How can we promote pet adoption over breeder purchases?
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Ajit NaikNov 10, 2023
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How can we encourage more shelter pet adoptions instead of breeder purchases?
Background
There are 220 million homeless pets. I live in Europe where there are a lot of rescue shelters, and many of these Shelters don't even have a website, and just rely on Instagram and Facebook to advertise their adoptable Pets. People are willing to adopt Pets, but they have some difficulty in finding Pets according to their preferences and compatibility. Apart from the local shelters, they generally don't know where else to look. They have to browse through multiple Facebook groups and Instagram accounts. For some reason, solutions like Petfinder or Adopt-a-Pet aren't popular here. I know some people who got frustrated by the adoption process and decided to buy from a breeder. I can understand that as many Shelters are run by volunteers, they might not have the time to ensure a smooth adoption process. I am trying to connect with a few shelters to understand their point of view.
What means could be used to effectively solve this problem?
People could crowd-fund an international organization that maintains a public searchable database of adoptable pets. Anyone should be able to search the database by all kinds of parameters like location radius, age of pet, breed, photos/videos, etc.
The organization would work on having every shelter install and use the app and thereby join the network. Strong animal rights-related organizations would run campaigns to get their people to talk to local animal shelters and get them on board. Such a shelter would get a special sign that they can put on their premises and thereby signal their "Michelin star-like" status.
People could post questions about a specific pet. Those questions would be relayed and replied to by the shelter that houses the pet.