A Letter From Our President: MOAS Advocate Program Begins
More and more these days, people want to adopt shelter animals, but they also want an animal that knows basic commands, is perfectly house-trained, and won’t jump up on them, gets along with kids or other animals, etc., etc. At a shelter as busy as ours is, it’s sometimes hard for our staff to know everything that a potential adopter might want to know about an animal or to help train an animal to be able to provide everything that a potential adopter might want. Now, all adopters should be prepared to work with their new pet to develop a routine and train them to meet their own expectations, but the more work we can do to prepare a pet with those skills that are generally sought after, the more likely they are to find a good home and to stay in that home after being adopted.
MOAS Advocates do not have to be experienced trainers or pet behaviorists; most of us aren’t either! But if you can help teach a dog (or cat!) to sit, you make that dog infinitely more desirable in the eyes of most potential adopters. It also doesn’t take much for you to be able to spend some time observing your pet to get a sense of whether s/he is high-energy or low key, whether they like to cuddle or whether they’re more independent, whether they like to play with toys or have no idea what one is, and more. Your observations are all incredibly valuable pieces of information that will help an animal find their purr-fect home, and also help potential adopters make the right decision when choosing a pet to adopt.
This program is near and dear to my heart, and is based on a program started by Athenspets and used successfully at Athens-Clarke County Animal Control. Here at MOAS, we are always looking for new things to try to help improve outcomes for our shelter animals, especially if it also involves working cooperatively with our regional partners, like Athenspets. So I am thrilled that we have now started this program with the help of our Programs Coordinator Courtney Lasiwoski. I am excited that you’re interested in joining our Advocate team, and I look forward to meeting you at our shelter! If you have any questions about the Advocate Program or things that you can do with your pet to help get them adopted, please feel free to reach out to me and the rest of our staff at moaspets@gmail.com. We appreciate all that you are doing to help our shelter animals, and we want to be a resource for you!
Sincerely,
Sherrie Hines, Board President
You can learn more about our brand new Advocate program and sign up to participate here.