New Christmas adoption policy a hit for SPCA
Posted Jan 5, 2011 05:36:34 AM.
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The SPCA says a new approach to Christmastime adoptions is a hit.
Previously, the agency had a policy against allowing adoptions during the holiday season, believing animals given as live gifts might be returned or would wind up in inappropriate homes.
But this year the organization decided to try a different approach – and officials say it helped give a lot of unwanted animals new homes for Christmas.
The Nova Scotia SPCA changed its policies last year to allow adoptions around Christmas time and this year, the Halifax shelter adopted out three times as many animals as in December 2008.
Shelter director Sandra Flemming says it wasn’t all puppies and kittens being taken in over the holiday.
“A lot of adult animals went home,” she said. “They were being adopted out every week up until Christmas and they were going into homes where people were having quiet Christmases and they were going to be home over the holidays for an extended period of time. For their lifestyle and their schedule they found it was actually a good time.”
Flemming says there were other policy changes that helped get more pets into loving homes.
“We’ve taken out a lot of the barriers that people had,” she said. “Long adoption forms, asking a lot of questions. Instead, we now try to educate our adopters. We still want people to have their animals spayed, neutered, vaccinated and all those wonderful things, but we’re not so stringent in our policies that we don’t make allowances for people that don’t maybe have every single thing in the requirements that we’re looking for.”
Flemming says none of the furry Christmas adoptees have been returned so far.
