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Kaitlyn Carhart
Mrs. DeBock
English 4
8 March 2016
Essential Question: Are animals living in a healthy environment?
Working Thesis: Depending on how long an animal is staying in a shelter, the environment
around them should be clean, disinfected and safe for each and every animal.
Refined Thesis: Sanitation in animal shelters must be properly done and executed efficiently to
maintain the healthy care for all animals and workers in these shelters.
Annotated Bibliography
"Sanitation in the Animal Shelter - Petfinder." Petfinder Sanitation in the Animal Shelter
Comments. Lila Miller, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.
The article Sanitation in the Animal Shelter by Lila Miller portrays the sanitation in
animals shelters, why it is overlooked and how they try to manage it. Poor sanitation is
frequently overlooked as one of the main contributing factors to the spread of disease in animal
shelters. It is virtually impossible to kill all diseases in a shelter. Some disease organisms are
highly resistant to the disinfectant and therefore the problem is not resolved. In some cases,
animal shelters have a shortage of workers or overcrowding occurs which makes it tempting for
employees to take shortcuts when cleaning. This problem should be avoided, more time should
be devoted to cleaning so that infection, diseases and germs do not spread rapidly or at all. There
are many steps to cleaning that can be adopted into all animal shelters. Some of these steps are;
removing the animal from the cage or mat for proper cleaning, use hot water and soap to clean
cage (hot water kills bacteria) and in order to prevent the spread of disease, cleaning and

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disinfecting equipment should be moved around the facility. This article was chosen because it
expresses how poor sanitation is a problem in animal shelters.
"This Could Happen Anywhere." PsycEXTRA Dataset (n.d.): n. pag. 25 May 2011. Web. 3 Mar.
2016.
In this powerpoint This Could Happen Anywhere it states that all animal shelters
should uphold a clean and healthy living environment. Proper cleaning and disinfection
practices help in reducing the transmission of infectious diseases to both animals and people, and
result in a cleaner and healthier environment. A clean shelter adds many benefits and increases
the comfort level for the animals staying there. Although there are positives to a clean shelter,
there are dangers of poor sanitation. If chemicals used as disinfectants do not work, then they end
up being a waste of money. If sanitation is not clean at all times, diseases can spread like
wildfire. If the wrong chemicals are used, it can cause toxicity in animals and the workers.
Workers must know exactly what to sanitize and the right way to sanitize it. The main purpose
for upholding such a clean shelter is for the care of the animals in the facility. If animals catch
diseases or get infections, they are no longer adoptable simply due to the poor cleaning done by
the workers, or lack thereof. This article was chosen because it lists the upsides as well as the
downsides to sanitation, it also includes step by step how to properly clean the shelter.
"Sanitation in Animal Shelters." - UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program. N.p., n.d. Web. 17
Mar. 2016.
The article Sanitation in Animal Shelters the author developed a well formed sanitation
plan. This plan includes the safe haven and care for animals brought in with or without illnesses.
Cleaning and disinfecting agents must be safe, cost effective and practical. The staff must be well
trained in order to maintain the safety and cleanliness for the animals. The focus is on cleaning

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cat cages and dog kennels, however, germs are tracked by human and animal traffic through the
shelter so sanitation procedures go far beyond. Germs are spread by hand, so therefor, a thorough
cleaning of all things that are affected by germs must be cleaned. High contact surfaces, surfaces
that will touch juvenile animals or those not protected by vaccination and surfaces that have had
contact with an ill animal must all be cleaned thoroughly. This article was chosen for the proper
and efficient plan created by the author for manageable sanitation steps that should be followed
in all animal shelters.