Animal Welfare Professionals

I am curious how other organizations put into practice the whole concept of “marketing vs. adoption counseling”. In our rescue, shelter guardians &/or fosters are the primary entity marketing their dog/cat and the primary entity doing the adoption counseling.  While I understand the idea between the differences, it can be challenging to get buy in from fosters.  It seems a lot simpler to market an animal with “stop signs” to weed out people who aren’t looking for what you foster has to offer (example: if my foster gets 10 apps based on their photo but they all want dog-friendly dogs, it would be a time saver on my end to not have to re-direct all 10 of those applicants – even though it would be more ideal for our agency to get those ten apps that might be a better fit for another dog in the organization!).  I am curious how you all manage this practice.

Additionally, I am curious to know how adoption counseling works for other organizations for fosters. Again, fosters are the primary entity doing this work for our organization.  How much “disclosure” about the dog/cat does one supply over the phone before the initial meeting?  What are some baseline items that should be discussed before setting up a meeting vs. what is discussed when they actually meet the animal? I know I am notorious for dropping TOO many details before my fosters are even seen which leads to longer stays because most adopters never actually set up the meeting.  How does one find a good balance?

Thank you all for ANY tips & tricks!

I'll be interested to see if you get more replies to this topic, because it is a balance I find hard too. Our super-easy-going pets tend to be adopted quickly, which means we don't always have a similar dog to refer adopters to if the first dog they looked at won't be a good fit. I'm not one of the main bio- and promo-writers at our organization, but I do end up drafting them for some of our dogs with complex behavioral needs.

I think the thing I have found most useful is stopping myself before adding these "stop signs" and asking what my evidence is. For example, we have a dog who has bitten children multiple times. It would be reasonable to mention in his bio that he is looking for a home with teens or just adults. On the other hand, we have a large, boisterous, reactive dog with a history of moderate resource guarding. My personal risk-tolerance and inclination would be to not have her live with kids under middle-school age, but I know that some families do have dogs like her and younger kids living successfully together. It just depends a lot on the kids' personalities and how much management a family is up for. I don't have any real evidence that she and kids are a problem. So instead of focusing on the "don'ts" I try to focus on the "dos" and describe her personality and quirks. If we have a family interested, they can meet her and decide if she is overwhelming for the kids and/or if the RG management strategies we discuss don't seem feasible for them.

This strategy is kind of trying to avoid using "stop signs" for our challenging dogs and using "proceed with caution" signs instead. It definitely takes practice to stop writing things like "not good with other dogs" and instead come up with a non-threatening, descriptive explanation of this particular dog's personality and needs.

As far as adoption counseling from foster parents and when to set up a meet, I think it depends a lot on the foster parent's comfort talking to adopters, the dog, and the geographic area so I don't have many specific suggestions. One challenge for us is that our foster homes are spread out, and it doesn't make sense to have adopters spend an hour driving from one end of the county to the other if a dog is probably not a good fit. We also often have undersocialized or easily stressed dogs in foster, who couldn't handle the unpredictability of the shelter environment, and who don't enjoy meeting new people. For those dogs, we often do a lot more adoption counseling over the phone, before a meet, but if an adopter is nearby and the dog won't be negatively affected, I think waiting until they meet the dog is really a better experience for the adopter. Once they have met and liked a particular dog, I think they are more open to finding ways to manage small challenges rather than deciding to wait for a perfect dog if they are told about issues over the phone.