Program Overview and Introduction
In shelters, we often feel that it is our ultimate responsibility to ensure the care of our animals even after they leave our facilities. This ongoing or lifelong commitment often leads to agencies searching for the “perfect” adopter and implementing practices or philosophies that “weed out” those who don’t fit our criteria. But what is “perfect” or even “good enough”? And how many prospective adopters go elsewhere to adopt (or even purchase) animals simply because they don’t fit our concept of an ideal home?
It’s a great question and one that has years of research behind it. Studies have been conducted looking at everything from retention rates to lifetime care provided (veterinary or other) for adopted animals in different types of homes (surveying people with different socioeconomic status, those with children, single adults vs. married couples, those with other pets and those without). With all this research, one clear conclusion is that our fears about adopters usually are unfounded. Consequently, many agencies are finding that in the search for perfect homes, they are missing out on lifesaving opportunities.
This playbook outlines some of these practices and philosophies, discussing their intent and efficacy, and provides an overview of considerations for shelters that wish to be more open in their adoptions. In addition, a few sample standard operating procedures (SOPs), applications and tutorials have been provided to demonstrate proven lifesaving strategies that can be modified easily to fit within an existing operation.
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Phone: (925) 310-5450Email: forumhelp@maddiesfund.org
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