Dear Million Cat Challenge,
How do you feel about same-day adoptions? My organization is scared stiff to do this but it might remove a huge barrier. Our process currently takes about a week. – Is Shorter Better?
Dear Shorter,
We’ve been doing same day adoptions for years. Remember, we are the equivalent of a retail outlet competing with all the other places people can get cats. If our services are more cumbersome, expensive, and unpleasant than the competition, our cats are going to lose.
We can’t control if people will get cats, but we can control whether they get a cat that is neutered and vaccinated and comes with education about responsible pet ownership and the safety net of a shelter of rescue group ready to help. If we drive them away from shelters and toward Craig’s list, we are sabotaging our efforts to save more cats.
We could suggest that you perform a careful analysis of your historical records to see how many people are denied over the period of a week who could not be adequately screened on the same day, but instead, we’d suggest that you give same day adoptions a try. It’s become the norm in shelters and rescue programs now, and we only see an upside.
Dr. Julie Levy