A lot of empty cages this morning

This is what the cat room looked like at the Kansas City Pet Project as the team left last night.

A lot of empty cages.

KC Pet Project is an organization that is running the Kansas City Animal Shelter and were one of about 50 organizations nationally that were taking part in the ASPCA Mega Match-A-Thon event.

I want to talk a bit about the program -- because a) I think it's a great program and b) I think there are some simple learnings here that should be applied to most shelter organizations.

First off, the participating organizations applied for grants of either $5000 or $10,000. The orgs received the money which was to be used for promoting the event, spaying and neutering, collars, etc). Every animal that left the shelter had to have a collar, identification (ie microchip) and had to be spayed or neutered and ready to go. 

KC Pet Project partnered with two other local organizations -- Heartland SPCA and Wayside Waifs and created a joint TV spot that promoted the adoption event at all 3 locations.  All organizations extended their shelter hours, agreed to do a $25 adoption fee and most did radio remotes at their shelters, brought in food carts and tv and newspaper news organizations got a press release and we got a fair amount of news coverage. Our goal was to adopt out more than 500 pets among the three organizations.

Goal. Shattered. 

In the first two days of the event (and we're all still open for business today), KC Pet Project adopted out 114 pets. Heartland SPCA, 201 (I think) and Wayside did more than 200 on Friday alone (they were allegedly still processing adoptions at 11:30 Friday night, and may still be processing yesterday's adoptions as I haven't heard a final report from yesterday from them).

We called one area shelter that was not participating to see if we could pull some of their animals to help fill some empty kennels and one of the other orgs had already beaten us to it. We have also been calling some rescues who we're usually working hard to get animals OUT of our shelter and asking them to bring some back.  It's been that kind of weekend.

And it sounds like other participating shelters have had similar success. The ASPCA Pro Facebook page last night was posting pictures and reports of shelters closing down early because they were out of animals, one reported having more people than animals at the shelter and photographed their staff in some of the dog kennels.

Obviously this is great news for a fairly large number of shelters across the country -- and for a lot of animals that have found forever homes. However, many shelters will just fill up with animals again and what can we learn from this weekend to build upon the success?  So here are some of my thoughts after day two:

1) Having animals spay/neutered/vaccinated and ready to go is great for the adoption process vs having them adopted but having to wait a couple of days to have the surgeries before owners can take them home. There's nothing better than the instant gratification of taking your new pet home to be with the family immediately (it's fun for shelter staff to watch them go home too).

2) Making the adoption process fun is important. People are excited to bring a new pet into their lives -- be sure they get to enjoy that excitement.

3) A little advertising and promotion for adoption goes a long way.

4) People love pets -- and if you give them a reason to come to your shelter they will support your efforts.

5) Adoption specials work. It's what retail outlets have known for years and the model works in animal welfare also.

6) Social media is amazing at building excitement among adopters, staff and volunteers.

7) Extending hours that shelters are open helps drive excitement and give more people an opportunity to come by

8) It is amazing what a little help from the major, national organizations can do to assist shelters in moving animals out the front door.

 Here's to many more happy adoptions -- today, and for weekends to come.

Comments

[jenn]

that is sooo cool. Good job everyone! May you all have more days like this.

[Lorraine @YVR]

This is wonderful; You guys are truely amazing, hope this news spreads to many many shelters.
As an avid pet Mom with two current vacancies in our home (and there is always the "emergency cat slot" an event like this in our neighbourhood would have likely seen a +1 to our family!

[Dianne R.]

We had a tremendous turnout for the Mega-thon here in DC, held at http://WARL.org
with booths set up in the parking lot for six other shelters. The last I heard on Saturday we had adopted out 88 dogs and 14 cats. Among the dogs were the usual pit bulls but also a horsey faced bull terrier. All gone. Only 2 dogs left at WARL.

[Brent]

Awesome Dianne! Sounds like it was a great success for everyone. Let's hope we can all leverage the successful weekend into future successes.

[Brenda]

This is soooo great to hear!! I wish all shelters would do this so we could prevent euthanasia!!!!

[Cee]

Awesome news! All shelters need to do this instead of killing animals.

[Sandie]

I am so glad you are doing this work, wonderful!
We are all about health for pets and just wanted to say I really like your blog! Dogs and cats are lucky you are there. Still don't understand why people take on the responsibility of an animal before doing some research about care needed. Simple things like exercise and yard care etc.
A friend of mine has a product that is called Fluid and is of course liquid dog and cat supplements that we use for our dog. It's a new product and because it is liquid it is easy to administer. Thought you might like to know about it.
http://www.equinenutrition.ca/caninefeline