Proposal talk:Animal shelters and animal boarding facilities

Split the proposal into amenity=animal_shelter and amenity=animal_boarding

Resolved

Because many users from UK in tagging mailing list asked to distinguish between animal_boarding and animal_shelter, I ask how many of you agree with this proposal.
Tags would become something like:

• amenity=animal_shelter + animal_shelter:adoption=<species> or animal_shelter:release=<species> for facilities that respectively give animals in adoption and ones that release animals in nature;
  
• amenity=animal_boarding + animal_boarding=<species> for facilities that board animals.
  

We could also use the key animal_boarding=<species> to specify that a facility offers boarding service (e.g. amenity=veterinary + animal_boarding=cat;dog).
In the case of a boarding kennel it would be tagged with amenity=animal_boarding + animal_boarding=dog.
A mixed kennel that do both adoption and boarding should be tagged according to the main purpose. Subkeys should specify the secondary purpose. Something like: amenity=animal_shelter + animal_shelter:adoption=dog + animal_boarding=dog. --Viking81 12:32, 22 September 2012 (BST)

You can use {{vote|yes/no}} to vote here.

• I oppose this proposal. - May have merit for more specialised cases, but adds complexity, and no more information in the most common cases of amenity=kennel, or amenity=cattery. --Peter Reed 22:28, 21 September 2012 (BST)

Here I ask if you want to split animal_shelter in animal_shelter and animal_boarding, as someone else asked me. I have noted your position, but it isn't the correct section to vote: you oppose the whole proposal, not only the splitting. --Viking81 12:32, 22 September 2012 (BST)

Come on - a voting for splitting the proposal? Sorry, but I have to ignore this. Back to the discussion: as it was pointed out a few times it would be better to split the tags. So lets do that. I would suggest the following which is more or less identical to the aforementioned tagging, but I added some additional comments:

• amenity=animal_boarding: a facility that boards animal. Use the key animal_boarding to specify what kind of animals are boarded. Only be used if this is the main purpose of the facility. If animal boarding is just an additional service provided by this facility use a different key to provide the main purpose and additionally the key animal_boarding, e.g. a veterinary that also provides boarding for cats and dogs can be tagged like amenity=veterinary + animal_boarding=cat;dog
• animal_boarding=<animals>: list of animals - english, singular form and separated by semi-colons - which are boarded in this facility
• amenity=animal_shelter: an animal shelter is a place where injured or abandoned animals are taken to be cared for. Use the key animal_shelter to specify what kind of animals are taken. Only be used if this is the main purpose of the facility. If animal shelter is just an additional service provided by this facility use a different key to provide the main purpose and additionally the key animal_shelter, e.g. a veterinary that also takes injured cats and dogs can be tagged like amenity=veterinary + animal_shelter=cat;dog
• animal_shelter=<animals>: list of animals - english, singular form and separated by semi-colons - which are taken in this facility
• animal_shelter:adoption=yes|no|<animals>: Use yes if the facility gives animals into adoption, otherwise no. If the list of animals that are given into adoption is different from the list given in animal_shelter (or this key is not given at all) specify instead a list of animals in the same way as for the key animal_boarding.
• animal_shelter:release=yes|no|<animals>: identical to animal_shelter:adoption but for facilities that release animals in nature.

Comments? --Imagic 16:09, 24 September 2012 (BST)

Why not a vote? I would like other opinions.

By the way, yuor description is fine by me. --Viking81 21:26, 24 September 2012 (BST)

animal shelter is not a boarding kennel

Resolved

An animal shelter is *not* the same as a boarding kennel. An animal shelter is a place where injured or abandoned animals are taken to be cared for. Pets that recover may be rehomed, wild animals that recover may be released. A boarding kennel or cattery is a place owner pay to leave their animals for a short time and return to collect them. It is a very, *very* bad idea to call a boarding kennel an animal shelter, they are very different and separate tag keys should be used Chillly 12:01, 20 September 2012 (BST)

Our old problem: we need more feedback from native speakers who are familiar with the topic on hand. Thanks for pointing that out. Would there be some common term that covers boarding kennels and animal shelters? Or should we just use two different keys? --Imagic 12:23, 20 September 2012 (BST)

I am a native speaker. They are different things and need two separate keys. Chillly 13:36, 20 September 2012 (BST)

It has been pointed out on the Tagging mailing list that the term Animal Shelter is totally inappropriate for a place that boards animals whilst the owner goes on holiday. Businesses who run boarding kennels or catteries would be horrified to see their buisness tagged as an animal shelter on OSM. --trig222 13:20, 20 September 2012 (BST)

We are looking for a general tag that comprehends all facilities that can host animals of any kind and for any purpose.

Why do we need a single tag? They are different places with different purposes. You have asked native speakers of their opinion, and we keep telling you this will never be adopted by native speakers in the UK. In fact many people in the UK would consider this proposal offensive and upsetting. You would not tag a hotel and a homeless shelter, even though they both provide food and somewhere to sleep for homo-sapiens. --trig222 19:02, 20 September 2012 (BST)

The use of a single general tag has been requested by some users at the beginning of the discussion on tagging mailing list. I agree with them and now I explain you why.

• First of all (I repeat it once again, maybe you will read what I'm writing) there are facilities (in Italy they are common) where the purposes are mixed: with a general tag and with proper subkeys you can correctly describe every situation in the world.
• Another reason to have a general tag could be to find with a simple search where animals are kept within a region. Imagine you have to prevent the spreading of an illness that affects cats: you are looking for every facilities that keeps cats regardless of the reason why they are there. Or imagine that a flooding is coming in a region: it would be useful to find quickly where animals are kept to plan their evacuation, and once again it doesn't matter the reason why they are kept there.

This case is similar to highway=steps. Steps are very different from an highway and nobody in real world would define a flight of steps an highway. By the way a general tag in OSM is useful, so it's accepted to tag steps with the highway key, specifying that they are steps.

In the UK, a highway is any public right of way. It has nothing to do with motorised traffic. Footpaths across fields are highways, and if the footpath has steps, then steps are a highway.

In the same way, here we propose to tag places that boards animals as amenity=animal_shelter specifying they offers boarding service with animal_shelter:boarding=<species>. It is not offensive for anybody, you have only to read the definition.

By the way in future someone could unify hotel and homeless shelter in a key like amenity=human_shelter specifying human_shelter=hotel or human_shelter=homeless. But probably there is no reason to do that because effectively hotels and homeless shelters are always in separate places. --Viking81 00:44, 21 September 2012 (BST)

Maybe animal shelter doesn't sound very good in some cases, but it is the most general definition we found.
It is not true that boarding kennels and adoption kennels are very different. Here in Italy it is very common that the same kennel offers boarding and adoption. A worldwide definition must be open to all cases.
In the definition something tagged as:
amenity=animal_shelter + animal_shelter:boarding=dog is a boarding kennel, not a wildlife rescue center that would be:
amenity=animal_shelter + animal_shelter:release=wildlife
But the power of the general definition is that you can correctly describe any mixed case without creating a dedicated key for each case.
For example you can describe a facility that recover stray dogs and gives them in adoption while it offers boarding for dogs and cats. Or a facility that recovers any type of wounded animals, including stray dogs, then it gives dogs and cats in adoption while rehabilitates and releases wild animals. --Viking81 14:46, 20 September 2012 (BST)

amenity=animal_shelter or animal=shelter?

Resolved

I report this post from the discussion on tagging mailing list:

I also think that "amenity=animal_shelter" with other tags to indicate kinds of animals goes in the sense of OSM tagging.

Things like "animal=shelter" are nonsense: a shelter is not an animal, whereas an animal_shelter is an amenity.

To set a general rule of thumb, for those tags that are not boolean properties (yes/no), the value ("animal_shelter") shall be an item from the set represented by the key ("amenity").

Teuxe

I completely agree with Teuxe. --Viking81 08:12, 15 September 2012 (BST)

Species of animals accepted in the shelter

Resolved

Originally we think to simply add a tag that indicates the species accepted, like dog=yes, cat=yes, horse=yes.
But I report these posts from the discussion on tagging mailing list:

there is at least one big problem: for "horse" this doesn't work, as it is already in use for legal access-restrictions (bridleways, ...).

Martin

To remove ambiguities related to short tags like "horse=yes", why not using another set of specific tags indicating whether a kind of animal is accepted in the shelter, like "animal_shelter:dog=yes", "animal_shelter:cat=yes", "animal_shelter:horse=yes" and so on, maybe refining the attribute "yes" by something more useful?

Teuxe

The current proposal follows Teuxe's suggestion for specific tags like animal_shelter:dog=yes, animal_shelter:horse=yes. -- Viking81 08:38, 15 September 2012 (BST)

How about a subkey to bundle all animals, e.g. something like "animal_shelter:for:<animal>=yes/no" ? If one needs a list of all accepted animal, one could simply get all keys starting with "animal_shelter:for:" --Imagic 15:35, 16 September 2012 (BST)

The current proposal is "animal_shelter:<animal>=yes/no": it doesn't contain the word "for", but it has the same purpose as your proposal. To have a list of all accepted animals you search for all keys starting with "animal_shelter:". According to me, to add "for" is an unnecessary complication. Considering next step, to specify the reason why animals are kept in the shelter (see below), I would avoid too much complexity in the key. --Viking81 21:24, 16 September 2012 (BST)

Currently there isn't a problem, but as soon as someone needs a subkey for refinement, you'll have one. If we use a subkey for the list of animals from the start we could avoid this. --Imagic 07:34, 17 September 2012 (BST)

You are right, but if you read next topic, it is proposed to use a subkey like animal_shelter:dog:adoption=yes and animal_shelter:dog:boarding=yes or alternatively animal_shelter:dog=adoption;boarding. How can we use the "for" subkey without creating confusion? A subkey animal_shelter:for:dog=adoption;boarding will be used correctly by majority of people? The other question that I ask also below, it is allowed to put multiple values in a key (i.e. "adoption;boarding") and will it be supported by presets in editors and by route planning? --Viking81 08:25, 17 September 2012 (BST)

I didn't mean to put the purpose in the same key, just to use a subkey to be future-proof. (Multiple values for a tag are documented but not very popular.) Don't get me wrong: I don't think this is a big problem, certainly not a show stopper, just a small glitch, which might create a real problem in the future.

In the link you posted it says it is better to do not use semicolon separated values because very few applications will handle them. With yuor proposal it would become animal_shelter:for:dog:adoption=yes and animal_shelter:for:dog:boarding=yes. Isn't it too complicated for a common user? I prefer to put the purpose in the same subkey where you specify the species, otherwise you need another subkey for the purposes for each species. Otherwise how would you introduce the purposes values for each species? --Viking81 09:33, 17 September 2012 (BST)

All my comments refer to the proposal as it is right now! Right now the purpose of the shelter is not specified. What I suggest is to replace animal_shelter:dog=yes by animal_shelter:for:dog=yes. If we put the purpose in the same tag, the ":for" might not necessary. --Imagic 13:39, 17 September 2012 (BST)

Two things to consider: 1) Proposed_features/Extended_conditions_for_access_tags was rejected (also) because it proposed variable keys. If you put the animal into the key you create variable keys. 2) Proposed_features/Conditional_restrictions uses the semi-colon to separate multiple values for a single key. As far as I know, no one complained about that fact and it seems that the proposal gets accepted. --Imagic 06:05, 20 September 2012 (BST)

You almost convinced me about the use of semicolon. There's only a problem: how can we push applications' developers to support semicolon? On the wiki it says that most OSM applications handle multiple semicolon separated values as a single string and they don't render them on maps. --Viking81 10:51, 20 September 2012 (BST)

I DO think semi-colons are a problem if they are used for tags for which multiple values separated by semi-colons where not specified from the very beginning. If they ARE specified right from the beginning, developers know they have to handle it for this tag. So in our case I don't think this is a problem. --Imagic 12:18, 20 September 2012 (BST)

Reason why animals are kept in the shelter

Resolved

It should be useful to specify the reson why animals are kept in the shelter, i.e. to recover stray pets and then make them adopted by new owners, to board pets while their owners go on holiday, to rehabilitate and release wounded wild animals, and so on.
It is possible that the same facility keeps animals for multiple purposes. For example in Italy it happens for kennels: some of them recover stray dogs and give them up for adoption, but they also board owned dogs.
According to the reason why an animal species is kept in the shelter, we can specify attributes like adoption, boarding, release.
We could use tags like animal_shelter:dog:adoption=yes/no, animal_shelter:dog:boarding=yes/no, animal_shelter:wildlife:release=yes/no and so on for other species.
In this way for example if you know that a kennel recovers stray dogs and boards dogs, you should tag it with amenity=animal_shelter, animal_shelter:dog:adoption=yes and animal_shelter:dog:boarding=yes.
If you don't know the purpose of a kennel you just tag it with amenity=animal_shelter and animal_shelter:dog=yes.
If you don't know neither the species kept in a shelter, you just tag it with amenity=animal_shelter.

Or maybe it would be better to tag a kennel that gives stray dogs up for adoption but it also boards owned dogs with amenity=animal_shelter and animal_shelter:dog=adoption;boarding?
Which solution would be correctly interpreted by route planning software? --Viking81 09:13, 15 September 2012 (BST)

If you don't use the semicolon to separate values you will end up with a lot of tags. Just assume a facility that offers boarding and adoption for cats, dogs and rabbits. You will end up (depending on where to put purpose and animal) with five or six tags. If you use the key animal_shelter:<purpose>=<animal(s)> you need two: animal_shelter:boarding=dog;cat;rabbit + animal_shelter:adoption=dog;cat;rabbit . --Imagic 13:44, 17 September 2012 (BST)

But in the page you linked, it deprecates the use of semicolon because it's not simple for users and because very few applications will handle it. It recommends to use a different subkey for each sub type and to use only yes/no as values, an example is the key fuel.

On the linked page it reads :"Don't use them in your mapping, and don't propose them on the wiki if there are better ways of representing things." This is correct. But reread: "if there are better ways of representing things". In my opinion two tags are better than five/six tags if they carry the same information.

I don't know, if semicolon aren't widely supported and easily understood, then they are not a good way to represent thing. What do other people think about using semicolon in key values? Please post your opinions here. --Viking81 22:32, 19 September 2012 (BST)

Using a form in JOSM would make it easy also with a lot of keys. You can have a menu with an item for each species and opening it you can check the box adoption, boarding, release or all together.

Will you implement that form for JOSM? And Potlatch? And Merkator? And all the other editors? A tagging scheme should never depend on editor support!

I said JOSM as an example. If we can find a consistent and simple tagging scheme it will be understood by most users, althought it can produce many subkeys. An editor support would only make it easier to handle many subkeys. By the way in the world there are very few cases you need to specify a lot of species for a single animal shelter: in most cases they are less than 3, or you can specify the category like "birds". --Viking81 15:38, 17 September 2012 (BST)

I've already wrote a preset for JOSM by the way. --Viking81 22:32, 19 September 2012 (BST)

In any case I would put <animal(s)> before <purpose>, so if you don't know the purpose, you can specify only the animal(s) and it will be compatible with other more accurate keys. --Viking81 14:52, 17 September 2012 (BST)

I agree, if you want individual tags for each animal/purpose combination this would be better. --Imagic 15:14, 17 September 2012 (BST)

Singular form for species

Resolved

I would recommend using the singular form for all species to be consistent, i.e. fish instead of fishes, bird instead of birds, and so on. --Imagic 07:51, 1 October 2012 (BST)

My intention was to use singular form for specific species (dog, cat, horse, ferret) and plural form for group of species (fishes, birds, mammals). But maybe singular form for all cases would be simpler and eqaully clear. If nobody opposes, I switch to singular form only. --Viking81 10:49, 1 October 2012 (BST)

The plural of Fish is Fish. Fishes is not valid English. --trig222 13:24, 1 October 2012 (BST)

Another good argument against fishes ;-) --Imagic 13:55, 1 October 2012 (BST)

Well, actually the dictionary says that "the plural of fish is fish or fishes" and that "we can use fishes when we are talking about different species". By the way, I can agree that using the singular form in all cases can be simpler. --Viking81 18:53, 1 October 2012 (BST)

Other things to consider

For what it's worth, in UK legislation these are all "Animal Boarding Establishments". However, for property taxation, the Valuation Office Agency distinguishes between general purpose establishments, kennels and catteries as follows:

The expression “Animal Boarding” strictly speaking encompasses “Kennels & Catteries”, but for rating purposes “Animal Boarding” establishments exclude dedicated kennels and catteries, and tend to be larger operations. Animal Boarding hereditaments are therefore more likely to be charities that take in all manner of creatures (including dogs & cats), domestic strays, pets whose owners are no longer able to cope, rescued animals and even wildlife (hedgehogs, birds, frogs and the like), for re-homing, recuperation resuscitation and/or repatriation. The types of hereditament are diverse: ranging from small establishments in converted farm buildings occupied together with small areas of land, to much larger premises with purpose-built enclosures and a full range of associated paraphernalia. The latter may include horse and donkey sanctuaries and, where animal boarding is the primary use, horse and donkey animal boarding sanctuaries must not be confused with other hereditaments occupied for equestrian uses

The standard industrial classification distinguishes between "Animal Boarding" (pets), "Animal Boarding (farm animals), "Animal health care" (pets, farm animals), "Animal hospital" and "Animal Protection",

However, there are other things to consider:

1) There are potentially several different ways this data might be aggregated by users: e.g. helping someone who wants to find a place to leave their dog, cats, gerbils and stick insects while they go on holiday; a dog owner's map to help find anything from hotels or restaurants that welcome dogs, to possible walks, bins for dog dirt, boarding kennels, pet shops, vets and the like, to a job-search site that wants to mark anything that involves working with animals. So grouping all animal shelters together makes no more sense than grouping all dog facilities together, or all boarding facilities together (for example).

2) Yellow pages lists about 3,000 boarding kennels and about 3,000 catteries in the UK. The Valuatuon Office Agency records 4,010 kennels and catteries in England and Wales, plus 110 other animal boarding establishments. Currently fewer than 50 of these are recorded in OSM (~1%), mainly as "amenity=kennels" or "amenity=cattery", with a smattering of other variants. If you want to help data users, their real problem is the unmarked 99%, and this proposal is addressing the wrong issue (particularly if inexperienced contributors find it difficult to use).

If coverage elsewhere in the world is equally patchy, I suggest keeping things as simple as possible until coverage improves.

Yes, but not too simple: it's very important that we use a logical and homogeneus tagging from the beginning, otherwise we'll have to retag everything in future. By the way, see the proposed distinction between animal_shelter and animal_boarding on the top of this page and express your opinion. --Viking81 20:50, 21 September 2012 (BST)

I'm apologise that I am not being clear enough. My view is that neither of these options would be appropriate at this stage. There may be a need at some point to regroup that data, but we have not reached that point yet. When we do, this proposal would be one option among many. With so little data at this time it would be premature to go down a route that makes life more difficult for data contributors and users. At this stage I prefer amenity=kennels, amenity=cattery and amenity=animal_boarding because they are straightforward for both contributors and data users.

And when we'll have thousands of tags will you retag them all? Why not start now? The request to group all animal shelter together comes from other mappers, it's not only mine. It is not difficult even for a new mapper to follow these tagging rules: he has only to read documentation or use presets (that I've already written for JOSM). --Viking81 21:30, 21 September 2012 (BST)

I'm sorry not to be more supportive when you are clearly putting a lot of thought and effort into this, but adding several thousand kennels and cateries to the database is going to take a lot more effort than changing the documentation and editor presets. That effort needs to be considered in designing the right tagging scheme. To me, the stage when contributors have gone to the effort of adding thousands of data points seems to me like exactly the right time to decide how best to regroup this stuff and add more detail. At this stage it seems unnecessarily complicated to ask users who need to find a cattery to chose "amenity=animal_boarding" or "amenity=animal_shelter" then, after splitting values on a semicolon, to test whether it contained the string 'cat'". Particularly when they could just test for "amenity=cattery". Similarly, contributors who are interested in this stuff should be able able to use tags and values that seem intuitive. Neither you, nor I, know how people are actually going to use this data. That's the beauty of OSM. So the chances are that whatever decisions are taken now, some reorganisation will be needed in future. When the time comes, am I going to do a reorganisation to something more sophisticated? Honestly, I doubt it, but if there is a real need in the community then I'm confident somebody will. --Peter Reed 22:10, 21 September 2012 (BST)

Discussion from the old proposal amenity=kennel now obsolete

Resolved

A more generic tagging like amenity=animal_shelter

Someone suggested me to use stable=yes as a more generic tag for all animal shelters, but stable is not a good tag for all animal shelters: as someone else noticed, in English and in other languages a stable is for horses.
In addition the proposal was to add a tag stable to a building or a part of it. But a kennel for example is a wider area that includes buildings, courtyards and meadows.

Do you actually mean what we call Tier(schutz)heim in German? --Fkv 06:06, 14 September 2012 (BST)

Yes, the new proposal amenity=animal_shelter includes what you call Tier(schutz)heim: if in German this word can be used as a shelter for any species and for any purpose (recover stray pets, boarding pets, healing wild animals) then it's the exact definition. --Viking81 08:04, 15 September 2012 (BST)

We can add a tag amenity=kennel (or any more general if we can find it) to the whole area and then within it you can add building=yes, landuse=grass and so on.
I think that the key amenity should be used, and do not introduce a new key.
About the more general tagging, what do you think about amenity=animal_shelter with dog=yes or cat=yes or wild_animals=yes and so on?
In this case a tag for each animal species accepted should be added, because in the same structure you can host dogs and cats or different wild animal species. So for example you cannot set at the same time stable=dog and stable=cat.
In this way we could use amenity=animal_shelter also for animal recovery centers held by WWF or any other associations. You can also add a tag operator=*.
Any suggestion from native speakers is welcome.
Another problem that someone noticed is that amenity=animal_shelter with dog=yes is not very intuitive and it could be not widely used. --Viking81 12:05, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Ultimately I'm thinking to change the proposal from amenity=kennel to amenity=animal_shelter: it's more general and according to taginfo, it's already in use, we have only to refine and officialize it. I think that with an official definition and with a preset in editors this tag can become unviersally used. --Viking81 00:34, 14 September 2012 (BST)

prison

The proposed icon looks like a simple shelter where the dog can easily leave. But when I do a google images search for "kennel", I mostly see cages - and huts acting as cages. I have been using amenity=prison for this sort of objects. You can add a species=* tag to define if it's for humans (species=Homo sapiens, which I consider the default) or dogs (species=Canis lupus), etc. Alternatively you can set access=no+dog=designated to indicate that it's for dogs only.

amenity=prison is a non-physical tag. The physical tag (if it's not just a cage, or no cage at all) would be building=hut/barn/stable etc. amenity=shelter is also possible.

Altogether, I think that we don't really need a new tag amenity=kennel. --Fkv 13 September 2012

The icon can be changed.

Prison is an horrible word. For humans it's a place where people are detained to serve a sentence. Kennels, catteries and other animal rescue center instead are places where animals are held to assist them, heal them and feed them. Staff does its best to give animals a good life quality and find a new home for them. In a kennel and in general in any rescue center there aren't only cages, but also wide spaces where animals can go out, run and play.

Tag species=* is not appropriate: in the wiki it is used to define the species of the object tagged (example a tree), not the species for whom the object is designated. Moreover the required use of latin is not intuitive.

access=no+dog=designated seems that people cannot enter in the kennel, but it isn't true: you are indeed encouraged to go in a kennel to adopt a dog! --Viking81 00:08, 14 September 2012 (BST)

On google images, I don't see much of wide spaces where the animals can go out. I just uploaded a photo (see right) demonstrating what I mean with a prison. I would feel pity with dogs imprisoned there, even if it's just during lunch time.

This is for guests of the Gföhlberghütte who want to park their dogs while they're taking lunch

It is true that people can creep into those cages, but that's not what they are designed for, so access=no seems ok here. However, you can just omit the access=no, as dog=designated already implies that it's for dogs.

The wiki page for species=* states that "this tag should be used in combination with natural=tree, natural=wetland or similar. It may also be appropriate to use it with natural=wood or landuse=forest." That means that you may set the key not only on objects of that species, but also on objects containing that species.

While access=* subtags may suffice for humans, dogs, and horses, we'll run out of them when it comes to cages in a zoo. We do need to set species=* (or genus=* or similar) on them. Why make an exception for dog kennels? Of course the latin names are not intuitive, but they are the same all over the world, and mappers either look in the wiki or use the presets in their editors these days. --Fkv 05:51, 14 September 2012 (BST)

A part of a public kennel in Italy

A part of a public kennel in Italy

You have never been in a kennel. The image you posted is a cage where people "park their dogs while they're taking lunch": it's a temporary cage, not a kennel!

A kennel in this definition is a wide facility: in the pictures you see a part of the kennel where I do volunteer work.

As you can see there are boxes, fences, courtyard and grass.

By the way, I'm going to change the proposal from amenity=kennel to amenity=animal_shelter. --Viking81 10:42, 14 September 2012 (BST)

Kennels

I found this page while searching for how to tag kennels. As breeding kennels don't seem to be covered by the proposal I'll use amenity=animal_breeding/animal_breeding=species for now --EdLoach (talk) 11:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

You are right, breeding kennels aren't covered in current proposal. In fact, I was thinking to extend it. What do you think if we create a proposal for amenity=animal_breeding + animal_breeding=species and then we request to vote it? --Viking81 (talk) 18:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

What about kennels where dogs just live?

Looking through the definitions, I am missing one for areas where dogs are living permanently. This is especially relevant for sledding dogs, which are usually kept in a fenced area with doghouses. It could also apply to other kinds of working dogs, e.g. law enforcement, military.

animal_shelter is not appropriate, as these are not dogs that have been rescued, and are not available for adoption. The dogs are owned by the operator and are living there permanently, so it is not animal_boarding. Neither are they being bred for sale, so it is not an animal_breeding. (although the operator may breed some animals for their own use it is not the primary purpose.)

As has been discussed elsewhere, using stable is confusing because it usually indicates horses. Using landuse:pasture seems to indicate grazing, which would not be true for dogs.MaxMad (talk) 05:09, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

You are right, nor animal_shelter nor animal_boarding are appropriate for these places. Consider landuse=animal keeping or propose a new tag for these places, if no other tag is applicable. --Viking81 (talk) 22:53, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Bird houses, dog houses,

Mention how to tag birdhouses, and dog houses, that don't have any people around, and are about as big as a refrigerator, or as small as a lunch box. Jidanni (talk) 19:46, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, these houses must not be tagged as animal shelters. Consider the tag man_made=nesting_site instead. --Viking81 (talk) 22:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)