UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program

"Every animal deserves a chance". We hear these words so often. But what does it mean to truly give an animal a chance? Is it enough to just put an animal in a shelter? We like to think of shelters as safe havens, but what if the animal becomes ill in the shelter's care, or is so stressed by the environment that it's unable to show its true colors? To give an unwanted animal a real chance, we need to go beyond simply taking them off the street or out of the hands of surrendering owners. We need to provide conditions that are safe and clean, that give protection from disease and relief from stress, that provide for the basic behavioral as well as physical needs of animals. We need to manage each individual and the overall population so that no animal gets lost in the system. We need to make conscious, humane decisions that acknowledge the shelter and community's capacity, strengths and limitations. Even when those decisions are hard, they must be made by caring, thoughtful humans rather than left to germs, stress and fate. When we do this, we can truly say that every animal admitted to every shelter has a chance. Our aim with this website is to provide practical tools and information to reach this goal.