Finding Truth In No Kill And The Necessity To Change The Brand I had a great one hour conversation with David Meyer the founder and president of AdoptAPet today. He is a true rescue heart! We will be working closely together on many of our initiatives moving forward including Big Dog Digs- (BigDogDigs) and Rescue Guru (rescueguru) - Much of our conversation focused on the idea of ‘no kill’ and how those words “no-kill” now have negative connotations - missed opportunities, radical agendas, animals released into the community, TNR, forced commitments by communities and the happy name of No Kill as political cover. But the mission behind it is good and possible if done the right way, with a number of initiatives executed simultaneously. One thing is no undeniably true - the brand “no kill” is tainted and a new brand needs to be developed that has a positive message but ultimately the same goal - saving as many health animals as humanly possible. The problem and the solution are as simple as business 101 - Supply and Demand - Supply The supply comes from two principal places - 1, accidental litters (yea I know); backyard breeders; abandoned strays; and ACO activities and 2, OS - Owner Surrenders - the purposeful turn in of a pet for whatever reason they do. Those reasons include financial, housing, non conforming animal, and other reasons. We all know that one of the big issues is housing - people who must surrender their pets because of landlord or deed restricted community rules. Starting sites like Big Dog Digs, getting tax incentives to landlords to accept renters with pets, educating landlords on the actual advantages of having pet owners as renters are all ways this can improve. Another issue was how to handle spay neuter - I think I have come to the conclusion that making it mandatory is untenable but according to research, if people have the opportunity and mean to spay neuter they do. So there is hope there if the community can put together programs to make it easier and more accessible. Demand Increasing adoptions. The acceptability of the public to have the desire to own a rescue/shelter pet over purchasing a dog or cat from a breeder (backyard or otherwise) or pet store. Demand is also driven by awareness, education and availability within a reasonable distance of their home or work. Adopting a sterilized rescue / shelter pet also does double duty of removing a potential breeding situation from happening if they buy from a store or breeder. It is pretty obvious to all that shelters do a terrible job at marketing, and for a number of reasons. Most shelters are county owned and as such are run like the landfill - we are here, junk will come in, we deal with it and go onto the next day. Its never been confronted with a true supply and demand situation like with the animals. They rarely have a professional in place who know marketing, advertising, branding, social media, public relations and basis sales training. So they are left with a part time, often volunteer trying to do the job of a multi-million dollar marketing firm. Ain’t gonna happen! They try adoption events but have no clue how to promote and no clue (or budget) that it takes money to market, something few county commissions want to fund. Interestingly they find the money to kill them but don’t find the money to save them - we need to point that out to them. It’s also just easier and cheaper to kill the animals that come through the system. They come in, are held in a pen, and 5 days later a needle or gas ends it and your’e done. It’s so much harder to do the right thing. Only public outrage changes this lazy path to include getting them medical care, reasonable housing and adoption opportunities. So my conclusion here is that saving all the healthy adoptable animals at a shelter every month is possible if, and ONLY IF, an integrate program to reduce supply and increase demand are executed simultaneously over a long period of time. In my opinion, getting a demand generating program in place has the least friction and can do the most good in the shortest period of time. Imagine increasing adoptions by 20% in weeks just by doing some advertising and other adoption and outreach programs? To me, it’s a no-brainer, and I hope I can convince the Shelter Administrator and the County Commission to help the community walk down this path. Art Fyvolent Founder Tampa Bay Pet Rescue Asociation
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:48:46 +0000
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