Animal Welfare Professionals

Recording available to watch on-demand

We hope to see you on Monday, 9/11 at 11am PT for our next Community Conversations call for a presentation on, "Top Dog Adoption Decision-Making Factors" by @Lawrence Minnis, Director of Workforce Development at Humane Rescue Alliance!

A potential adopter walks into your shelter to look at adoptable dogs. They ask the front desk about the adoption process then walk through the dog kennels. Twenty minutes later they leave the kennels, say "Thank you!" to the front desk and leave. This may be a common occurrence at your shelter, but what do you know about the thought process that the potential adopter went through? What were they thinking? And how may your operations impact their decision process?

Lawrence Minnis has studied shelter visitors and adoption decision-making research and will highlight findings from his research and other studies. Lawrence will also share information about his upcoming research and what we may hope to learn about the adoption decision-making process.

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
#DataandTechnology

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Maddie's Pet Forum Admin
Maddie's Fund
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I want to thank everyone for attending and supporting this call!! I look forward to great questions and follow-up discussions on this topic.

Please, post your questions or comments, and I will be here to engage as much as I can!

Hi Lawrence,

Thank you for a great webinar and wonderful research. I learned so much about the adopter's decisions when looking for a pet to adopt. As a trainer, I agree that behavior is the main event. Could you explain to me again what is the Realtor model? I appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you for your feedback and for your question, Julielani!

The Realtor model represents an alternative to the current adoptions model that many organizations use. If you imagine a scenario of purchasing a home, a potential home buyer may look online for available homes. But at some point, before the typical purchase offer is made, a potential buyer will engage a realtor or real estate agent and receive help for the next part of their search. The realtors provide advice, may curate homes to visit, and overall assist the potential buyer through the search and final purchase decision process.

So, the Realtor model is based on two or three primary characteristics: 1. early engagement with potential clients, 2. provide advice and assistance during the search process, 3. Support the decision-making process of clients. Shelter adoption teams can take a similar approach to model operations along those three characteristics. In the current model, adoption staff do not typically engage potential adopters until they are close to choosing a dog and making an adoption decision. In the Realtor model, adoption staff would find ways to engage potential adopters much earlier (possibly using social media) and work through the search and decision process in support of the potential adopter. 

Hi Lawrence,

Thank you for your quick response and clear explanation. What a progressive way to approach adoption! Is the Realtor model being implemented in a shelter right now? And do you have any data supporting its effectiveness when compared to the traditional approach? Thanks 

Hi Julielani, 

The presentation was the first time that I have discussed the Realtor model outside private internal conversations at HRA, so it is in the early 'theory development' phase. I simply wanted to offer a different perspective accounting for cognitive decision-making behaviors and customer purchase behaviors, due to my unique background. I hope that we can further the conversation and begin to innovate a practical Realtor model adoptions approach that can be tested a one or several shelters. 

Any innovation and changes to adoption staff procedures should be backed by a simultaneous research effort to provide solid theory and defined data points that everyone can collect. It may take a year (or two) for everything to begin moving, but I am confident that change in the direction of a Realtor model will have the impact that many shelter adoptions teams have long sought after.

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Charlotte Otero
Community Strategist at Maddie's Fund
she/her
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Attachment(s)

What are they thinking - Maddies Fund Community Conversat...pdf   3.76 MB 1 version

Unanswered question from the chat, "Do adopters and participants in the studies show any awareness of how the living conditions may affect the behavior when considering a dog or cat?" - Penny Leisch

Thank you for the question!

No studies that I reviewed have looked in depth at how aware or knowledgeable adopters reportedly are concerning living conditions and dog or cat behavior. Data on housing or living conditions have been collected in some capacity within research, but it is typically classified as a demographic group. In order to look into the question I believe you are interested in, there needs to be defined levels of living conditions that participants/adopters will be classified under in order to compare reported knowledge levels. 

This would make for an interesting research study, for sure. 

Unanswered question from the chat, "I'm probably asking an impossible question here, but any thoughts or ideas as to how or if any of this has changed post-pandemic?" - Jessie Sullivan

Not am impossible question, but this is likely a question that researchers are looking into now. We are roughly a little over one year into post-pandemic operations in the industry, and reports are beginning to come out now about the effects of the pandemic on adoptions and other areas of interest. We may begin to see published research that addresses your question in 2024, so stay tuned!!

As for my individual perspective, I believe we are back to seeing similar traffic and shelter visitors as we saw pre-pandemic. Many places turned to appointment-only site visits during the pandemic and are still refining the visitation policies to fit our new post-pandemic reality. I would argue that shelters may see slightly more "browsers" and "just visitors" for the near-term (2023-2024) because residents are still trying to weather local economic, housing, and future employment trends. So, there may be more related uncertainty that gives people reason to delay decisions like adding a new furry family member.

Since our current model waits for people to make substantial search and decision progress before our adoption staff engages them, we may be experiencing the effects of the search and decision process being stretched out.

Unanswered question from the chat, "is behavior such a key factor for cat adoptions?" - Nancy McKenney

Dogs have been the focus of my research, but I believe that behavior is likely a key factor for cat adoptions similar to dog adoptions. Behavior is the biggest uncertainty regarding adoption of any animal species, and it is usually the factor in which we have the least information, aside for medical background. One of my research lab mates is looking to design a study similar to my 2019 research but for cats, so hopefully we will have some data and analysis to provide for your question soon.

Unanswered question from the chat, "@Lawrence Minnis are you open to data from Canadian orgs as well?" - Kathy Duncan

ABSOLUTELY!! The opportunity to make this a multinational study would be tremendous and provide the first opportunity to examine cultural differences, if any, for adoption decision-making behaviors.

Please, provide your contact information using this link or the QR code below. I will begin reaching out to you soon to provide more information on the type of support that would benefit the research field and shelter organizations all over.

Unanswered question from the chat, "Is there a link to a survey or questionnaire to get accurate demographics on visitors? Something that rescues and shelters can ask everyone who enters to take a moment to fill out, in an effort to get more funds and increase adoptions?" - Amy Charles

Unfortunately, I do not have such a link available, but hopefully someone in our Maddie's community may be aware of an option.  However, if you go to my article in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (JAAWS) which was link in the slide and Zoom chat, you can find and download the survey I used for the 2019 research. 

If you go to the "Supplemental" tab and click to Page 2 of the supplemental material, you can then download the survey and copy whatever questions of demographics that you think is best for your organization to collect. The survey was designed to be filled out in in 2-4 minutes, so using portions of it should only take visitors 2 minutes to complete. 

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Unanswered question from the chat related to finding out who your shelter visitors are, "We found it difficult to capture this info. We had a sign in sheet that asked for all of this info. Adopters were reluctant to give the info and usually only write their first name, so we stopped. Do you have recommendations on how better capture it?" - Carrie Ridgway

Sign-in sheets that are passively collected will be difficult to use for information gathering. It will be viewed as a "pointless" step for visitors, who will not want to expend much energy for a procedural step. HOWEVER, if you prompt visitors on the value of their information (ex., "Your data will help the shelter understand how we can best serve you, the visitor." or "Your information will help us understand visitor traffic to ensure that we have staff and resources available for all of our visitors.") then you should see a difference in the completion rate. This allows visitors to understand the value of their effort and feel make open to contribute.

I used a scripted introduction to engage each visitor and explained their participation helped my research and ultimately the shelter. Surprisingly, I received very few rejections from visitors (avg. of 2-3 rejections per collection and 10-15 completed surveys per visit). We all have a sense of altruism, and when told that their effort will be extremely useful to the shelter, visitors should be more willing to help. 

Just make sure you collect necessary information in the most efficient way possible.