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Do the Right Thing:
Embrace differences in adoption programs

By: Brad Shear, CEO, Potter League for Animals

30 years ago, I started working at the front desk and kennels at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in Colorado. Our adoption process was traditional at first. People filled out an application with questions about their lifestyle, housing, what they would do with pets when they went on vacation, and more. We called references, including landlords, and did not have very clear guidelines about who ‘qualified’ to adopt an animal.  The guidance was that if something doesn’t feel right, say no.

Not long after I started working there our CEO, Jan McHugh-Smith, returned from working with a small group of shelter CEOs on a new way of working with adopters called ‘Open Adoptions.’ We eliminated the application and moved to a conversation-based system that worked toward finding the right match for each person and animal based on their needs and personalities. Adoptions became easier and faster. Jan would go on to travel the country with a subsidy from Petfinder to teach other shelters about the system.

A pattern started to emerge. White clients left with animals,
BIPOC clients got more questions and just left.

After 8 years, I moved to New York City to run the Brooklyn shelter for New York City Animal Care and Control. The entire shelter system there took in 60,000 animals per year. Half of them came to Brooklyn. The shelter held 400 animals, and during the summer, we might get 100 animals in in one day. The Brooklyn shelter was in East New York, which at the time had the highest homicide rate of any neighborhood in the City. I was told people just would not come there to adopt. 

On Saturdays, our adoption lobby was full, but people often left emptyhanded. Did we just not have the animals they were looking for? The adoption process at the time was similar to the old process I had started with. An application was filled out and the potential adopter was asked a series of questions that seemed intended to prevent them from adopting rather than help them find the right match. There was a different dynamic at this shelter though. Every adoption was being approved by the manager who sat at a desk behind the adoption counter where she could see the adopters, but not interact with them. 

The staff brought each application to the manager who would either send them back with approval for the adoption or additional questions to be asked of the potential adopter. A pattern started to emerge. White clients left with animals, BIPOC clients got more questions and just left. The issue seemed evident to me, and it clearly weighed heavily on our mostly BIPOC adoption staff. 

We quickly found a new adoption manager and brought the adoption staff together for open adoption training. The first month after the change adoptions went up by 45%. People would come to East New York to adopt. They were coming from the surrounding neighborhood; they had just always been turned away.

“Everyone coming to see us is trying to do the right thing”

Jan McHugh-Smith

When I was asked to chair the model practices committee for the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement (AAWA), a model practice for transport was already in progress. I made sure the next one was on adoption and the model practice would be to assume the best about everyone who comes to adopt. We should make matches, not make up reasons to exclude people. My hope was for conversational or open adoptions to become the standard, but it feels like in recent years we’ve slipped back into methods that make adoption more difficult and exclusionary.

So many barriers placed in front of adopters do not make sense. When I adopted my first dog as an adult, I had no history with a veterinarian because the pets I grew up with were in my parents’ names. I lived in a condo with no yard and adopted a 60-pound chow mix. For many organizations, the fact that I didn’t have my own fenced yard or a vet to give me a reference would have prohibited me from adopting. My dog spent the day indoors with me because I didn’t have a fenced yard, and I took him for walks. Having a fenced yard, a requirement for some organizations when adopting large dogs, would not have improved my dog’s life. My dog had a great life. He might have done well somewhere else, but he wasn’t going to be an easy dog to find a home for. For his entire life, everyone who knew us said we were the perfect pair. How many animals and people are missing those relationships because of exclusionary adoption programs?

Adoptions became easier and faster.

At my organization, we not only don’t ask for veterinary references, we adopt animals to people knowing those adopters will need to use our subsidized veterinary services and other support programs. We adopt to them because we want everyone to experience the joy and love that comes from living with an animal.  Personally, I’ve never been able to figure out what a ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’ home is. There is no perfection and if there were, it wouldn’t be the same for everyone. We should embrace those differences in our adoption programs.

It’s time for organizations to stop taking pride in how many people they refuse to adopt to and start celebrating their ability to find a way to say yes. Find a way to make a match. Take the time used for screening people out and spend it finding ways to bring people and animals together. If you’re stressed about the number of animals needing homes, the solution is to let people adopt them.

One of the things Jan said to everyone who worked for her 30 years ago is that everyone coming to see us is trying to do the right thing. They are trying to adopt, get help for their pets, or rehome their pets. Let us accept everyone for who they are and see their positive intentions. Jan is retiring at the end of this year, and I hope her legacy continues to be the growth of an approach to adoptions that welcomes everyone and finds a way for them to go home with an animal.

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Brad Shear is a REDI Bronze and Silver Graduate. He believed in the course so much and most importantly his staff, he had the entire staff take REDI Bronze.

“REDI has opened the eyes of the staff and board members who have taken the course to understand the deeper systemic issues that are impacting people and pets. Traditional animal sheltering practices have mostly been transactional and insufficient to help people continue living with the pets they love. REDI helped us see how we would need to look beyond the animal as an individual to see the whole family and the need for partnership with community organizations to work with people and pets.”

For more information on REDI, go to the HAW Academy (Human and Animal Well-being) https://haw.academy