The Best Friends Podcast Episode 67
Every time someone chooses to adopt an animal, we have the opportunity to positively change that person's life and save the life of an animal. So why do we still put up so many barriers that make adopting an animal so unreasonably difficult?
The reasons to deny a pet adoption are as vast as they are inane. Sometimes it's because of age (of the adopter and/or the pet). Others are rejected because they are a renter, while another potential adopter may own a home, but the yard doesn't have a fence. Some organizations go so far by asking if you plan to have children anytime in the next decade. This often grueling and unnecessarily invasive adoption process does little to determine how much a pet will be cared for and drives good people away from our lifesaving work.
This week we speak with Lawrence Nicolas, the Chief Operating Officer for the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League in West Palm Beach, Florida. Lawrence tells us about their open adoption process that sends roughly 6,000 animals to new homes each year while maintaining a return rate of under 4-percent.
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Resources from this episode- Best Friends Playbook: Open Adoptions - Basic considerations and steps that every agency can take to create a well-rounded open-adoption program.
- Best Friends Lifesaving Training Module: Client Service & Open Adoptions - Exceeding client service expectations to increase lifesaving.
- Best Friends Adoption Barrier Study - Qualitative study to understand the pet acquisition process, existing barriers (real or perceived) to adoption, and potential solutions to overcome those barriers.
- Best Friends Tool: How to Use Data to Prove the Community-Supported Sheltering Model - A guide to the importance of knowing your data (especially now), what you need to be measuring, and how to use it to increase lifesaving with your community.
- Best Friends Pet Adoption Survey Results - How do Americans feel about pet adoption, and what do they really know about shelter animals? Those were two key questions Best Friends hoped to answer through its inaugural “Pet Adoption” survey.
- HSUS: Adopters Welcome
- American Pets Alive! - Open Fostering: Removing Barriers to Fostering During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Carver Scott Humane Society- Example of low barrier adoption agreement
- Saving America's Pets Eps. 16 & 17, Getting out of our own way to save more lives
- Best Friends, Pet Adoption: Barriers and Solutions
- Blog, Pet adoption policies: More red carpets, fewer roadblocks, empty animal shelters
- Animal welfare should tear down walls to pet ownership
- Reflecting on Rescue Roadblocks
- Removing Rescue Roadblocks
- Rescue Roadblock Pledge Participants Share Their Successes
- Association for Animal Welfare Advancement: If your adoption policies put up barriers, you’re part of the problem
- Removing Barriers to Adoption: How Evidence, Innovation and Compassion Grow Pet Adoptions
- Stories Matter- CARE's Narrative Division is producing stories that celebrate diverse companion humans and their pets.
Guest this week
Lawrence Nicolas
chief operating officer, Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League
Lawrence Nicolas is the chief operating officer for Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League in West Palm Beach, Florida. Lawrence oversees all operational components of the organization, including adoptions, fostering, medical for both shelter and publicly owned animals, pet safety net efforts and facilities.
Prior to joining Peggy Adams, he was the senior manager of lifesaving for Best Friends Animal Society in Utah, overseeing adoptions and foster, events and volunteers and the external shelter support work Best Friends coordinates across Utah.
Lawrence lives with his wife and two-year-old son, along with their three senior rescue pets.
Episode Transcript