At the Society for Companion Animal Studies (SCAS) we love companion animals but on this National Dog Day 2022, we want to focus on dogs!
Those of us fortunate enough to share our lives with a dog are the lucky ones. They enrich our lives, make us laugh, motivate us to take more exercise and offer unconditional love. Many research studies have reported health benefits from living with a dog. Dog ownership and particularly dog walking help to connect people in neighbourhoods. You and your dog will enrich the social connections in your community that increase getting to know people, making friends and social support.
There are many people who would love to have a dog in their life but their housing situation just doesn’t allow it. Access to pet-friendly housing is such an important topic, which impacts so many people, that SCAS have made it their number 1 priority over the last year holding webinars, educating stakeholders, funding new research and raising awareness of this topic through campaigns, partnerships and through media.
This year’s SCAS Annual Conference, Pet Friendly Housing: How can we keep people and pets together? will focus on the challenges of pet restrictive housing and potential solutions. We hope you can join us for this exciting (online) event on 18th September 2022! Don’t worry if you are not in the same time zone as the UK as the conference will be recorded. Register now and you can watch the conference at a time that suits you.
It’s a great opportunity for like-minded people to come together to hear the latest science and practice on a topic that’s important to our relationship with dogs and other pets, supporting the bond to ensure people and their companion animals stay together. International speakers at the forefront of research, policy, and education will help us learn about the latest advances in science as well as encouraging collaboration between researchers, healthcare professionals, and housing stakeholders who play key roles in improving access to pet-friendly accommodation.
Our speakers at this year’s Conference are some of the world’s leading experts in Pets and Housing Issues including Lord Richard Stuart Best, member of the UK House of Lords, together with Dr. Bruce Moore, CEO of Housing 21, who worked together for many years at Anchor/Hanover Housing who have always had a pet friendly policy; Gilly Mendes Ferreira, Head of Education and Policy, Scottish SPCA will speak about their current Pets & Tenants Together advocacy campaign; and, Dr. Lindsey Braun, of the Human-Animal Bond Research Institute, will help us learn from other countries by presenting on working with property managers as allies to ease restrictions on rental housing in the US to strengthen the human-animal bond. She will be one of several researchers from the US, UK and Australia speaking on understanding both landlord and tenant perspectives in pet-friendly rental housing. Grantees will present the findings of their SCAS funded research at the conference along with other stakeholders, all working to increase access to pet-friendly housing.
If you work in human-animal interactions (HAI), or the health or housing sectors and would like to hear the latest evidence-based research from academics, supported by case studies, or if you’d like to know more about SCAS and our work, please be sure to visit our conference webpage and book a place online. Take out SCAS membership now to receive a discounted conference registration as well as other benefits such as free access to monthly SCAS webinars throughout the year from expert speakers.
We hope you will join us at this year’s conference on 18th September. Looking forward to “seeing” you there! Book a place here.
Please remember that you can also join the SCAS social media community by following us on Facebook and Twitter. Social media posts can be followed by using our conference hashtag #SCAS2022