Alexandra Protopopova

• MS, PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of British Columbia

Introduction The effect of drug use on physical health, mental wellbeing, and quality of life can extend to family members, including children, and even companion animals. People who use drugs, a medically vulnerable population, face stigma and shaming when accessing healthcare services that engender mistrust and hinder future access. Yet, in an em...

Introduction: Animals in shelters commonly experience fear, anxiety, and stress. Psychoactive medications and non-medication alternative options are recommended and used in shelters to manage these negative affective states, yet little is known about the current practices, perceptions, and barriers surrounding their use. Methods: This study investi...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255551.].

Introduction: Canine and feline dermatophytosis is challenging to manage in shelter settings because of its transmissibility, potential for zoonosis and labour-intensive treatment. An efficient and accurate initial diagnostic plan is essential to confirm infection, prevent outbreaks and ensure public safety. While quantitative polymerase chain reac...

The importation of rescue dogs has become an increasingly common occurrence in recent years, often involving industrialized countries as the ultimate destination. However, international dog rescue activities have attracted considerable criticism from the veterinary community and the public due to the associated zoonotic disease and public health ri...

Domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are the fourth most common species admitted to the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA) shelter system. However, shelter data analysis has largely focused on cats and dogs and little is known about the population dynamics of rabbits in shelters. We analyzed five years o...

Introduction: Adopters and animal shelter leaders are calling for higher equity in services provided by animal shelters to their communities. Specifically, restrictive pet adoption processes have been proposed as a threat to equitable service. The study had three specific goals: (1) to describe the basic characteristics of off-site adoption events,...

Introduction: Animal shelters consider return-to-owner (RTO) as an ideal outcome for animals, owners, and shelters. Methods to increase RTO likelihood are frequently discussed by shelter professionals nationwide. Some of these methods are evidence-based, while others are anecdotally successful. This retrospective study aimed to provide evidence for...

Data collected by animal shelters can provide an overview of population numbers and recommendations for shelter management and community programming. While studies utilize data from shelter software, questions remain on whether such data are reliable. The objective of the online experiment was to determine the agreement in data input for surrender...

Free-ranging dogs (FRDs) represent the largest population of dogs around the world. Their lives are not under direct human supervision and these dogs can be found in and around all possible forms of human habitation. Increased urbanization, poor population management measures and open garbage dumps have compounded their population over the years, l...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of daily gabapentin on behavior modification progression and signs of stress in fearful shelter cats from hoarding environments. ANIMALS 37 cats (32 met inclusion criteria). PROCEDURES Healthy fearful cats were entered into group (1) gabapentin or (2) placebo upon intake. Both groups received daily behavior modifi...

The ability of animal shelter employees to identify poor welfare states in kenneled dogs is crucial for the mitigation of suffering. Animal shelter employees (n = 28), animal behavior professional (n = 49), and the general public (n = 41) watched 10 videos of kenneled dogs then rated the welfare of the dogs, stated the rationale for their score, in...

As animals experience distress in animal shelters, leaders call for increased efforts to divert intake of companion animals away from shelters. One novel intake diversion strategy is supported self-rehoming, where owners find new homes for their animals without surrendering to a physical shelter. This study aimed to identify predictors of successfu...

Although the popularity of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) continues to increase, an examination of these practices among clinician populations that may incorporate AAI in their clinical services are largely absent from the literature. This study examined the practices and desirability of incorporating animals into ABA services. A total of 544...

This study used a two-part questionnaire to investigate consumer knowledge and attitudes toward bacteriophage applications in pet food, pet food safety, and environmental sustainability. Part 1 included questions about pet food safety, sustainability, and knowledge and attitudes toward bacteriophages. Next, participants reviewed educational materia...

Over 1 million dogs are imported into the United States and roughly 340,000 dogs into the United Kingdom yearly. Although the official number of dogs arriving to Canada is currently unknown, local animal professionals estimate that thousands of dogs are imported into Canada each year. Dog importation may be increasing globally while regulation and...

The ability to efficiently track animal behaviour in an animal shelter has direct lifesaving applications. However, monitoring behaviour is a challenge as time and financial resources are often limited, and the size and needs of animal populations within shelters are commonly in flux. Individualized care and early recognition of distress in cats ar...

In this chapter, the history and current philosophy surrounding adoption of companion animals out of shelters into new homes is discussed. The first part of the chapter considers the perspective of the adopter when choosing an animal, including research on what adopters are looking for when adopting and empirically based strategies, ranging from in...

Dogs are relinquished to animal shelters for animal-related or guardian-related reasons. Understanding what drives relinquishment patterns is essential for informing intervention opportunities to keep animals with their guardians. Whereas, overall reasons for relinquishment in a given shelter system have been well explored, analysis of human and an...

Whereas much research has been conducted on rats in their roles as pests and laboratory animal models, little is known about rats in their role as companion animals. However, rats have become the third most common companion animal admitted to the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA) shelter system after cats a...

With the increasing prevalence of technology, the internet is often the first step for potential pet owners searching for an adoptable dog. However, best practices for the online portrayal of shelter and foster dogs remain unclear. Different online photo backgrounds appearing on adoption websites for shelter dogs may impact adoption speed by influe...

There is increasing awareness among animal shelter professionals regarding the role of shelters in perpetuating inequities in pet ownership, although the relationship between owner vulnerabilities and animal shelter services is largely understudied. Currently, there is no literature comparing the sociodemographic conditions of communities where sur...

Previous research has focused on the benefits and difficulties of pet ownership in people, who are experiencing homelessness. However, many pet services, such as pet food banks, serve a more varied population of people. Furthermore, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been documented within the context of pet food banks. Vancouver's Downtow...

Objectives The aim of this study was to determine whether there was an increase in cat relinquishment for destructive scratching behavior, a change in overall feline surrender intake and euthanasia, or a change in average length of stay in a British Columbia shelter system after provincial legislation banning elective onychectomy. Methods Records...

With the increasing prevalence of technology, the internet is often the first step for potential pet owners searching for an adoptable dog. However, best practices for the online portrayal of shelter and foster dogs remain unclear. Different online photo backgrounds appearing on adoption websites for shelter dogs may impact adoption speed by influe...

United States’ animal shelters take in 3.2 million cats per year. Caged cats likely experience stressful situations during their stay at an animal shelter. However, a feasible and efficient way to determine which cats will be at the highest risk for severe stress, and subsequent health and behavior deterioration, is needed. We aimed to determine wh...

Synopsis Recent natural disasters and weather extremes are a stark reminder that we live in a climate crisis. Climate scientists and policymakers have asked each discipline to anticipate and create mitigation and adaptation plans in preparation for a worsening future. Companion animals both impact and are impacted by the changing climate through th...

Animal shelters provide an ideal environment for the spread of disease. Dogs are often housed in close quarters with others of unknown vaccine histories, and experience high levels of sustained stress. As a result, Canine Infection Respiratory Disease (CIRD) is often prevalent and difficult to control. The aims of this study were to (1) identify sp...

Animal shelter employees are in a unique position where they care for, and later kill, the same animals. The aim of our exploratory study was to assess whether “caring” and/or “killing” evokes physiological and psychometric indicators of stress in employees. Experiment 1 compared three careers that kill regularly, but involve varying degrees of hus...

A growing number of studies make claims about canine sociability in both applied and basic contexts. Yet, there is currently no standard for measuring sociability in dogs. The purpose of this two-part study was to determine whether procedural differences among canine sociability tests would affect dogs’ behavior. In Experiment 1, we used a mixed-su...

Simple Summary Researchers create and validate interventions to improve life-saving measures in animal shelters; however, if the animal shelters are not capable of integrating these new interventions into their existing procedures, then the benefit of research is lost. Therefore, research is also needed to assess not only the efficacy of the interv...

Approximately a quarter of dogs and cats in animal shelters in the United States are euthanized. The stress associated with having to care for animals they subsequently euthanize puts animal shelter workers at a high risk for compassion fatigue, burnout, and even suicide. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between a shelter...

Individual variability is evident in behavior and physiology of animals. Determining whether behavior at intake may predict subsequent illness in the animal shelter may influence the management of dogs housed at animal shelters and reduce overall disease. While normally associated with mild disease and low mortality rates, respiratory disease never...

This study compared contingent and noncontingent access to therapy dogs during educational tasks for children with autism spectrum disorder using a multielement design. The experimenters assessed whether initial preference for the dog predicted reinforcer efficacy and how preference changed across time. A higher response rate during contingent dog...

Over-activity, or excessive locomotion and barking in the kennel, may be unattractive to adopters and an indicator of poor welfare of kenneled dogs. The study assessed the efficacy of two common enrichment strategies, providing calm interaction and additional exercise, on in-kennel behavior in 16 shelter dogs. Both interventions resulted in appropr...

This study involved examining the ability of a postadoption intervention to reduce returns of newly adopted dogs to shelters by encouraging physical activity between adopters and their dogs. Guardians in the intervention group received emails with dog behavior and human activity advice as well as invitations to join weekly dog walks. Both the inter...

Each year, nearly 4 million dogs will enter one of over 13,000 animal shelters operating in the United States. We review programmes implemented at shelters aimed at increasing the likelihood of adoption. The morphology of shelter dogs plays a large role in in-kennel adopter selection, but their behaviour is also influential in out-of-kennel adopter...

Research in the cognitive abilities of animals spans a vast array of species from invertebrates to primates, as well as cognitive domains, including social cognition, object permanence, fairness, and cognitive biases. Whereas ultimate causes are often explored and investigated in detail, proximate causes, such as learning effects, are often neglect...

Currently, visitor behavior in companion animal shelters is not adequately explored. A sequence of experiments investigated how visitors interacted with kenneled dogs at an animal shelter and whether training dogs to not engage in undesirable behavior in their kennels would evoke more interest from shelter visitors. In a set of two experiments, two...

The aim of this study was to develop a humane alternative to the traditional remote devices that deliver punishers contingent on home-alone dog barking. Specifically, we evaluated the use of remote delivery of food contingent on intervals of not barking during the pet owner's absence. In Experiment 1, 5 dogs with a history of home-alone nuisance ba...

Previous empirical evaluations of training programs aimed at improving dog adoption rates assume that dogs exhibiting certain behaviors are more adoptable. However, no systematic data are available to indicate that the spontaneous behavior of shelter dogs has an effect on adopter preference. The aim of the present study was to determine whether any...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether dogs that exhibit stereotypy also show higher behavioral persistence in an extinction-learning task. Thirteen pet dogs with stereotypy and 13 breed-matched control dogs were assessed on a resistance to extinction test. Each dog was trained for 40 trials using a food reinforcer to nose-touch the e...

The aim of the present study was to increase adoption rates of dogs housed in shelters. Previous research suggests that the public perceives friendly and sociable dogs as more adoptable. The present study hypothesized that dogs trained to gaze into potential adopters’ eyes would be perceived as more attractive and would therefore have a greater lik...