Making Offsite Cat Adoptions Successful
This is the first of 4 parts
How would you feel about reducing length of stay for cats by two-thirds? That’s what Bucks County SPCA in Pennsylvania did with its offsite cat adoptions program! Read on to see how to implement your own successful program and place more cats into loving homes.
Why Offsite Cat Adoptions?
“It’s too easy to get a cat from anywhere else—under a porch, from a friend, running loose around their neighborhood—most people just find cats on their own,” says Linda Reider, executive director of Bucks County SPCA. That’s why she thinks offsite cat adoptions, which get shelter cats in the public eye, work so well. At Bucks County, the average length of stay for a cat at the shelter is 18 days, whereas offsite cats are typically homed in seven.
Offsite cat adoptions also:
- Get your name out in the community
- Make a great outlet for fosters (they can take foster cats to a store or vet clinic to find a new home instead of returning them to the shelter)
- Expose you to a new audience
- Facilitate ease of selection—having fewer cats to choose from can make it easier to decide
- Provide unique volunteer opportunities
- Offer convenience to customers—cats are available during retail hours when the shelter is closed
Consider Kittens, too!
- Only bring kittens who are at least eight weeks old and have received at least one modified-live FVRCP vaccine (herpes, calici, panleukopenia)
- All kittens should also receive at least one dose of a broad spectrum dewormer against roundworms and hookworms (such as Strongid/pyrantel pamoate) and, ideally, some type of flea/tick preventative
- Do not include any kittens showing any signs of illness
- Enforce basic biosecurity measures at the event, including having people handle kittens before adults and use hand sanitizer between handling different litters
More
We have lots more on this subject:
