Jesse Martinez no longer feels alone out there.

He’s one of 650 people attending Best Friends Animal Society’s No More Homeless Pets Conference in Las Vegas.

(From left to right: Holly Sizemore, Nathan Winograd, Jane Hoffman, Judah Battista)

Martinez has been rescuing dogs and cats for 30 years. Today, he’s the president of the REVA Co-Operative, a fledgling animal welfare organization in Weldon, California.
 
“I love it,” Martinez said of the two-and-a-half day conference at the Rio Hotel. “I’ve met so many wonderful people and I’m learning a lot. It’s opened my eyes. It’s not only me out there. There are people doing what I do all over the world. You meet people who have the same passion for animals that you do.”

Martinez and others at the conference are attending workshops taught by the very best animal welfare has to offer. They’re learning more about how to help shy cats and get them out of shelters, how to save pit bulls from breed discrimination, how to recruit foster care volunteers, and how to put the squeeze on puppy mills and other irresponsible breeders. They’re also finding out about marketing themselves, ways to reform their local animal control agencies and how to build no-kill communities.

Business sense

On Saturday morning, there was a panel discussion, “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition! Adoptions for Success,” followed by workshops on strategies for getting animals out of shelters and into loving homes. Speakers included Mike Arms, president of the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California; Jane Hoffman, president and chairman of the board of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals; Judah Battista, associate director for Best Friends Community Programs and Services (and formerly the manager of animal care at PAWS Chicago’s rescue center); Holly Sizemore, executive director of No More Homeless Pets Utah; and Nathan Winograd, director of the No Kill Advocacy Center in Oakland, California.

Panel member Arms said shelters and rescues need to learn how to market themselves.

“The animals have our hearts,” he said. “They need our business minds.”

After all, Arms added, shelters are “in the business of selling used dogs and cats.”

Shelters need to advertise in the right places. Instead of just putting a one-line ad in the Yellow Pages – that’s where people go when they want to relinquish a pet – they need to advertise in the same publications in which their competition, puppy mills and pet stores, advertise.

(Jane Hoffman, president and chairman of the board of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals, pictured on right)

“You’re in the business of selling used dogs and cats,” Arms told the audience.

Shelters and rescues also need to reach out to their local newspapers and television news stations to get their heartwarming animal stories out there so they can get those animals adopted. Those stories draw lots of people into their facilities. And if people don’t get the animal featured in the news story, chances are they’ll take home another one.

Shelters and rescues also need to give up archaic policies such as not allowing adoptions during the holidays out of the fear that those adoptions might be impulse buys. Since Arms started the Iams Home for the Holidays adoption drive in 1999, the campaign has found homes for more than 3,278,000 orphaned pets worldwide.

And then there’s the ridiculous policy some shelters have of not allowing adoptions of black cats at Halloween time.

“If they park their broom in the parking lot, you don’t have to adopt to them,” Arms said.

The panel discussion was aptly titled, “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition,” because some shelters and rescues make it almost impossible for people to qualify to adopt one of their pets.

Winograd said he and his family once went looking for a dog and were turned down by one rescue because there was no dog door. It didn’t matter to the rescue that Winograd worked from home and could let the dog out anytime. Nor that the Winograds were willing to take a harder-to-adopt dog — a black dog who weighed more than 100 pounds.

“We thought we were doing a good thing here,” Winograd said.

Winograd emphasized adoption screenings should be thoughtful, not bureaucratic.

He said shelters and rescues also need to have hours that accommodate working people.

“We do such a poor job of reaching out to people and getting them to take animals into their homes,” Winograd said.

Shelters also need to change from dreary places into places people will want to go to. Battista said ideally, shelters should be places where “you feel like you’ve walked into a Pottery Barn for pets.”

More animals find homes when shelters and rescues join together to hold super adoptions.
 
Sizemore said the No More Homeless Pets Utah Coalition averages between 400 and 450 adoptions during a three-day super adoption event.

When it all comes down to it, the secret of successful adoptions is matching the right person with the right pet. The wrong dog or cat for one person is the right dog or cat for another.

“You’re looking for the best possible match,” Hoffman said. 

(Mike Arms, president of the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California, pictured on left.)

As part of Best Friends’ 25th anniversary in 2009, our goal is to double our membership, so we can double our efforts to bring about a time when all companion animals have a forever home. What can you do to help? Give the Gift of a Best Friends membership to family and friends.
 

Photos by Sarah Ause, Best Friends' photographer.