Hard to realise that today we are already Aug 1st. Wouah, time flies by! It seems to me that yesterday I was on the road, doing those shelter talks while in fact, it was nearly a month ago! Indeed on June 18th I was visiting the SPA des Cantons in Cowanswille, QC and on June 20th, I was back in Ontario, at the Alliston Humane Society. What I like about these two places? They have a fantastic team of passionate people! And I like spending my time discussing with passionate people !
Passion was definitely key here, because we were touching on a very important topic when it comes to shelter environment: shelter’s sanitation. Who likes to clean and disinfect (which basically means collecting dog’s and cat’s stools and removing their waste)? I personally don’t… But I learnt how crucial it can be in shelters. And in terms of animal health, how it can make a real difference.
Wonder what it was about? Well, have a look to my previous posts. I already wrote on the difference between cleaning and disinfecting, the importance of sectorization, the spectrum of the different disinfectants that can be used in shelter environments… People always think these topics are trivial. But they are always surprised when they realise that in fact, they did not know their true meaning.
My former boss and mentor used to tell me that teaching is repeating, and I now understand how right he was! Shelters are indeed dynamic environments, not only regarding animals intakes and adoptions, but also in terms of staff: new volunteers/staffmembers are joining while others are leaving… If all are passionate with a lot of good will, not all of them clearly understand the real reasons behind those sanitation procedures they are told to strictly follow.
That’s why one of our missions is to tell them, and we are always more than happy to visit structures where people want to benefit from our expertise in this field! Again, I will never emphasize enough how key these simples measures are to protect the health of these animals we all care for.
DR. EMMANUEL FONTAINE 