Greetings from Southampton

It’s been a busy but exciting week here at the Southampton Animal Shelter.  Several of us from CSD are here working on the MUII Behavior Evaluation Reliability Study.

Our goal is to complete 50 evaluations so that we have enough data to analyze; after 2.5 days, we are at 43 evaluations!  So looks like we will be able to wrap up on time on Thursday.  Tuesday was a very productive day, we completed 21 evaluations!  We were able to complete so many because we are conducting only the behavior evaluation and not the full Match-Up II program and this was the only thing we focused on.  Even so, it’s a lot and shows the power of planning for efficiency.  And practice, lots and lots of practice!

The staff here at Southampton have been great, they have been so enthusiastic about us being here.  Since Southampton is a CSD Shelter Partner and uses Match-Up II to evaluate their dogs, they are excited to see the results of this research too.

The dogs have been great fun too, we have enjoyed seeing so many new dogs.  And kudos to Naomi who has conducted all of the evaluations!

-Seana Dowling, Research Director at The Center for Shelter Dogs