How About that Doggy at the Hair Salon?
Can we speed up the process of re-homing shelter dogs by
getting the dog out of the shelter and into the community?
The research took place at the Louisiana SPCA in New Orleans (a pilot study) and at the Charleston Animal Society in South Carolina. In both cases, dogs were assigned to either a shelter group or a foster group based on their intake number to avoid bias. When dogs were in the foster group, then the foster homes could choose which dog they would foster. Although it is potentially a confound in the research to allow foster homes a choice instead of random assignation, it’s a sensible part of the plan since they need to pick a dog that will fit in with their family and pets.
Every year, many dogs find new homes through animal rescues
and shelters, but some have a long wait and many are never re-homed. What if there was a way to free up shelter
space and encourage people who would not visit the shelter to adopt? A new
paper by Heather Mohan-Gibbons et al (2014) assesses the success of a scheme in
which dogs were moved to foster homes that had the job of finding a suitable
new home for the dog.
The background to this research is the high rate of
euthanasia of shelter dogs in the US (and other countries). Although there are
no official national figures, Mohan-Gibbons et al report a range of estimates
from previous research, including that only a quarter of such dogs are
re-homed. So ways of increasing the adoption rate are urgently needed.
At the same time, many more people say they would consider adopting from a shelter or rescue than actually do.This suggests there is a lot of potential to persuade more people to adopt,
rather than buy, a new dog.
The research took place at the Louisiana SPCA in New Orleans (a pilot study) and at the Charleston Animal Society in South Carolina. In both cases, dogs were assigned to either a shelter group or a foster group based on their intake number to avoid bias. When dogs were in the foster group, then the foster homes could choose which dog they would foster. Although it is potentially a confound in the research to allow foster homes a choice instead of random assignation, it’s a sensible part of the plan since they need to pick a dog that will fit in with their family and pets.
The foster homes were called Adoption Ambassadors. As the
authors explain, Adoption Ambassadors “were volunteers who cared for the dog in
their home, found an adopter for the dog, and performed the adoption.“ They
were trained by a coordinator and given supplies for the dog, including food,
leash, crate etc.
AAs used social media and asked friends and family to help
find a home. The dogs wore an ‘adopt me’ vest in public, and the AAs had
business cards to hand out to anyone who expressed an interest. It was
important the AAs took the dogs to dog-friendly places where they would be seen
by members of the public, and so they took dogs with them to places like parks,
stores and the hair salon.
The criteria for adoption were the same as for the dogs in
the shelter. The person adopting the dog did not have to visit the shelter at
all; the AAs were trained in how to carry out the adoption, which was usually
done in a public place.
The AA dogs were compared to the group of dogs that were
re-homed in the shelter as usual. At both locations, fewer dogs in the AA group
were returned than those adopted via the shelter. The length of stay before adoption was longer
for dogs in the AA group, but of course they spent this time in a home, rather
than a shelter.
Whereas most people who adopted shelter dogs first found out
about the dog by visiting the shelter, the range of sources for the AA dogs was
much wider, including the internet, hearing about the dog from a friend, or
seeing the dog out in public. This suggests that the program successfully
reached people who might not have visited the shelter. Analysis of the location
of adopter’s homes showed that in New Orleans, new AA homes were significantly
further from the shelter than the other group. This was not the case in
Charleston but different areas of the city were involved.
Another interesting finding is that 93% of people who
adopted at the shelter made a decision in less than a few hours, compared to
78% for the AA group. Significantly more of the AA adopters took longer than a
day to decide. This could be one reason why fewer dogs in this group were
returned, but it could also be that since the dogs were living in a home, the
foster parent could give a realistic description of what the dog is like.
There are always difficulties in conducting real life
research, and some dogs initially assigned to one or other condition were not
included in the final results for various reasons, including the dog becoming
sick, the foster parent going away, or because they took part in a special
‘free adoption’ event at the shelter. Nevertheless the overall sample size was
84 dogs in the AA group and 64 in the shelter group, both with an average age
of 0.8 years.
The results of this study are very encouraging and suggest
that more shelters should try a similar scheme. The authors say few resources
are needed other than those for any foster scheme: some co-ordination from the
shelter, ‘adopt me’ vests and business cards for the dogs. For more details of
how the scheme worked, you can read the paper in PLoS One (open access).
Do you think an Adoption Ambassador scheme would work in
your community?
Reference
Mohan-Gibbons, H., Weiss, E., Garrison, L., & Allison, M. (2014). Evaluation of a Novel Dog Adoption Program in Two US Communities PLoS ONE, 9 (3) 
