Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello knowledge hive,

The shelter where I volunteer is going to implement a two-hour quiet time during the day for dogs, in an effort to lessen the amount of arousal and subsequent noise. This will only mean that the dogs will not get walked.  There is on average anywhere from 90-120 (sometimes more). The shelter will remain open and other activities will still continue such as kennel or med staff coming through, people walking by and dogs being pulled for a meet-and-greet with a potential adopter. It will mean that fewer dogs get out for walks because the window to do so will be smaller. My worry is that it could increase anxiety w/o the outdoor time. The kennels are pretty small and when capacity is tight, dogs have to be half-kenneled.

Have any of your shelters implemented a 'quiet time' policy? What has worked and/or not worked? What considerations need to go into this to make it be effective in achieving what it is trying to achieve?  Thank you!

I share your feelings. Happily, the shelter I volunteer with does not enforce a designated quiet time. Our building is shut down, locked up, lights out from 17:00 to 07:00 every day. All staff and volunteers leave for the day. And, sometimes on holidays and weekends it locks down much earlier. A lot of the dogs are not getting out of kennel more than 10 minutes a day at a minimum of 2 times a day, and that's just for a potty break and doesn't include any enrichment. We don't have enough visitors and potential adopters passing through to really create distress for the dogs. l I know this topic has support on both sides, and I've seen one research article that supports it, although; it wasn't strong enough to convince me. I can't understand how more isolation is helpful for the dogs?? I've also visited a rehabilitation center for fearful dogs that does a shut down for one hour. They call it Zen time. I could live with that, if required to. I hope to read more on this topic here.

Hello! We implement a "zen time" which is 1 hour (1-2pm) for dogs and (3-4pm) for cats. We have it so only certain personnel can come in. We can pull dogs for behavior or medical reasons and visits but that's it. No walks, much cleaning, enrichment and we put on calming music. I will say in the times I've walked in during that time, it is very quiet in the kennels. As I'm on the behavior team, if it's not imperative in that moment, I will wait until zen time is over.