Preliminary Findings of a Ten-Item Scale to Assess the Commitment of Low-Income Owners to Their Companion Animals

Rauktis, Mary Elizabeth; Hoy-Gerlach, Janet; Sewall, Craig; Lee, Hyunji; Bickel, L.

doi:10.1080/08927936.2021.1878682

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…These comments may reflect growing cross-disciplinary research on the construction of concepts such as commitment, responsible dog ownership, agency, and reciprocity as part of the complex Human–Animal-Relationship (HAR) phenomenon. Improving our understanding of the mechanisms that influence HAR could maximise their benefits and improve the welfare/wellbeing of humans and non-humans [ 63 , 70 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Home, Staying Home: Adopters’ Stories about Transitioning Their New Dog into Their Home and Family

Thumpkin,

Pachana,

Paterson

2024

Animals

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Published research estimates shelter dogs’ post-adoption returns at 7–20%, with a significant percentage of these occurring in the first month post-adoption. To better understand factors that contribute to the success or failure of long-term rehoming outcomes, this study sought to understand post-adoption challenges up to four years post-adoption, targeting dogs identified as more likely to be returned. Thirty-one adopters participated in semi-interviews. Thematic analysis of their responses yielded three themes: (1) The adoption process takes time and requires patience; (2) Building trust and learning limits are essential to lasting adoptive relationships; and (3) Human–dog relationships are idiosyncratic because they involve unique individuals. These results have potential application in programs designed to guide adopters and dogs through a successful adoption process. Access to real-life adoption stories, such as those uncovered in this study, might help new adopters develop reasonable expectations and learn from others’ experiences as they work to develop lasting relationships with their dogs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Home, Staying Home: Adopters’ Stories about Transitioning Their New Dog into Their Home and Family

Thumpkin,

Pachana,

Paterson

2024

Animals

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“…Studies of animals in low-income communities or homeless populations often call for a One Welfare approach that seeks to promote the well-being of both people and animals (Spencer et al, 2017;Scanlon et al, 2021;Kerman et al, 2020;Rauktis et al, 2021), but most of these papers are aspirational and do not interrogate the actual work processes and institutional norms that make such work feasible or difficult. Similarly, research on animal hoarding frequently encourages multi-agency approaches to deal with the problem (Reinisch, 2008;Lockwood, 2018;Elliott et al, 2019;Strong et al, 2019) but often without exploring how this cooperation could be achieved in practice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some research quantifies individuals' experiences through existing scales about animal attachment, for example the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (e.g. Singer et al, 1995;Yang et al, 2020;Rauktis et al, 2021), the Commitment to Pets scale (Rauktis et al, 2021) and others (Taylor et al, 2004). Other research has used standardised scales to quantify how animals influence human depression, substance use and loneliness among vulnerable people (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The everyday work of One Welfare in animal sheltering and protection

Koralesky

Rankin

Fraser

2022

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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In animal sheltering and protection, One Welfare initiatives include supporting people who have difficulty providing for their animals because of limitations in their physical or mental health, income or housing. However, little research has focused on the actual work that such initiatives involve for animal shelter staff and animal protection officers. We used institutional ethnography to explore how such work activities occur in frontline practices and to better understand how this work is coordinated. Methods included ethnographic observation of animal protection officers and animal shelter staff, document analysis, plus focus groups and interviews with staff, officers and managers. In cases where an animal’s care was deficient but did not meet the standard for legal intervention, officers provided people with supplies for their animals, referred them to low-cost or free veterinary care, and provided emergency animal boarding. This work was time-consuming and was sometimes done repeatedly without lasting effect. It was often constrained by animal owners’ limited housing, cognitive decline, mental health and other factors. Hence, improving the animal’s welfare in these ways was often difficult and uncertain. Although officers and animal shelter staff are increasingly expected to provide and record supports given to vulnerable owners, standard procedures and criteria for intervention have not yet evolved; hence the work is largely left to the judgement and ingenuity of personnel. In addition, the necessary collaboration between animal welfare workers and human social services staff (e.g. social workers, supportive-housing staff) is made difficult by the different expectations and different institutional processes governing such activities. Further work is needed to assess how meeting the needs of both animals and people could be strengthened in challenging situations. This might include sharing best practices among officers and further ethnographic analysis of animal protection services, how they interact with other services, and how One Welfare initiatives actually affect animal care. Institutional ethnography provides a way to study the organisational processes that shape and constrain care for animals, and its explicit focus on actual work processes provides insights that may be missed by other approaches.

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“…This subjectivity can make it difficult to establish reliable and valid measures of pet QoL for the purposes of medical care decision making ( 10 ). Finally, little attention has been paid to how low-income clients may experience or describe their pets' quality of life ( 13 , 14 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life with pets study: lower income veterinary clients' perception of pets' quality of life

Strand,

Scoresby,

Walker

et al. 2024

Front. Vet. Sci.

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Perception of quality of life for cats and dogs of low-income Spanish and English-speaking veterinary clients attending problem focused or routine veterinary visits is an important area of focus for community based veterinary service providers. Using a qualitative approach, 50 New York City based American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) veterinary clients completed semi-structured interviews as well as a survey about their perception of life with their pets. Veterinary clients shared both human-animal bond (HAB) related and quality of life (QoL) related factors in their daily experience of life with their pets. Results indicated that this demographic perceives QoL similarly to previous QoL research that either does not report sample demographics or reports sample demographics with more affluence. Moreover, 60% of qualitative excerpts included both HAB and QoL themes and 40% were discretely HAB or QoL. An analog single item 10-point scale measuring veterinary client perception of their pets QoL did not differentiate between sample demographics at a statistically significant level. Finally, pet QoL literature has not traditionally reflected diverse demographic identities of veterinary clients or widely included reliable and valid measures of the human-animal bond (HAB). These results support the importance of measuring the HAB when researching pet QoL and provide evidence that lower-income Spanish and English-speaking veterinary clients are similarly bonded and attentive to their pets as other demographics.

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Preliminary Findings of a Ten-Item Scale to Assess the Commitment of Low-Income Owners to Their Companion Animals

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

Coming Home, Staying Home: Adopters’ Stories about Transitioning Their New Dog into Their Home and Family

Coming Home, Staying Home: Adopters’ Stories about Transitioning Their New Dog into Their Home and Family

The everyday work of One Welfare in animal sheltering and protection

Life with pets study: lower income veterinary clients' perception of pets' quality of life

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