Narrator: This is Science Today. Behavior is a very significant reason for the breakdown of the human-animal bond and one of the primary reasons animals end up in shelters. Kate Hurley, director of Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of California, Davis, says animals with behavior problems – whether it’s urination in the house or aggression with other people – are the hardest animals to place.

Hurley: If the original owner didn’t want to work with that behavior problem, now that animal is subjected to the stressful shelter environment and then you try and place it in a new home with that behavioral problem and someone who wants to take that on and that can be very challenging to find those homes.

Narrator: UC Davis, along with other schools around the country, is starting to address shelter medicine by dealing with behavioral problems and treating sick animals while still in the shelter environment.

Hurley: We have to figure out how to have a cat not catch a cold in an animal shelter and in figuring that out, that could literally save hundreds of thousands of lives every year and these are young, healthy animals with their whole lives ahead of them.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.