Animal Welfare Professionals

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  • 1.  Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-25-2025 02:28 PM

    Does anyone have a great way to showcase adoptable pets who aren't in your Adoption Center to people who visit your Adoption Center? We have some pets who for a variety of reason (foster, shyness, etc) aren't on our adoption floor. They are on our website, but when people come they don't always ask 'where can I see Fluffy' they just assume that pet is no longer available. Right now we have their photos taped to a window. Does anyone have a brilliant idea for a more exciting, more noticeable, and less cluttered way to showcase them to people walking through? 


    #AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms

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    Beth Brookhouser
    VP Marketing and Communications
    SPCA Monterey County
    CA
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  • 2.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-25-2025 06:40 PM

    I'm at a Rescue, however, most of our long-term stay animals go to the Sanctuary, which is about an hour away. The Sanctuary acts as a long-term stay for animals with medical issues, however, we keep a variety of animals there, some with no medical or behavioral issues. The Sanctuary acts as a location that people can adopt from. By having it about an hour away, there's a different group of people that can frequent that location opening the dogs up to new eyes. If there is someone who is interested from the website, we can transport them back to our Adoption Center for a Meet & Greet, or the PA can go to the Sanctuary. Some people like the drive with the beautiful scenery.

    Another option is to have a board PAs can look at that shows all of their cards. We have a board with all of our Fosters on top and all of our Sanctuary animals on bottom, so if people are looking at the animals at our Adoption Center, they can see the cards for the other animals, and that can spark conversation. This works especially well if you encourage people to look at the board. I don't know if you have a waiting area at your shelter, but that's another place people can look at the board before they even enter the location you house the majority of your animals while they wait. You can also ask staffers and volunteers to encourage people to look at the board before looking around. The board should be something that is enticing to the eye, not just a boring board with a whole bunch of animals hung on it.

    Also, consider how you talk about them and maybe train your volunteers in messaging on them. For instance, you could call them "large impact adoptable pets" or something like that.

    Another thing is, again, I don't know if it's possible with what your setup is, but turn your back of house into your front of house. Make it so people have to walk through your more difficult adoptables before they get to your easier adoptables.

    Does that help at all? Also, I love your organization's podcast. If I'm not mistaken, you were a guest on there for one of the episodes.



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    Drew Domalick
    Volunteer - Adoption Center Volunteer Trainer and Animal Care Specialist
    Happily Ever After Animal Sanctuary
    WI
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-27-2025 09:11 PM

    I've been thinking more about this post. Another idea I had was to tell people that they had been "selected" or "identified" as someone who might be able to have a "bigger impact" based on their information (such as prior experience with dog ownership). Then ask if they would like to go view some of your harder-to-place animals. The key for this to work would be for people to feel like there is something exclusive to them, like they won the right to see those dogs, even if anybody can look at them. Just an idea.



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    Drew Domalick
    Volunteer - Adoption Center Volunteer Trainer and Animal Care Specialist
    Happily Ever After Animal Sanctuary
    WI
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-29-2025 06:26 AM

    I believe that it would largely depend on the animals.  If it includes  animals with behavior issues or medical issues that could be costly , perhaps more than

    prior ownership  is needed. In addition, some behavior issues  could be a lliability.



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    Linda Moore
    Pet's Second Chance for Life Inc, DBA PSC Welsh Corgi Rescue
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-29-2025 10:19 PM
    Our new facility


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    Kimberly Chapman
    Director
    Westover feline haven corp
    WV
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-29-2025 12:22 PM

    We have one of those video picture frames that we keep on our front desk. It's one of the first things you see when you walk in our front door. It has a removeable USB drive so we can change it whenever we want, and that allows us to upload pictures that we edit with text to include a quick rundown of info: name, age, breed(s), gender, special needs. We try not to get too wordy so that they have time to read everything before it moves to the next picture. The moving aspect of the video picture frame seems to really help draw attention, and a little sign taped to the top directs them to ask the front desk if they have any questions about an animal on the frame which they're already right there, so they don't have to go far!



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    Leanna Yeager
    Kennel Worker
    Pets Come First
    PA
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 09-29-2025 12:45 PM

    We are a foster based rescue and all of our marketing is from our website and social media.  For our longer term fosters (some with more challenges to adapting than others) we have used AI social media campaigns and videos to show the dogs in their "safe" spaces where they will show more interaction than at a meet and greet.   Are you able to capture some play or other interaction to share that way? Or even from a worker's phone? Helps the potential adopters see more than the dog who isn't going to engage and interact as much as some other.  We can post all day long about these dogs, but seeing their actions is much more impactful! 



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    Kristen Streeter
    Board member
    Leia's Hope Canine Rescue
    IL
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Showcasing "Back of House" Pets

    Posted 10-03-2025 02:29 PM

    Definitely not a cheap option but we have some monitors posted around our adoption center that are essentially a large touch screen version of our website and people can look through adoptable animals there (there's also cute animal quizes and other links for our website as well). I'm not sure any of the logistics of them or their cost since that's not my department. We also have a board in our lobby that have a lot of our dogs' names sorted into categories like "super cuddler" or "walking buddies" among others that our behavior and adoption teams update regularly. 



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    Laurel Wilton
    Feline Welfare Supervisor
    Nebraska Humane Society
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    Original Message


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