National Chung Hsing University's University Social Responsibility (USR) Project took foreign experts and scholars on a tour of Taichung Animal Shelter, where they introduced the current state of animal sheltering in the US and shared their shelter animal welfare experience. The visitors also provided various professional recommendations concerning the current state of operations at the city's Nantun and Houli animal shelter, and praised the attention to animal welfare and forward-looking attitude of the city's animal shelters. Although the visits lasted only one day, they inspired renewed attention to animal protection, making this instance of international experience sharing very successful.

The visits included discussion of such aspects as lines of movement for entering animals, quarantine isolation, veterinary care, internal shelter management, environmental and social enrichment, and adoption procedures. The visitors also provided their professional recommendations concerning shelter veterinary management and shelter planning concepts consistent with animal welfare. The Taichung Animal Shelter must secure funding from the Ministry of Agriculture and Taichung City Government on an annual basis, and these funds can be used for general planning of animal lines of motion, animal pen ventilation and lighting, planning of independent activity space reflecting dogs and cats characteristics, upgrading of treatment and surgery rooms, and purchase of additional veterinary equipment at the city's two animal shelter campuses. In addition, the Animal Shelter continues to seek the support of various professionals in training shelter personnel in such aspects as simple pet grooming, basic dog training, and environmental enrichment. The Shelter further enlists the assistance of animal protection volunteers and private groups in cooperative adoption activities and education and awareness events, which are serving to spread the animal welfare concept from the animal shelters to every corner of the city.

In addition, these rare visits also highlighted that the stray animal problem is not limited to Taiwan, and let everyone know that kindness to animals is a shared international ideal. We would like to thank the visiting experts for generously providing their knowledge and encouragement, which greatly benefited the city's animal shelters. Because the bonds between humans and animals grow ever closer, the animal welfare concept continues to grow in importance. The Taichung City Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office welcomes contact by all concerned parties, and hopes to rely on joint public-private efforts to transform Taichung into an animal-friendly city, where humans and animals can coexist in peace and happiness.