October 5, 2009Comments are closed.adoptions, attitude, marketing
How to take an excellent idea and turn it into a bad one;
Pet owner obedience classes
An animal shelter is barring people from adopting homeless dogs and cats unless they first take a course on how to look after pets.The shelter which runs the X pound – says it has been forced to take a tough line after “one too many” people returned adopted pets.
Manager: “What we were finding is that someone would take home a cute little puppy and three months later bring it back.”
She said while the animals weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary some new owners were not prepared to deal with unexpected issues – right down to the basic stuff like toilet training.
……
Other (owners) refused point blank to take the seminar, which was a “good thing”.
“They’re not the people we want to have (owning) pets,” she said.
“If you want to buy a kitten today and someone says you have to … do a seminar, and you say ‘no, that’s too much effort’ – how much extra effort is it to look after a cat?”
A training course is an excellent idea that every rescue who is supporting new owners should invest in. But to use it as an opportunity to to bash potential adopters in the media doesn’t make people keen to be a part of rescue or adopt a pet, but instead avoid us and our erratic (and likely undeserved) venom and head to the nearest BYB.
News flash! Profit motivated breeders don’t use words like ‘barring’, and ‘tough line’.
Why is this group not WORSHIPING anyone keen to adopt? Why would you not set this program up to attract new adopters? FREE DOG TRAINING COURSE WITH EVERY NEW ADOPTION! Especially if there’s not many good adopters beating down their door?
We beg our adopters PLEASE if this adoption doesn’t work out, or if you’re having problems, contact us. We can help you with training and advice. Whatever you do, don’t drop him in the bush/give him to your mate Steveo/ or sell him the Trading Post. We will always take him back. Returning owners are only doing what we asked them to; which is a good thing.
If you don’t have enough quality homes – market yourself better. If your adoption screening procedures aren’t getting the results you want, talk to other groups to get more effective ones. If pet owners are having the same common problems, give them the resources needed to solve them.
There are a lot of programs every shelter can use to keep pets in homes. And all are based on offering support after adoption, not condemnation before.
