Hello Anonymous,
Good question to ask.
When I became the Director of Behavior Services at our local shelter and my technician the Behavior and Wellness Manager, the very first thing we did was eliminate the SAFER. My technician who is KPA-CTP was tasked with 30 dogs waiting for their behavior evaluations and immediately revised the behavior evaluation for those dogs. We had support from the ED at the time.
Since the SAFER is only a snapshot in time, we worked towards getting more information on intake, behavior observations while in the shelter, observations from volunteers, and foster homes. We still did a behavior evaluation based on observations and interactions with our behavior team but the goal was to transition most of the initial evaluation to intake unless there was a bite history or concerning behavior in the history or initial evaluation.
We found out evaluations provided a much broader picture than the SAFER and we used them to match up to adopters. Another local shelter, does their own version of an evaluation which was very similar to ours.
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Christine D. Calder DVM
Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists
Calder Veterinary Behavior Services
www.caldervbs.comVeterinary Behaviorist
Behavior Specialist, MPF
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-13-2021 12:18 PM
From: Anonymous Member
Subject: Do you still use formal behavior assessments?
This message was posted by a user wishing to remain anonymous
Hello!
We still use SAFER assessments at the shelter I manage. I am not a huge fan of this test at all- I actually don't think they provide with much valuable information, if any. And most importantly
I would like to discuss changing this protocol with my ED but I am curious to know who actually still requires a formal assessments their dogs (such as SAFER, Assess-a-pet, etc..)?
Or maybe you might know where I can find reported data on this from ant pool of shelters? Not a study as to why not or alternatives to (I have plenty of info on that!) but WHO IS actually doing them vs. not... a poll would be superb..
Even replies such as the following would be helpful:
"we require SAFER/assess-a-pet"
"We don't do formal assessments"
"only for certain dogs"
Thanks everyone!
#Behavior,TrainingandEnrichment