Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff,  Second Edition

Edited by Lila Miller & Stephen Zawistowski

Wiley Blackwell Pub.,  2012.   709 pages,  paperback.  $84.99.

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Reviewed by Merritt Clifton

Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff,  Second Edition is a reference so useful and so essential that,  like the National Animal Control Association Training Guide, it belongs on the most convenient shelf of every animal shelter library––and if your shelter does not have a library,  nail up a shelf and start one with these two books.  Since Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff,  Second Edition is even available at Walmart,  it is easily accessible to almost anyone.

Future editions will likely be even more accessible,  in electronic editions and perhaps as an online reference reached via cloud connection,  but for the time being this is as good as it gets.

Assembled by American SPCA senior director of animal services and veterinary advisor Lila Miller and senior vice president andscience advisor Stephen Zawistowski,  the original edition of Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff was the closest approach yet to an encyclopedia of veterinary issues encountered in humane work.

The 37 contributors had a combined total of close to 1,000 years of experience in shelter clinics.  Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff,  Second Edition has more contributors,  with more than 1,500 years of experience in shelter clinics,  and has been expanded from 546 pages to 709 pages,  with full-color illustrations added.  Chapters cover all of the familiar humane conference workshop topics,  and much else that rarely gets workshop attention but comes up almost every day here at ANIMALS 24-7,  as shelter directors and vets scramble to deal with unforeseen emergencies by calling here to find out who has urgently needed information.

Among the more unusual but critical topic headings are “Legal Issues for Shelters,”  “Quality of Life, Stress, and Emotional Pain in Shelter Animals,”  “Disease Recognition & Diagnostic Testing,” “Strategies for Infectious Disease Management in a Shelter,”  “Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in a Population,”  “Veterinary Forensics,”  and “Forensic Toxicology.”

Is everything covered that needs to be?  Probably not.  The original edition of Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff was 14 years in development,  and this second edition represents another 10 years’ worth of accumulated know-how,  but veterinary knowledge has been expanding exponentially throughout this time.  What can be said is that Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians & Staff,  Second Edition,  covers more, in greater depth,  than in any other single volume.

 (See also A black-and-white issue that the humane community has yet to face.)

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