Key insights from Adopt A Pet, Whistle, Wisdom Panel, and April Huntsman
In November 2024, Adopt A Pet partnered with Whistle and Wisdom Panel to study something we rarely get to measure clearly in animal sheltering: what dogs are doing throughout the day in the shelter, and how that changes once they are adopted. The project, presented by April Huntsman, followed dogs both before and after adoption using Whistle activity trackers and Wisdom Panel DNA testing.
If you work in an animal shelter or volunteer with a foster based animal rescue, this webinar is worth watching. In the meantime, here are the findings that felt most useful and most applicable to daily work.
Shelter Dog Activity vs Home Dog Activity
Why kennel behavior is not the full story
One of the big questions was whether shelter activity predicts activity in the home. The short answer: dogs often change a lot once they leave the shelter environment.
Here’s what stood out most:
- Activity changed after adoption across every size group.
- Activity was still shifting beyond 30 days post adoption, which means many dogs are still adjusting after the first month.
- Large dogs tended to calm down at home, while small dogs often became more active once adopted.
A simple way to use this in adoption counseling:
- If a large dog looks “too much” in the kennel, it may be a shelter response, not a forever personality.
- If a small dog seems quiet or shut down in the kennel, adopters should be ready for more energy once the dog settles in.
Senior Dogs in Animal Shelters
Rest is welfare, and the data backs that up
Senior dogs had some of the clearest changes in the entire study. Once adopted, they rested significantly more and moved significantly less.
The practical takeaways are straightforward:
- Senior dogs often rest a lot more once they get home.
- Shelter life likely makes it hard for seniors to get quality sleep, even when they look “calm.”
- Quiet space is not a luxury for seniors, it is a real welfare need.
Ways shelters and rescues can act on this:
- Prioritize seniors for quieter kennel areas when possible
- Use offices, foster homes, or quieter housing for seniors who are struggling
- Prepare adopters with one simple message: “You may see more sleeping at home. That can be normal recovery.”
Licking and Scratching in Shelter Dogs
What changes after adoption, and what it might mean
The Whistle trackers also picked up licking and scratching, which are behaviors many of us watch closely.
What the study found:
- Licking usually went down after adoption.
- A likely reason is that shelters often provide licking enrichment (Kongs, lick mats, frozen treats).
- Licking can also be a stress coping behavior, so a calmer environment may reduce it.
- Scratching sometimes went up after adoption, especially for some dogs.
- The webinar did not identify one clear cause, but possible reasons include baths, new detergents, exposure to yards or carpets, or allergies that become more obvious in a new environment.
This is a good reminder to document behavior patterns somewhere centralized. Whether you are using animal rescue software or animal shelter software, small notes become powerful when you can spot trends across time.
How Shelters Used Activity Trackers to Improve Daily Operations
Simple changes, real impact
One of the most encouraging parts of April’s webinar was how creative shelters got with this data. They were not just collecting numbers. They were using it to solve problems.
A few examples that stood out:
- Improving overnight sleep for a restless dog
- A small dog struggled to settle.
- Staff added a covered bed inside the kennel.
- The tracker showed a clear improvement in sleep almost immediately.
- Proving “quiet hour” helps dogs rest
- A shelter tested a midday downtime block with reduced kennel traffic.
- Trackers showed the dogs really were sleeping during that time.
- The shelter used the data to explain the policy to volunteers and the public.
- Making volunteer walking schedules more fair
- Some dogs were getting walked multiple times per day while others were overlooked.
- Trackers helped staff identify which dogs needed walks most.
If you have ever tried to advocate for more rest periods, more structured enrichment, or better walk distribution, having objective data makes those conversations much easier.
Using Wisdom Panel DNA Testing in Animal Rescue
Less about labels, more about visibility and connection
The Wisdom Panel portion of the work confirmed what many animal rescue teams already suspect: shelter dogs are often extremely mixed. The webinar shared examples of dogs with ten or more breeds in their results.
That made it difficult to tie “breed” to “activity,” but it did surface real benefits:
- DNA testing can help long stay dogs get noticed again, especially through social media “guess the breed” posts.
- It can reduce uncertainty for fosters and adopters when the dog’s makeup surprises everyone.
- Relative matching can create powerful outcomes, including one story where a dog returned to a shelter years later and was adopted because her sibling’s family saw a match through Wisdom Panel.
Breed is not the point. Attention is. A fresh story can be the difference between overlooked and adopted.
What This Means for Animal Shelters, Foster Based Rescues, and the Software They Use
This webinar reinforced a truth we come back to again and again in animal sheltering: shelter behavior is context dependent. Dogs are responding to noise, traffic, confinement, and inconsistent rest. Once they leave, their baseline often changes.
The opportunity here is simple. When we track what dogs are experiencing and pair it with good notes, we make better decisions.
Modern animal rescue software and animal shelter software can support that by helping teams:
- Track behavior patterns over time, not just in a single moment
- Document what helps a dog rest and regulate
- Communicate clearer expectations to adopters and fosters
- Create more equitable enrichment and volunteer workflows
For the full study walkthrough and shelter stories, watch the November 2024 webinar presented by April Huntsman, featuring Adopt A Pet, Whistle, and Wisdom Panel.