Animal Welfare Professionals

This one has been a long time coming, and I wanted to share it here because it belongs to all of us who work upstream.

For a while we have been making the case that surrender prevention deserves its own moment on the calendar, the same way October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month. So we wrote it up: a title, the framing, and a ready-to-sign proclamation any governor's office can act on. We named it Pet Surrender Prevention Month, because that names the actual problem and the actual fix.

This July, Colorado became the first state to proclaim it, secured through one of our Animal Welfare Resource Network partners. One state down. It happened because our AWRN partner Elizabeth Coalson and National Canine Advocacy Group carried it across the finish line.

Here is why I think it matters for this group. A proclamation is not a law. It is one year, with no force behind it. But it is a flag in the ground. It says out loud that keeping pets in their homes is a public priority and not a fringe idea, and it gives every one of us a hook to talk to our own officials, our media, and our donors about prevention.

So here is the offer. The concept, the title, and the ready-to-sign proclamation template are not ours to hoard. If you want to bring Pet Surrender Prevention Month to your state, I will send you the whole packet, the governor request language and the proclamation draft, so you can hand it to your own governor's office. We do not compete. We connect. The more states that name it, the more real prevention becomes everywhere.

If you want the packet, comment or message me and I will get it to you. Let's put prevention on the calendar, state by state.

#CommunityPartnerships*
#LawsandPublicPolicy

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Join The Shift To Prevention.

BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.org
animal-angelsfoundation.org
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Hi BJ, 

This is amazing, and especially salient to our rescue right now (DMV area).  Just recently, an adopter brought one of our adopted cats into a vet to be euthanized because they did not want the cat anymore. Our adoption contract explicitly says to return cats to us, and, luckily, the vet refused to euthanize and reached out to us and we have the cat with us now.  I think awareness and education regarding an active, not reactive, program to prevent pet surrendering could help prevent such situations in the future. 

I would love to get this packet and see if Maryland will join Colorado! 

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Maura Matvey
Grants Coordinator
A Cat's Life Rescue
MD
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This is greatly needed. I hope that more states adopt this, and that we can bring awareness to it. I plan on using it as a topic on our podcast in the near future.  If anyone has some good stories to tell about the excuses people use, please let me know and we can share them on our podcast. Thank you.

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PJ Rosch

CEO & Top Dog

Pronouns: she, her, hers

The Little Red Dog, Inc.

We are a 501(c)3 non-profit

pj@thelittlereddog.org

949-280-2223

thelittlereddog.org
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Very Cool to see.  Awesome Work!!  I'm happy to try and see what I can do in PA to get it proclaimed if you want to send me the packet.

Bryan

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Bryan Langlois
Medical Director
Spay/Neuter Save Network
PA
"Greatness is a title never to be self imposed"
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