Dogs in rescue kennels experience significant stress that affects welfare and adoption outcomes. Evidence-based kennel design, behaviour assessment and enrichment improve shelter welfare and adoption success rates.
Shelter welfare is a welfare problem requiring systematic solutions, not just individual good intentions. Dogs in kennels experience acute and chronic stress from confinement, noise, social disruption and loss of familiar environment and humans. This stress is welfare-relevant in itself, and it also compromises adoption outcomes - kennel-stressed dogs show behaviours that deter potential adopters and fail to represent their true personality. Evidence-based shelter welfare improvement includes reducing kennel noise, providing individual enrichment programmes, moving dogs to foster homes when kennel welfare is deteriorating, and using behaviour modification rather than euthanasia for treatable stress responses.