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7PYBVBF [Created on 9th November 2014].)