7 28 23 Meeting Notes with Arielle (Petey & Furends)

Adoption process

• not familiar with baja pet rescue

• adoption process can seem overwhelming, lots of barriers

• go to website, complete form, goes to google sheet, moved to adoption processing sheet (matchmakers and volunteers can see)

• background check prescreen for volunteers (previous animals and DNA check?)

• director of operations - fosters, transfers, medical

• matchmaker picks up app and talks to adopter

  • either approved for type of animal or specific animal
    • if exact dog isn't there, gets moved to approved application and gets suggestions weekly
    • stay "approved" forever
    • once matched, virtual meet and greet. 24 hours to decide, docusign, pay, pick up dog in few days
    • follow up - spay/neuter, obedience training, 30 days of training support with petcademy baltimore 643 animals surrendered in 6 day periods adoptions are low applications are low fosters are hard to find same application process for foster

  process is OK except not enough adopters post on website and adoptapet, can't use petfinder because they're not spayed/neutered yet how similar is process between organizations

  • Arielle started dc metro area coalition
  • at animal shelter, fill out application, have conservation, take animal home (called "open adoptions")
    • research shows this works
    • shelter's goal is to move animal out for space reasons
  • not a lot of best practices for rescue, vigilante culture
  • organizations vary from very restrictive to almost no barriers
    • restrictions could be home visits, checking previous pets died from old age organizations have people playing different roles, trained in
  • prescreeners/home visits
  • matchmakers some organizations match adoption coordinator with adopter and others are attached to specific animal
  • depends on whether goal is to match adopter best or match animal best foster and adoption forms are almost the same wants a quiz after conversation to see if person really listened

• e.g. people are told to drive animal to vaccination, but later say they don't have a car

• did you check with landlord? did you check every member of family is OK with animal? emails

• group email for random questions or surrendering animal

• each matchmaker has own email

• shelters love to use facebook messenger (Arielle hates this, prefers email or text) use google for everything

• sheets and folders for each pet

• shelter databases don't have everything they need, and they cost money

• if got larger, they'd need better software

• shared within organization, but don't share within coalition

  • bigger places have databases (shelterluv) types of pets

• dogs, cats, rabbits, red eared sliders, bearded dragons comment on baja mix

• people label dog types incorrectly and get frustrated with real results from DNA repeat adopters or fosters?

• hope fosters repeat. People go from always having a foster dog or taking breaks in between

  • you want fosters to be invested in your organization and stick with you

• some adopters become fosters also afterwards

• some adopters do adopt again after a year or so

• want them to have great experience so they come again paid database software

• lots of notes and coordination in google sheets

• tracking various dates for treatment

• categorize animal by categories

• need to feed data into https://www.shelteranimalscount.org/ largest pain point/use of time

• foster people get reminders to vaccinate or go to adoption event or etc by a certain date

• if Arielle could track this too

• most time is spent by humans needing things and scheduling logistics