Supporting Surrender Prevention is the Future of Pet Adoption.
NO ONE SUPPORTS or believes in the need for animal shelters more than I do. I ran a large animal shelter for a number of years. Like someone who has worked in the kitchen of a restaurant, I know how the meal is made. It’s not always pretty. And it can’t always be helped. Shelters are overburdened and under-resourced. When there just isn’t enough space or money to go around, tough choices have to be made and pet adoption suffers.
BUT SOME THINGS CAN BE HELPED
We can, if we put our minds to it, re-frame the problem. And there are efforts to do this. “Surrender Prevention” is a fairly new focus in the sheltering community, and one that is being wholeheartedly embraced because of the potential impact it will have on the percentage of lives saved.
GET YOUR PET represents another, potentially very effective way to think differently. After all, 2.5 million pets are surrendered to shelters each year for lack of a better place to go.
WHY CAN’T WE HELP their owners match up directly with the 2.7 million people who adopt pets each year? Why do these pets need to go into shelters at all? It’s just a matter of letting ourselves think differently about the problem. Of seeing things the way they really are now, not the way they have been in the past.
WELCOME TO A SHARING ECONOMY
When we need a ride, we call on Uber. When we need a room, we check out Airbnb. The sharing economy these well-known technological services are a part of is today’s real world reality. The technology is there for pet adoption too. The need is certainly there.
And, with a little bit of progressive thinking, we can all be there with a modern, real world solution for helping CONNECT pet owners who need to give up their pet, with people who want to adopt a pet outside of the shelter system.
TOGETHER, IT’S POSSIBLE. Learn more about how we’re supporting surrender prevention here.