What Skills Do You Need?
Responsible care of dogs and cats involves not only showing knowledge of their basic physical requirements, but a commitment to ensuring their welfare 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. So what are the skills that you need to learn and put into practise in order to care responsibly for a domestic animal?
Any person who owns or is in charge of animals has a responsibility to ensure that:
- Appropriate food and drinkable water is provided.
- Housing and living spaces are safe, comfortable and allow for the animal’s natural behaviours.
- The animal is adequately cared for in differing weather conditions.
- Opportunities to exhibit normal behaviour are provided which include exercise, play, and socialization with conspecifics (if appropriate) or people.
- Handling and transportation methods and equipment are safe and do not cause excessive stress, pain, injury or discomfort.
- The animal’s health is monitored regularly to prevent illness or disease and any injuries, illnesses or diseases are treated promptly and with veterinary support.
Activity 2.3 – Applying the Skills
What have you learned about the care requirements of animals – specifically cats and dogs? Do you think you could start to take care of one?
Keeping in mind the list of skills you have just reviewed above, complete the following activity. Note that, unless indicated otherwise by your teacher, this is a graded activity. Be sure to carefully follow the instructions carefully.
Instructions
- Review the volunteer advertisement provided below.
- Enter your answers to the questions in the Module 2 Booklet.
- Save the completed PDF document to your course folder.
