Why is the housing of animals important?

The housing of animals in veterinary clinics is a major component of their care for a number of reasons:

• Owners may judge the quality of the clinic by the state of the place their animal is kept
• The animal must be kept safe from harm from items such as sharp edges
• The animal must be kept safe from other animals
• Control of diseases and infection is vital so enclosures should be designed to minimise potential of disease spread (e.g. no shared drains)
• Should be easy to clean to improve hygiene standards
• Animals need to be kept at a comfortable temperature in order to aid recovery and support health
• Should be adequate to keep a stressed animal in an unfamiliar environment confined
• Should ideally be ergonomically efficient for staff needing to clean and access the enclosures
• Need to take into account health and safety of staff entering and exiting enclosures
• Ideally should reduce noise in the clinic to reduce the sound level for staff safety, support staff concentration and wellbeing, and minimise stress to other animals
• Reducing stress in animals is both best practice care and will aid their recovery

So, when setting up a clinic facility, space, location, safety, ergonomics, materials, size, layout and sound should all be taken into account.

Most states have specific legislation or policies set out by their veterinary board about the required facilities in any veterinary practice but few of them relate to any specific design of kennel or enclosure standards.

There are also accreditation programmes that establish best practice principles from various bodies such as Fear Free and Cat–Friendly Clinic. These documents have been used to provide some overarching guidelines.