Animal Welfare Professionals

Hey everyone,

We all know that there are certain seasons when adoptions slow down, whether it's the dead of winter or the height of summer. However, this past summer, one of the rescues I work with in Arizona almost came to a complete standstill for the entirety of the summer. And it was a LONG summer. While our yearly adoptions were still good, we pull from a lot of county and community shelters and they were all in crisis mode all summer. I'm talking 160% and more over capacity. The rescue I'm referring to specializes in senior dogs, so dogs that tend to get stuck or are euthanized due to medical reasons and cost. With the sudden stalling in adoptions and fosters, we didn't have the space to pull dogs from these shelters. If we can keep adoptions and fostering numbers at least even throughout the summer, we can save more dogs and potentially ease some of the pressure that the county shelters faced last summer and are likely to face this summer as well.

I'm hoping this community can give me some fresh ideas on how to encourage fostering and adoptions when the weather turns awful for extended periods of time. The slow down  was scary last year and I'm really hoping to avoid a repeat. 

Thank you!