December 20, 2012
Categories: Adoption

MFImageDogatVetWill adopters in your community provide medical care for their adopted pets? Where do they draw the line – daily injections? Medication? Surgery? And can shelters and rescue groups find more homes for pets with treatable and manageable health conditions by knowing the answers to those questions?

That was the inspiration for researchers at the Iowa State University in a study funded by Maddie’s Fund®, published in the January 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

They surveyed both pet owners and veterinarians in central Iowa to find out how much people did for their past pets in terms of medical care and treatment, as a method of predicting what kind of care they would be likely to provide for adopted pets. In that community:

  • More than 70 percent of respondents said they were “very likely” to give pills or administer eye drops twice a day for the rest of an animal’s life.
  • More than 80 percent were willing to feed their pets a special diet over the lifetime of the pet.
  •  63.4 percent were willing to spend 10 minutes three times daily for 6 weeks training a pet.
  •  More than 60 percent were willing to give a daily injection.
  • More than half would take their pet to the veterinarian twice weekly for a 3-month period.

The responses by individuals as to what they had done for past pets, and would do for new pets, largely matched those of veterinarians in that community as to what their clients did for their pets.

The study authors concluded:

Shelter workers may determine an incoming animal’s adoptability on the basis of what health or behavioral conditions the shelter is able to treat or address adequately with existing resources. However, the cat and dog-owning public may have the resources and willingness to treat an animal with these same health and behavioral conditions; thus, these conditions would not necessarily be impediments for adoption.

Murphy, M.D., Larson, J, Tyler, A., Eia, C. Bickett-Weddle, D., Flaming, K.P., Claudia J. Baldwin, 2. 2. C.J., Petersen, C.A. (2012) “Assessment of Pet Owners Approaches to Medical and Behavioral Diseases: insights into pet adoptability and willingness to manage pet diseases.” J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc.