The broad objective of this proposal is two-fold: to provide life-saving general practice level care to shelter/rescue owned animals and provide clinical training opportunities for shelter medicine interns and veterinary students. Specific aims include 1) supervised clinical training of interns and students in general practice surgery, dentistry, and medical procedures; 2) enhanced understanding for trainees of shelter medical decision-making processes, including Pet Evaluation Matrices, shelter missions, and financial constraints; 3) discussion and implementation of acceptable/reasonable treatment options in general practice for disease conditions, rather than tertiary care
or “gold standard” approaches; 4) enhanced adoptability and welfare for qualifying shelter/rescue owned animals; 5) data collection of demographic, experiential and performance and outcomes data on patients and trainees; and 6) potential publication regarding outcomes in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education or Frontiers in Veterinary Science.