Plan of Action  <You do these things!>

Create a flyer.  Include a photo and descriptive, interesting and complete narrative description of the animal's personality, age, color, temperament, endearing qualities, traits and history.  Stories sell.  Use great close-up photos.  Include the following information on your flyer -- 

  1. Why you are giving up the animal or why the animal needs a new home.  f not the right fit, what exactly does that mean. If moving, tell why your animal is unable to move along with you;
  2. Whether the animal gets along with other animals (cats /dogs) and children as best can tell;
  3. Provide details about personality to endear to adopters (the littlest anecdotes get them, such as does he attack your toes when you are sleeping under the covers? Curl up next to your head at night? Wait for you right outside your shower in the morning? Sit on your newspaper when you are trying to read it? Greet strangers with a purr when they visit? As many little things as you can include will help to distinguish your animal from the thousands of others seeking homes;
  4. Share about your perfect adopter for your animal(s) and why.  Understand, of course, that this is a fluid thing, but designed to help the reader to understand what qualities in a household might work best. If the animal is fearful for instance, young kids would not be a good idea. If very active, a home with another young cat or dog might help burn off some energy. If super mellow and LOVES people, maybe an older person or couple.  That kind of thing.   Selling is telling a story, so narrate!
  5. Definitely put effort into creating the flyer.  You are working to pitch your animal(s) to potential adopters and also potentially to animal placement/rescue organizations who might view, help and/or circulate, or know or find someone who might be a perfect fit.  Make it creative and entertaining so that bored office workers will circulate widely.     
  6. Along with links above right on this website, also see this particularly excellent one here:  http://bestfriends.org/nomorehomelesspets/pdf/adoptionblurbs.pdf 

Circulate the flyer far and wide to all email contacts.  Request recipients to forward it.  Also, look into joining (perhaps short-term so you can post) various neighborhood, "green" or parenting egroups locally, as well as also investigate various other area electronic bulletin boards to which you might have access through business, school, professional, church, sport, club or various hobby affiliations.   

  • Post on Craigs List (CL).   http://craigslist.com  You can reach potential adopters as well as animal rescuers who peruse using Craigs List (CL). 
  • Research using Petfinder.  Locate animals similar to yours (search by zip code and species) on Pet-finder (http://petfinder.com) to identify local organizations which might help you.  Also send a flyer to foster parents, saying that for successful adoption referral, you will donate the fee to their group.   

Placement tips | Phone Interviews.   http://4asap.org/Adoption_Questionnaire.htm has talking points for cat adoption applicants, easily adapted to other species.  Print blank forms and keep handy by phone. 

  • Visit the home of any adopter.  If someone comes to you first to meet your animal, still then insist on bringing the animal to them. 
  • Never let someone walk away with your animal.  A man in NYC used to bring a child with him to entice people to give him animals; another said his grandmother wanted a dog, but was too old to come in person and lived too far away to visit her.  In the DC area, an older professional woman answered free to good home ads.  She was an animal rights person afraid of animals falling into bad hands, so took animals and brought them to area shelters to be put down. 
  • A home visit and reference (landlord and veterinary) checks help, but a home visit is the most off-putting to someone intending to harm an animal.  Bunchers (who sell animals to laboratories) will pay nominal fees, so do not don't rely on charging an adoption fee to protect your animal.  If uncomfortable taking money for your animal, have the fee go to an animal charity.  A fee demonstrates that the potential  adopter has sufficient resources to care for an animal.   
  • Call me-- Joanna Harkin 202-331-1330 to help screening potential adopters and to brainstorm with you about an applicant.  I am glad to phone interview and home visit anyone in the greater DC area.  I also know rescue colleagues who will volunteer to do so too.  Remember, safety first.  Protect your animal above all, and I will gladly help you in vetting adoption applicants.  Or email me of course.

Phase 3:  Be persistent.  Most companion animals are rehomed through what is referred to as the family and friends network.  Invest the time and effort to create an attractive flyer, and, as always with marketing, repetition is key.  Do not give up.  When it comes to marketing, persistence and repetition are essential.   Just as houses sell and jobs are found, animals can be transitioned into new homes.  Sometimes though it just takes a little more effort and more time.  Your animal's life hangs on not giving up, so don't! 

  • Consider doing a website with photos.   Googlepages websites such as this one are free, easy to do and a good, creative project for a teenager.  Don't just ask people if they want your animal.  Work it.
  • Locate your medical paperwork for your animal and/or get it from your vet OR take to vet for check up/vacinne updating.  While there, post a flyer and alert the vet staff as to your animal's availability.  Even if you bring to an open-admission animal shelter, this improves an animal's adoption chances and of an animal placement agency accepting your animal into their foster homes or program. 
  • Arrange for interim housing  though (for cats!) this is a last resort.  Relocation sometimes triggers loss of appetite which, though rare, can lead to fatty liver disease.  Feline infectious peritonitis is  attrib-uted to a common corona virus which remains latent until activated by stress.  Cats are also susceptible to respiratory infections when confined with other cats.   Keep cat in current home as long as possible.   
  • Understand the first home you find may not work out or be acceptable to your animal, and when a cat (more so than a dog) is not happy he may exhibit behavior such as clawing furniture, biting, excessive vocalization or inappropriate urination, and be sent back.  See as a temporary setback.  Do not just say, "I tried."  If you were selling your house or car or jobhunting, you would persevere. 

Animal Shelters are preferable to bad alternatives.  For some animals, placement into a new home is not a kindness to the animal who may be geriatric, have medical or behavioral issues.  A kitten once had her pelvis broken when the adopter's boyfriend found his shoes ruined by the cat's urine, and the boyfriend threw the cat against the wall in a rage.   If your cat is ill, be honest on any intake form and with adopters. 

  • A donation never hurts any animal's prospects at a shelter or to encourage a rescue organization to find room for "just one more."  I once did a home visit for a city shelter for an old cat.  I was told that for the kind of donation that came with the cat, any they could find a home for any cat.  Everything here can by easily done by a high school student.  Money can sometimes be a great work and time saver. 
  • Research shelters, sancturies, rescue organizations.  There are good (and bad) open-admission, municipal, private shelters and (mostly private) sanctuaries.  Some offer lifetime care for animals, but require monthly support or a one-time fee or both.  Perform due diligence.  Evaluate and assess.  A well run shelter which gets too many animals and has to euthanize most of its cat admissions  is probably not a good choice unless you have no time or  no way of transporting an animal anywhere else.  If you can, research all the shelters within a radius of perhaps even a hundred miles.  Be willing to go out of county or out of state based on what you find out. 

Contact me for placement advice and/or counsel.   Each situation is unique.  I can often help callers think through options with a phone conversation or two.  I am ready to collaborate and share some other resources not listed here.  Call me  (202-331-1330) or email me at joannaharkin@yahoo.com.

  • Out of pocket costs might be tax deductible. if authorized in advance by an IRS-recognized charity.  If the animal you are helping is not owned by you, and you are willing to spend funds to help rehome a needy, unowned animal (for example, to pay for sterilization, vaccinations, supplies, advertising, and or boarding or kenneling), contact me for details about deducting those costs.

Background of Joanna Harkin 

  • Volunteer for the Washington Humane Society as a home visitor for cat adoptions (1987 to present).
  • Founder and executive director, Alliance for Stray Animals and People (website:  http://4asap.org), a 501(c)(3) primarily animal charity (formed 1998; Washington DC).    
  • Cat adoptions manager, PetsMart, Alexandria, Virginia, in-store adoption center (1999-2004);  Petco, Washington, DC (1998-2002).
  • Helped relocate/rehome 200+ cats from Lorton Prison (Lorton, VA; 1998-2000). 
  • Relocated 50 cats loose after their home was bulldozed (Springfield, VA; Fall 2005).
  • Relocated, transferred t0 other organizations 80 cats from a shelter with 200 cats being forced to close (Crisfield, MD; Spring 2006). 
  • Helped woman who brought several dogs to DC area from the south boarding them at great personal expense.  Paved the way for her to receive a grant. (November 2006)
  • Facilitated nine Labrador puppies being offered to customers in a Wal-Mart in Pocomoke, MD being transferred to Humane Society of Calvert County in Maryland (Winter 2007).  
  • Helped relocate 25 feral cats in southern New Jersey being fed by a postal delivery person ordered by police to remove cats left behind by elderly woman (April 2007).    
  • After helping cats for many years, my home is reserved for cats who are geriatric, harder to rehome or who were originally adopted through me.  I am, however, willing to collaborate with anyone to help rehome animals using some of these above resources and others.