After this past weekend, the number of animals adopted from Animal Haven's Pet Adoption Center in Oak Park Mall is now at 159.
On November 20th, Animal Haven opened up their satellite adoption center in an empty store front in Oak Park Mall to capitalize on holiday traffic at the mall.
With the retail location they have been able to increase the exposure of the animals, and 159 have found homes - which is a pace of about 5 adoptions per day. The storefront will remain open until December 31st.
I can't express enough my excitement and support of this program and how Animal Haven has thought like a retailer and taken the animals to the people vs waiting for them to come to their shelter. It is innovative thinking like this that helps them save the lives of the animals in their care. I still think this is a wonderful opportunity for other rescues around the country to take advantage of the poor retail environment and taking advantage of the empty store fronts.
In answer to a couple of questions I've gotten about the program. Apparently the animals that are at the mall are not 100% representative of the animals they have at the shelter. Because of some restrictions the mall has placed on them, many of the larger breed dogs have remained at the shelter (although they are promoting them at hte mall location) and any vocal dogs are also staying at the shelter because the mall has some major noise concerns. So the mall location has a lot of smaller, less-vocal dogs and cats that are finding new homes.
Either way, it is a great deal.
It's so important for shelters to think like retailers if they want to place more pets. Simply put, the mentality of closing at 5pm and limited weekend hours is not going to help get these pets into homes. I applaud the work this group is doing and a big thanks to you for keeping us updated!
Posted by: PetDocsOnCall09 | December 22, 2009 at 11:22 AM
Let me clarify by saying that the "previous and existing mentalities of shelters to close at 5pm and have limited weekend hours does not help get pets into homes".
Sorry for the confusion.
Posted by: PetDocsOnCall09 | December 22, 2009 at 11:23 AM
There was a similar operation at the Clackamas Town Center mall in the Portland, OR metro area years ago. I always thought that it was a fantastic idea! But after a couple of years, it closed. I never found out why.
Posted by: Stafinois | December 24, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Tompkins County SPCA had a similar holiday adoption center on the Ithaca Commons eight years ago and it was great.
Posted by: Valerie | December 24, 2009 at 03:24 PM