June 30, 2017

Audience: Executive Leadership, Shelter/Rescue Staff & Volunteers, Veterinary Team

Organization: Animal Rescue Konnection
Investigator(s): Mary Lou Marganis and Kristen Clancy
Grant Amount: $13,000
Project Type: Phase 1
Project Status: Research Complete

Project Summary

Animal Rescue Konnection (ARK) developed and formalized a simple yet effective and inexpensive set of programs that successfully transfer dogs displaying behavioral struggles in shelters to environments that support and encourage positive behavior, improving their chances for re-homing.

Objective(s)

This study aimed to first formalize and develop a standard, network-based, dog placement procedure that can be utilized by animal care officers (ACO's), shelters or owners surrendering their pets; and then provide valid statistical analysis of the program.

Methods

ARK developed 3 programs: Advocate, Life Preserver, Assist; and collected relevant statistics pertaining these programs' implementations.

Results

Animal Rescue Konnection (ARK) created the following programmatic materials: training manuals and flowcharts summarizing ARK's programs; and definitions, checklists and manuals for their behavioral assessment program. Program administrators collected statistics showing that the euthanasia rates for transferred dogs were considerably lower (4%) than for similar dogs who were not transferred (26%). During the time of study, ARK Assist program worked with 92 owner dogs. Of the 92 dogs, 68 (74%) resulted in re-homing or staying with the current owner.

Conclusions

The program administrators believe that ARK program can be easily replicated and implemented by not only any existing organization but by a small number of committed individuals, saving the lives of dogs.