Wake up Call

There is no second guessing sometimes. My heart tugs for all the great pets I list on the site, but invariably some strike a more personal chord. I look at them and think .... gee, this one won't be long getting adopted.
I was positive that little Sophie wouldn't still be at the LA Animal Shelter a month and a half after her listing was posted. Granted, she does have a No Kids tag but there are a whole world of adopters who can safely disregard that. Normally little dogs like her get adopted pretty quickly
Remember sweet little Beau .... who I blogged about a little while ago? Boy I thought for sure that between that cute little write up and him being such a dapper fellow that the Yarmouth SPCA would have been flooded with apps for him. In all honesty, I simply cannot imagine why he's still there.
But who is to say, hmm? Chase has been waiting at the TLC Animal Shelter for a year or more. Beagles make very loving and affectionate family pets and Chase is a really cute name for a beagle: ) Happily for him, he is not at a shelter where there is a timeline, but still... he is in a shelter, not a home.
Really, who is to tell what tugs another persons heartstrings? When I first posted Isabelle , the first thing that I noticed about her is how very much she looks like my own beautiful Ruby. If she had floppy ears, they could almost be twins with that face. The bio that the Metro Shelter wrote for her is full of praise about how calm and obedient she is. But what do I know.... because here she is still waiting for someone to see her as their own heart ... in the same way that Miss Ruby is mine.

If everyone is bursting at the seams and talking about how slow adoptions are this month, maybe its time to take a new tack:

• there is a free Make-A-Flyer template available on the Best Friends website that produces a catchy 8 by 11 poster. I suspect there are very few animal clinics or businesses that cater to animal lovers who would not be willing to post these flyers for groups and shelters.
• Get posters plugging pet adoption out to libraries, feed stores, community notice boards ... in short ... anywhere that someone will agree to post them
• find an animal friendly venue and host cat only adoptions. People who have done this have found it very successful, largely because its a quieter environment so potential adopters take their time to really look.
• Petfinder has declared August 12th to be Adopt a Less Adoptable Pet Day. Groups with older or special needs pets could benefit from the publicity and plan something of their own to tie in with it.
• this would be an excellent time for the society to use its official position to influence newspapers and municipalities to employ petfinder widgets to promote adoptable pets in Nova Scotia on their websites
• groups that are already using petfinder could put the video option to double use and start a You Tube site to post shelter adoptables as well
• start a regular sunday stroll for the adoptable dogs .... where and when doesn't matter as much as making it a regular thing people can look for ... ie the first sunday of the month
• Its summer and that means that every weekend there are festivals around Nova Scotia. Wouldn't this be a great time to bring a few pets to the people?

Remember ... Stats Can lists over 350,000 households in this province. If only ONE PERCENT OF NOVA SCOTIA HOUSEHOLDS .... ONE LITTLE PERCENT.... started adopting pets there really would be No More Homeless Pets In Nova Scotia. No Kill Nova Scotia is an achievable objective and not a pipe dream

What time is it? Its time stop expecting potential adopters to just show up at the shelters. Its time to get out there and wake them up.