Brainstorming Help! Overlooked Pets in Shelters

[MericoX]

I'm trying to start up a program where overlooked pets (animals that have been with us longer than 30 days) can be helped to get a kick in the pants and be adopted. I was researching what others do to get their rabbits adopted and came across the idea on an animal shelter website.

Right now I have once an animal reaches 30 days in our system, they get a new picture and write up on our website. By that time their adoption fees have also been reduced (fee-waived for cats, dogs dropped down to the next pricing bracket, small animals fee-waived or name your own price).

The majority of our long-term cats are the diabetics and one with food allergies which is pretty understandable, but for the "normal" animals I hope this will help draw attention to them, especially before we start hitting kitten season.

What else could you think of that would draw attention to certain animals? For instance, February is adopt a rescue rabbit month so I am making some simple starter kits to go home with them, and I need them adopted as I've got about 20 baby bunnies in the wings lol.

 

[amberdyan]

The shelter I used to volunteer at got 38 rats in at once (dumped in a rubbermaid container...) and some were pregnant and some probably got pregnant in the rubbermaid container. Basically... ton of rats. We did a "meet and great" shelter event where everyone could come in and just meet/play with rats and hear about how to care for them. Tons of people came in who hadn't really considered rats as pets and decided (after falling in love them them ALL) that they were a great fit for their family. We did it like 3 times in one month and adopted out a TON of rats!

 

[Maxy24]

Any way you can take advantage of social media more? I know you guys have a facebook and it is very up to date but it's really the little everyday things, random pictures/videos of the dog or cat snuggling or playing, little stories about something silly he did today, that help people fall in love with a pet they've never met. But you want people who don't necessarily follow your facebook to be able to see these things too. I wonder if someone could make up a blog just for this, with ONLY little stories, pictures, and videos. You might need to delegate some volunteers specifically for it and perhaps encourage the volunteers who just come to walk and cuddle to send photos and little tidbits about the dogs/cats they spent time with to whoever is in charge of the blog. I know whenever I came and volunteered we ended up bringing home a phoneful of pictures, I would have loved if those could have contributed to getting the dog/cat a home. Perhaps link to the blog on each animal's page.

For small animals, I think it's hard to adopt them out for two reasons:
1. People don't think to look in a shelter because it's super convenient to get them in the pet store and buying small animals from pet stores does not come with the same stigma that buying dogs/cats does. Also, lots of people have no idea you can get small animals in shelters.
2. People are afraid that the animal is already super old because they have short lifespans and it's really hard to age them. Or they just want a baby.

It's hard to get around number 2. When I adopted my gerbils I was admittedly a little worried they were like 3 years old. But I've had them over a year and everyone is well (best decision ever by the way). I was also worried they'd be bad biters, that was my main fear since they were adults and I had no idea how they were raised. I assumed since they were given up to the shelter that whoever owned them didn't have much time and thus they probably weren't handled. They ended up being super tame and friendly, but it was my biggest fear going into this. So perhaps try to really work on keeping the pocket pets tame. If you guys have volunteers that come regularly and are interested (I'm looking at those UNE animal behavior club kids) tell them you have a project for them, you want them to train the bunnies to target people's index fingers so that when adopters come to meet them the bunnies will approach their hands.


As for number 1, see if you can showcase them in pet stores maybe. I would have never thought to look at shelters for gerbils if I hadn't volunteered at the shelter, I didn't think any shelters except big SPCA types had pocket pets. Also keep in mind people aren't going to go out of their way to adopt versus buy with pocket pets. If they have to drive an hour to your shelter or 20 minutes to the pet store they're probably just gonna get a rabbit at the pet store.

I know one of our local shelters leaves an info table up at petco with adoption applications and a binder showcasing all of the adoptable pets. Something like that might help for those who don't know about you already (thus don't see your website).