16/08/2010Posted : August 16, 2010
Unwanted animal database aims to lower UK euthanasia count

A database of homeless animals is being created by experts at The University of Nottingham in the hope of finding a solution to the "unprecedented increase" in the number of unwanted pets in the UK.
 
Based at the newly established Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (CEVM) at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, Jenny Stavisky will spend the next three years trying to discover the true extent of the problem. She aims to find out:

• 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 said: "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."
 
CEVM director Rachel Dean said: "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 aims to enlist the help of people and organisations involved in running shelters and homes for stray and unwanted pets, as well as people who offer foster homes to homeless animals, to find out how many unwanted animals there are and what happens to them.
 
Ultimately, Dr Stavisky and the CEVM team hope to establish a long term shelter surveillance project to monitor diseases that may be seen in rescued animals, and to detect the emergence of any new diseases in this population.