Why are you being weird, shelter animal?!?

 

Short answer: often, it’s stress.

One thing to keep in mind with ALL shelter animals, is that (despite our best efforts) the shelter is not a normal environment for cats and dogs. Their senses can get very overloaded with everything going on. Some of the following are normal for pets, but when you add them all together, it can be very overwhelming, even if they are used to some of them. 

New people

Housecats even in busy homes don’t tend to see 35+ people per day [(max 6 cat room visitors per hour x 5 hours) + however many staff members (typically 3-5 per day)]. This can be very overwhelming, especially when you consider each person has a unique smell, might smell like any pets they have at home or have interacted with, add any products they might use, food they might have eaten, etc. Cats have extremely sensitive noses and gain a lot of information through scent, so having so many people around can be a lot for them to handle. This is another reason why we limit the number of people in the cat room.

New dogs, especially, are not used to being handled by the staff. We are an entirely new set of people, so it takes many of them some time to get comfortable with us. Unfortunately, we also get a lot of dogs in who have never been on a leash before, so that is also something new and potentially scary at first. 

After getting comfortable with the staff, when we feel they are ready, we will try to send them for walks with volunteers, an entirely new set of people. While not as sensitive as cat noses, dogs also have very sensitive sniffers, so they might also pick up the smell of other pets and such, just like the cats. Dogs who have not been socialized with new people might have a particularly hard time getting used to being around new people. 

We also occasionally need maintenance done on the shelter. Especially our dogs can be very unsure about these new people making all sorts of loud noises. We do our best to move them away from any loud noise, but they still see construction workers and some get a bit scared. When we had some doors replaced on our kennels, many of our dogs would hide behind our staff members. Thankfully Auto Pro was very expedient in getting them replaced, so our dogs weren’t unhappy for long!

Example: Chompers absolutely loves the staff. She will curl up in our laps, run around and happily play with her toys, and go for long walks. With volunteers (new people) she often will go outside to pee then put her breaks on and insist upon going back to the shelter. She is a great example of a dog who needs people to go slow with her and give her a chance to get to know you before she is comfortable with you. She is a prime example of why (contrary to popular belief) you should NOT get down on their level or put your hand in a new dog’s face. Getting down in her face she gets intimidated. Shoving your hand in her face is also intimidating. Dogs have good sniffers, and she can easily smell you as you calmly stand near her. Treats are also a great way to the heart of many dogs. If you would like to spend some time with Chompers, talk to the staff about how best to get to get her comfortable with you. We don’t always have space inside or out available for you to spend time with dogs, but when we do, we are happy to make that happen. (At the time of writing this, we are incredibly full of dogs, so we do not have a space available to spend time with dogs aside from taking them for walks).

See also: Tips for walking shy dogs (ft. Lomas)

Wildlife

We are also located in Nara Nature Park, so it is not uncommon for the cats to see, smell, and hear a lot of wildlife through the windows. We also had a poor unfortunate snake who became dinner for the cats. We theorize the little thing snuck in under the door, but hopefully no more make that mistake now that we have a plate blocking the threshold!

The dogs quite often see, smell, hear, and sometimes even touch or taste (yuck!) wildlife when they are spending time outside. The staff enjoys watching the camera at night to see what sorts of creatures were wandering around and we often see raccoons (who love to get stuck in our dumpster), deer, neighboring pets, skunks, foxes, coyotes, rabbits, and plenty of birds. We also get some visitors in our pens in the form of toads, snakes, and miscellaneous rodents, like the vole one dog caught (and thankfully was rescued and moved to safety). We rescue a LOT of silly toads from our pens.

Rebecca here: I live near a wooded area, but every year as the deer start to come back, my cats get very excited. I HAVE to close the curtains at night or they get very wound up. One evening I fell asleep early with the curtains open, and there must have been something new roaming around, as I woke up in the middle of the night to 2 very upset cats running from window to window. This doesn’t tend to happen when I close the curtains. Don’t get me started on how riled they got when there was a mama bear and her cubs roaming the neighborhood a few years back. My girls were running around the house all out of sorts, and this was in a situation where they are in a home they are settled into with their family.

Other new sights and sounds

Some cats and dogs aren’t used to other animals be it other cats or dogs or those new feline or canine things they’ve never interacted with before. There is only so much soundproofing we can do, so sometimes the cats can hear the dogs and dogs we are trying to isolate away from the noise can still hear the other dogs when the staff is taking dogs in/out and they get rowdy. Even dogs used to other dogs can get overwhelmed with the sound of ALL the other dogs barking. 

The cats and dogs also can likely smell each other, which again might be a new thing for them. I’m not sure about you, but sometimes new things make me a bit nervous, and shelter animals are already in a very new environment with a lot going on. 

PLEASE don’t assume a shelter animal is mean. There is a good chance they are just overwhelmed or unsure about all the new things going on around them. 

 

We hope this helps you understand why shelter animals might act a bit differently than your pet at home. We do everything we can to make our animals comfortable and are always looking for new forms of enrichment and ways to keep our animals comfortable. Even ones who are well acclimated to shelter life can still get nervous and overwhelmed more easily. The best way to get to know their personalities is to talk to the shelter staff. We spend a lot of time with them every day and are able to really get to know them. That’s not to say we know everything about them or how they will behave in a home, but we might be able to give you a better idea of what they are like. PLEASE don’t assume a shelter animal is mean. There is a good chance they are just overwhelmed or unsure about all the new things going on around them. 

By: Rebecca Brink, CCHS Assistant Manager, ABC Certified cat trainer