\n<\/p>\n
Under the category of shelter operations, the guidelines address areas such as accountability, record-keeping, staffing and training, security, emergency preparedness and resource management.<\/p>\n
As a minimum standard, the guidelines stipulate that the maximum number of animals kept at any one time should be appropriate for the shelter\u2019s premises.<\/p>\n
“Shelters should know what care they can provide based on their resources (for example, the number of staff) before taking in animals, to reduce the animals\u2019 stay time,” the guidelines stated.<\/p>\n
Shelters should also, at the minimum, have a clear financial plan to manage the expected income and costs for the next six to 12 months.<\/p>\n
There should be exit plans if the shelter ceases operations, such as adequate funds to meet the costs of closure and remuneration for staff, and plans for the ongoing care of the animals. Financial accounts and records should be maintained according to the prevailing legal requirements, the guidelines stated.<\/p>\n
The guidelines also set out recommended practices for animal housing and environmental conditions, as well as feeding, exercise, enrichment, socialisation and animal handling.<\/p>\n
On healthcare, the guidelines cover health monitoring, disease prevention and access to veterinary care and treatment.<\/p>\n
Animals should be inspected at least once a day to monitor their health and well-being, with prompt veterinary attention sought for significant illnesses, injuries or diseases.<\/p>\n
Each shelter should also engage a veterinarian to oversee a written disease prevention and healthcare programme, while every animal should go through a veterinary health check at least once a year.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question about the lack of legal teeth, Mr Tan said: \u201cWe’ve worked very closely with (animal welfare groups) over the years to ensure that we’ve gotten their feedback to establish these guidelines as well as these operational best practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo AVS works very closely with them to formulate these guidelines and now to partner with them to apply these guidelines in their operations.\u201d
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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WHAT THE GUIDELINES SAY Under the category of shelter operations, the guidelines address areas such as accountability, record-keeping, staffing and training, security, emergency preparedness and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--5HqLhWRx--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/08\/28\/jia_0948.jpg?itok=Fp_8spFH","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[829,6341,9740,11614,2217,4076,4131,798,40,12169],"class_list":["post-80265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-animal","tag-avs","tag-capacity","tag-exit","tag-guidelines","tag-including","tag-launches","tag-max","tag-plans","tag-shelter","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}