The myth of the Perfect Adopter
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived the Perfect Adopter. This person had a huge home with hundreds of acres for dogs to run on, complete with a 32-foot-tall fence. They had protected catios (cat patios) and indoor cat trees galore. The Perfect Adopter had a huge family with kids to play with the cats and dogs — or perhaps no children, depending on the pets. And most of all, the Perfect Adopter had endless resources to adopt thousands of dogs and cats — or just one, if that's what the situation required.
In other words, the Perfect Adopter was everything, all at once.
And that’s the problem.
The Perfect Adopter is a legend that lives in an alternate universe to our own. But their presence is felt in shelters across the country.
The trouble with this myth of the Perfect Adopter is that it sets an impossible standard. It’s a game that we can’t win. And yet, we can all probably create a “perfect adopter” in our heads for each unique dog and cat in our shelters.
That’s when good intentions quickly turn into barriers. The Perfect Adopter myth becomes a problem when we let a checklist get in the way of having a conversation.
Take Animal A.I.D. of Mississippi. When a litter of 14 puppies came in, the rescue group became understandably overwhelmed. For any small rescue organization, 14 dogs is a huge undertaking.
When the puppies went up for adoption, one application came in for Claire –– a sweet tan pup with radiant eyes and special freckles on her nose. “In the past,” says Anne Williford, secretary of Animal A.I.D. of Mississippi, “we would have rejected the application immediately because some of the answers seemed ‘off.’”
Maybe an answer was too short. Maybe something wasn’t filled out quite right. Nothing alarming — just not picture-perfect on paper.
But looking down at 14 dogs who needed homes, Anne took a second to pause. What exactly seemed “off,” she thought. Maybe something was “off” with the adoption process and not with the potential adopter.
By denying families the chance to meet their new best friend based solely on a written application, we are focusing on risk aversion instead of potential joy. We’re getting hung up on the risk of adoption returns instead of seeing even that as an opportunity to learn more about the animal.
So Anne simply picked up the phone and called the family.
And as it turns out, “It was immediately clear that they were wonderful dog lovers who just weren’t great at filling out forms,” says Anne. And hey, who could blame them?
After setting up a meet and greet, the family fell in love with Claire (now Tilly). Their son was immediately on the ground getting endless slobbery kisses. “This perfect match only happened because we chose to have a conversation instead of judging a piece of paper. It really proved to us that ‘lightening up’ on our review process was the right move.”
I mean, hey, we’ve had to audit our own adoption process too. Even just recently in Dogtown here at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, we discovered a few things that were keeping puppies at the Sanctuary (and out of homes) longer than necessary.
Before, if you wanted to adopt a puppy from the Sanctuary, you would have to schedule an appointment. So we moved our puppies to a more public-facing building to get more eyes on them and removed the appointment requirement. Keeping them safe while increasing their visibility was instrumental.
After these intentional changes, our team shortened the average puppy’s stay here by 10 days –– which then allowed us to increase our monthly puppy intake by 53%. Those are life-changing results for the puppies and the people who love them.
Here’s the truth: There is no one “perfect” person for each pet. Nor is there a “perfect” pet for each person. There are simply loving adopters willing to learn, grow, and figure it out together.
Instead of keeping pets in shelters longer, I challenge you to dispel the “Perfect Adopter” myth when you see it show up. I even have my own “Perfect Adopter” story that I’ll share with you all very soon — something that changed my whole outlook on adoption.
The fairy-tale ending is out there for all pets in shelters. And it doesn’t take a mythical creature to save them.
-Julie
