Busting the holiday adoption myth

The backlash from rescuers to our xmas adoption campaign wasn’t entirely unexpected; it seems some old ideas die hard.

There’s no way I’ll be fielding calls at xmas; I don’t want anyone getting one of my dogs as a present.

Pets bought at xmas just end up surrendered.

You’re encouraging people to be irresponsible.

People are busy at xmas; the pets will be stressed.

While the idea of a ‘xmas rush, shelters at capacity and killing’ is accepted; the thought of a ‘rush of holiday adoptions’ sends us into a spin. Why are we so threatened by the concept of saving more lives?

Without a push for holiday adoptions, pets are certain to die. However many groups don’t push, they put the breaks on; actively dissuading people from adopting through December, for fear that the adoption will be jinxed.

So what do the public say about a xmas adoption drive?

Hey this is great. I myself have been looking for that “right dog” for xmas.

That’s right; the community wants to adopt a pet during the holidays. But wanting a pet for xmas doesn’t automatically make them evil or bad owners – it just makes them normal. Most people get their pets when they’re on holidays, with Dec, Jan and Feb being the most popular time of the year. People have time over the holidays to spend and bond with their new pets. And yet we’re shutting up shop and sending people away!

Rather than reject owners we’ve never met on the chance they might be acting impulsively or emotionally, we could be helping them to make an informed decision and matching them with the pet that fits their lifestyle. As we will still be screening for suitability (the same screening procedure we use in April, May and June) we have no reason to believe pets adopted at this time are more likely to be surrendered. That’s simply a myth.

Today on Nathan’s Winograd’s blog he describes the phenomenon, but in relation to the launch nine years ago of one of America’s most successful adoption initiatives; the Iams ‘Home for the Holidays‘ campaign, who this year are aiming for 1 million adoptions!

… shelters and national groups opposed innovation that obviated the perceived ‘need’ to kill and instead encouraged or promulgated policies to stop adopting out animals for reasons that were incomprehensible, irreconcilably contradictory, and nothing short of ludicrous.

A kitten or puppy under the tree in December would end up in the shelter in January, was the dogma of the times and many shelters across the country actually refused to adopt out animals during this time of year. Taken to its logical conclusion, the argument is nothing more than “shelters should not do holiday adoptions because the animals may end up back at the shelter. This, the thinking goes, is bad because shelters are bad places where animals are killed. The problem should be immediately obvious: the animals are already in the shelter! Stopping adoptions which would get them out of the shelter because they might end up back in it was bad enough. But not adopting them out ensures that the harm they claim to fear is all but assured the animals will be killed, exacerbating shelter death rates.

And the common shelter mantra that a pets will be ‘stressed’ during the xmas period seems unreasonable when you ask;

But what is more stressful than sitting in a cage at a shelter? What is more stressful than facing death? What is more stressful than what is often the shelter animal’s experience of poor, neglectful and even hostile or abusive treatment from uncaring shelter bureaucrats?

If a new cat is ‘stressed out at home’ and that is a big IF the new cat can be locked in a bedroom to sleep it off on a warm, cozy bed (rather than a cold stainless steel cage in a shelter, or being ‘put to sleep’, the abominable HSUS euphemism for being killed). And many dogs (and kittens) would not only find the situation not stressful, they would thrive.

And stretching the boundaries of ‘fair use’ I’ll leave you with these final words;

In the end, however, the campaign against holiday adoptions was and is nothing more than another manifestation of the sheltering community and HSUS distrust of the American public, a distrust that created the very paradigm of killing we live with today. The one that makes it very easy to surrender an animal, but very difficult to adopt one. The one which never worries about all the animals killed, but does worry about the ones which can be saved.

Read the full blog here.

Image courtesy of the No Kill Nation blog

I’m pleased to report the ‘everyone who adopts at xmas is irresponsible’ mentality is rapidly being dispelled and replaced by the life saving idea that the xmas holidays are an opportunity.

If people are going to buy a pet we’d should encourage them to come, speak to us and get good advice; instead of walking into a pet store. We should promote ourselves the loudest during the holidays!

Rescue groups have policies and procedures that help people make good decisions. It’s an excellent place to get a pet at xmas.