Consequences of abandonment for the welfare of cats and dogs, a scientific expertise of the French Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (FRCAW)

International audience

English. The fight against animal abandonment is a major societal concern in France. In 2021, the Observatory for the Protection of Domestic Carnivores (OCAD) was implementedin order to generate and communicate knowledge on the protection of dogs and cats and to propose pathways for improving public policy. The French Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (FRCAW) is the expert body of OCAD. Its primary missions were to carry out an analysis of the current information on dogs and cats abandonment in France, and to: i) propose hypotheses on the causes of abandonment, ii) suggest additional data to be collected and actions to be carried out by OCAD members, and iii) propose hypotheses concerning the consequences of abandonment and the associated risk factors for animal welfare. Different types of abandonment were identified, each associated with a given set of negative consequences for the animals. These consequences are linked to the drastic change of environment and the restricted housing conditions in the shelter and/or pound. They can be aggravated mainly by particular practices of individual shelters and long stays of the animalin the shelter. However, abandonment can also have positive consequences for animals, especially when shelters provide them with a more suitable environment. The FRCAW suggests to i) map the practices employed in French shelters, ii) create a good practice guide for shelters to limit some of the negative consequences experienced by animals held in a shelter, and iii) carry out a risk analysis exercise to validate the hypotheses proposed.