Author Dr David L Williams

 
Have you walked past people on the streets of your town living with a dog by their side and stopped to chat to them and give their companion a stroke? Or maybe walked past wondering whether it really is appropriate for homeless people to own a pet?

A past vet student at Cambridge, who had grown up in Liverpool with many more homeless people than we have in Cambridge, worked with me to ask homeless people about their pets and give them a clinical examination. How healthy were these animals and what was the standard of their welfare? Remarkably good it turned out, and equal or often better than the dogs owned by people living in homes which we also interviewed and examined.

You might be interested to read our paper, recently published in the new online journal ‘Pet Behaviour Science’ and available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299507221_The_health_and_welfare_of_dogs_owned_ by_homeless_people

 

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