Animal Welfare Professionals

I'm wondering who has success in using wording/language with no "Stop Sign" phrases in their marketing. We would love to implement a lot less of the stop sign phrases in our social media posts and radio/TV apperences but even if we don't put it in the wording we have people ask those questions. So I'm wondering what organizations respond with when they have people ask "are they good with other dogs?" or "are the good with kids?" Do you just respond honestly or is there another way to go about this? Even if we don't say it in our posts, we will still have people ask. Thanks in advance! 

Even when we have all the info on our social media post or on the pet's profile, people still ask because they don't want to read to find the answers. I'm not sure what the answer is..our website says that all the dogs are spayed/neutered, utd on vaccines, and microchipped and people still ask.

We are honest when asked but try to spin on the positives or educate. So if a dog is one that needs to be the only one in the home but isn’t leash reactive, we might say “buddy enjoys going on walks with his shelter dog buddies as a pack walk but he really prefers the peace and quiet of being the only one in a home to hog all of your attention”.

We sometimes will do education posts about “only dog” to explain the differences in personalities of those dogs. We highlight a few adoptables “this girl loves cats, but doesn’t want to compete with other dogs”, “this boy likes others one walks but wants to be home alone”, “this guy is learning that all other animals are ok so would be less stressed if alone at home” etc.  Many people think only dog means aggressive, which isn’t always the case.

We do not include ANY stop sign phrases in our posts/interviews about our animals. We like to shine light on the positives and if someone comes in to meet said animal and are truly interested, that's when we begin explaining any "habits" an animal may have. If they decide that the animal they originally came in for is not for them, we now have the knowledge to suggest a different animal for them. It's all about marketing VS counseling. When we get comments on our social media posts, we always suggest they come in to meet the animal or message our counselors for more info.

It is such a slippery slope to answer questions like "are they good with kids?" We like to wait for the conversation, and like Alli O., respond to social media questions with suggestions to come in and meet the dog or talk directly to an adoption counselor.  We can't do adoption counseling over social media or in broad strokes (just look for a dog that ticks the "good with dogs" box and the "good with kids" box).  It is dishonest to say that we KNOW that an animal is good with dogs/cats/kids/housetrained, etc., but we can have a deeper conversation once we have the opportunity to have that conversation that we saw X behavior in X situation and take an educated guess at what prompted an unwanted behavior (a "stop sign") and how to avoid it in their home environment.  It is adoption counseling that empowers the adopter to say "I could handle that" or "my household and lifestyle wouldn't allow for that."  The reverse is true as well - if we say a dog is "good with kids" we cut off the conversation of how kids should behave appropriately with the dog and are claiming we know something that we don't.  All we know is that that dog was good with kids in an environment in the past - discussing that environment is more important than ticking boxes and giving us and our adopters a false sense of what is knowable.