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Road to Research
The start of my journey was a rocky one. Over the summer before beginning the research class, I had looked into several potential subjects, but none of them really struck me as something I wanted to pursue for the rest of the year. The topics I had looked into required too much up front knowledge/skills that I did not possess, or were too large scale for me to complete within a year.
"Dog portrait 3" by Tambako the Jaguar is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
I took a bit of a U-turn as I considered other topics. After talking over potential topics with Mrs. Dobos, we came up with the idea of researching the adoption patterns of dogs in animal shelters. I originally wanted to study the adoptability of dogs in animal shelter based on breed, but upon further research I quickly realized that this research had already been done. I had found one paper in particular that very extensively covered the adoption patterns of a provincial shelter in Canada (Factors Influencing Time to Adoption for Dogs in a Provincial Shelter System in Canada).
After doing more research, I found the AVMA data sheet (AVMA Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook) that included the dog ownership rates across several states in the US. From here, I considered taking a look at how different locations and their differing ownership rates could affect adoption patterns. Yet, after looking at just how many shelters were located in just Colorado, I realized that I would need to further narrow my topic.
AVMA Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook
Detailed Assessment of Pet Ownership Rates in Four Underserved Urban and Rural Communities in the United States
Luckily, I found another study (Detailed Assessment of Pet Ownership Rates in Four Underserved Urban and Rural Communities in the United States) that found that the ownership rates of dogs varied significantly from the AVMA estimates in urban and rural areas. With this knowledge, I decided to focus my research on the differences between adoption patterns in urban and rural areas in Colorado.
I decided to borrow the methodology used in another study (Effects of phenotypic characteristics on the length of stay of dogs at two no kill animal shelters) in order to analyze the data in my own research. After refining my method to choose shelters and collect data, I got my research approved, and officially began my research journey.
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