All of these dogs are fostered by the St. Louis Senior Dog Project
please stop by www.stlseniordogproject.org if you are interested in adopting or fostering.

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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Be the Change: Foster Dog seeks fan club


We are back for the third time to Blog the Change! Our dogs are still taking a break from blogging after the holidays and their hectic adoption schedule so you are once again stuck with the human counterpart of this blog :). I got inspired to write this story after reading one of our foster mom’s story of her foster dog T-Rex, a crazy little min pin.

She writes in her blog about how everyone in the group loves T-Rex so much that we probably need to start a fan club. T-Rex is one of those pooches that has been hanging around for a very very long, he has been with St. Louis Senior Dog Project for 2 years! and only once there has been interest in him :(. He is a great great dog, believe me I am one of his fans however he as many puppymill dogs comes with a bit of emotional baggage and sometimes potential homes are not to thrilled about this and so he gets skipped. His foster mom and her family have been great assets to T-Rex’s life and have given him the best life a pooch could get, but his forever home is still avoiding him. But what really got me thinking after reading her blog was the thing about the fan club, I started to wonder 
what would happen if  we all became fans of a dog/cat/bunny/pet in need of a home? 
be a groupie, find out all about them and talk all about them to our friends and family, post their picture on facebook or your blog. Out there on the twitterverse we have Tweet a Pet tuesday and on facebook it is Share a Pet tuesday, and while those efforts are certainly appreciated by every rescue I started thinking what would happen if you chose just one pet to be a fan of for a month?  What if you would pick a pet for any reason ( is a senior, looks like your own dog) and shared that one pet’s profile every other day on your facebook and twitter pages? and what if you told your coworkers about this particular pet? how about your family? The truth is that most pets that are with small rescues are out on adoption events only once a week, sometimes twice, and foster parents already have told their friends and family about their wonderful foster pets,  
rescue pets need all the exposure they can get and for that they need fans! Groupies that become involved and invite more and more people to take a look at them and give them a chance.  Groupies that take advantage of the social media right there in front of them! Don’t steer away next time you see a pooch on Petfinder that you think looks like the best dog ever, you may not be able to adopt them but someone you know might, get your fan groove going!
Thanks for reading!
-Elisa
St. Louis Senior Dog Project volunteer

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed! Getting a foster pet out there and letting others get to know them I think helps them become invested in the "end" of the story. Thanks for sharing!

Pup Fan said...

This is a really great idea!

Kim Clune said...

You guys are AWESOME repeat Blog the Changers and I love the rescue fan club idea.

I've been taking artsy photos and posting highly personalized descriptions for the dogs in our local rescue and, together with the home visit volunteers, we've moved roughly ten dogs into homes from the kennel since October. That's a great run for us.

Your post and our experience proves that a little bit of promotion goes a long, long way to save lives.

Awesome.
Kim
BtC4animals.com

KimT said...

Yes - Kim is right! In marketing, it's all about "presentation", what impression is given to the potential client. For rescues, any way to help show people just how terrific that dog or cat is, can only help them.

You've got a terrific idea!!Woot Woot!!

Hilary said...

What a great idea; a fan club! Some bloggers are doing that with much success here, similar to what Kim said she's doing. That poor dog needs a home!

Kolchak Puggle said...

What a wonderful idea Elise! I do a form of this with the rescue I volunteer with. Each month we pick a featured pup and twice a weel a different volunteer writes a story about this pup which goes to our e-mail list. You're right - it's REALLY effective! And when people get to know these rescues like the fosters and volunteers do, it's hard not to fall in love!

da coach said...

Thanks for helping the dogs