McDonald Shelby E, Sweeney Jessica, Niestat Laura, Doherty Colleen
Department of Strategy and Research, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New York, NY, United States.
Community Engagement Program, Department of Humane Law Enforcement, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New York, NY, United States.
Front Vet Sci. 2022 Feb 24;9:827348. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.827348. eCollection 2022.
Grooming is an essential health maintenance activity that is fundamental to the welfare of many companion animals. Despite the potentially serious consequences of inadequate grooming for pets and their caregivers, few studies have examined the role of access to pet grooming services and supplies in promoting and maintaining companion animal health and welfare. The goal of this paper was 2-fold: (1) To provide preliminary findings demonstrating the scope of grooming and matting concerns among animals served by a large, non-profit animal welfare organization and (2) to provide a call for research to guide effective prevention of and responses to grooming-related omissions of care. We retrospectively extracted data from five American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) programs serving the New York City area: ASPCA Animal Hospital (AAH), Community Medicine (CM), One ASPCA Fund, ASPCA-NYPD (New York City Police Department) Partnership, and the Community Engagement (CE) Program. The prevalence of grooming-related concerns was relatively consistent across all three veterinary service programs (AAH: 6%; CM: 4%; One ASPCA Fund: 6%). Thirteen percent of the ASPCA-NYPD Partnership's cruelty cases involved general hair matting concerns and/or strangulating hair mat wounds (93% were long-haired dog breed types). Five percent of CE cases received grooming-related supplies to support pet caregivers' in-home grooming capabilities. Our findings underscore the need to understand the scope of grooming-related concerns among animals served by veterinarians and other community programs to improve animals' access to health-related services.
梳理毛发是一项基本的健康维护活动，对许多伴侣动物的福祉至关重要。尽管梳理毛发不足可能会给宠物及其照顾者带来严重后果，但很少有研究探讨获得宠物梳理服务和用品在促进和维持伴侣动物健康及福祉方面的作用。本文的目标有两个：（1）提供初步研究结果，以证明一家大型非营利性动物福利组织所服务动物的毛发梳理和缠结问题的范围；（2）呼吁开展研究，以指导有效预防与梳理相关的护理疏忽并做出应对。我们回顾性地从美国防止虐待动物协会（ASPCA）在纽约市地区开展的五个项目中提取了数据：ASPCA动物医院（AAH）、社区医学（CM）、ASPCA一项基金、ASPCA-纽约警察局（NYPD）合作项目以及社区参与（CE）项目。在所有三个兽医服务项目中，与梳理毛发相关问题的发生率相对一致（AAH：6%；CM：4%；ASPCA一项基金：6%）。ASPCA-纽约警察局合作项目处理的虐待案件中有13%涉及一般毛发缠结问题和/或勒伤性毛发缠结伤口（93%为长毛犬品种）。CE项目中有5%的案例获得了与梳理毛发相关的用品，以支持宠物照顾者的家庭梳理能力。我们的研究结果强调，有必要了解兽医和其他社区项目所服务动物中与梳理毛发相关问题的范围，以改善动物获得健康相关服务的机会。
