Donna Wild: Why You Should Choose Home-to-Home Dog Adoption Over Shelters| E47

[00:00:00] So people will re-home with us. So the person needing a new home for their animal, they'll

[00:00:04] re-home with us to prevent the animal from going into a shelter because they don't want

[00:00:09] that for their future. And then the adopter will adopt from us because they know the history

[00:00:14] of the animal. They can see all that and to prevent them from having a different future.

[00:00:28] Welcome to the Pet Care Report podcast by Pet Summits. Here's your natural dog health

[00:00:33] care host, Elora McKinley.

[00:00:35] Well, G'day guys. Thanks for joining me on another episode. I have a very insightful episode

[00:00:40] plan for you today. We're going to be chatting about home-to-home adoption as an alternative

[00:00:45] to shelters. And to do that, I would love to introduce you to our guest speaker, Donna.

[00:00:50] Donna is on a mission to prevent animals from going into shelters, pounds and death row

[00:00:54] and is succeeding. She's doing so by finding them loving homes before it's too late. Donna

[00:01:01] is responsible for the rescue and re-homing of tens of thousands of animals Australia-wide.

[00:01:06] Founder of Till the Cows Come Home, Donna is now focusing on her greatest venture for the animals

[00:01:12] which is called Into Loving Homes. Thank you so much for joining me today, Donna.

[00:01:16] Thank you for having me Elora. I'm happy to be here and spread the message of home-to-home

[00:01:20] adoption. Very important. Now to kick things off, can you bring and tell us about some of the

[00:01:25] projects that you've been involved in in the past and what made you start loving homes?

[00:01:29] Yeah, sure. So I as you mentioned, I founded an organisation called Till the Cows Come Home

[00:01:36] which is an incredibly important and efficient organisation for re-homing animals that were

[00:01:43] deemed waste on farms. So I built relationships with farmers across Australia to be able to

[00:01:49] find loving homes for those animals. So predominantly that was hens on egg farms

[00:01:55] as well as calves, male calves born onto dairy farms because they don't produce dairy

[00:02:01] and you don't need them for breeding because one bull will impregnate many, many, many

[00:02:09] hundreds, thousands of cows. So it would be, they were deemed waste and because this podcast

[00:02:18] isn't about that, I won't go into the tragedy of it all and how dark it gets. But that's

[00:02:26] what I started about seven years ago and then while I was running, I was the founder of the CEO

[00:02:34] chair director of Till the Cows Come Home and while I was doing that and started in every role

[00:02:41] that there was before I had my roles as CEO, I was doing every role and I could see

[00:02:49] that a lot of people were wanting animals re-homed the same way that we were lovingly

[00:02:56] re-homing these farm animals. So I saw that there was this huge niche that we couldn't

[00:03:01] necessarily help because we had a board of director that I had to adhere to as well that we,

[00:03:07] I mean, yeah, board of directors that all wanted us to really focus on farm animals. So I thought all

[00:03:14] the house animals, the domestic animals are going to be missing out and so I really wanted to

[00:03:20] gift the service to them. So I refined the service and made it especially for

[00:03:27] those animals. So today we can re-home at interloving homes any species of animal if

[00:03:35] they're healthy, adoptable. We can find loving homes for them. So I have helped assist into new

[00:03:41] homes, everything from snakes to camels, rabbits to horses and of course mostly cats and dogs.

[00:03:51] That's amazing. And what's the main reason that you see dogs being sent to shelters?

[00:03:56] So I believe that is from choosing a dog that doesn't suit,

[00:04:03] choosing a dog with needs that doesn't suit the person who's adopting them.

[00:04:07] Yeah, it would have been a lack of room. Absolutely. So so often we'll see

[00:04:11] that someone's allergic to them. Someone didn't realize they had so much fur and so the house

[00:04:19] is messy with fur or someone got it usually too high energy. So a lot of dogs are so gorgeous when

[00:04:27] they're puppies that they'll go out and get these like free ones of farms or free ones of gum trees or

[00:04:33] wherever or even buy them for massive amounts of money, but they're high energy dogs.

[00:04:39] So I find a lot of the successful adoptions outside of interloving homes are because

[00:04:47] of the dogs being low needs and low energy. So they're not going to climb fences to go for a run

[00:04:56] or meet the neighbors or go visit other dogs or dig under the fence or anything like that because

[00:05:02] their needs are getting met in a normal home or a normal yard. And in your experience, have you

[00:05:08] noticed maybe an increase in the last few years? I think social media, you know sometimes portrays

[00:05:13] a breed as being so easy going, but in real life they're actually hard work. Oh, super hard work.

[00:05:21] You're adopting a dog, you're adding a family member for sure to the family with that energy

[00:05:29] level like you're splitting your finances to include them, you're a time, you're fitting

[00:05:40] in hopefully daily walks, training, feeding is a lot to do.

[00:05:48] Well, we should have a back for price but of course those we choose to do it and it's a great one

[00:05:53] that we make. So can you explain to us how home to home adoption works? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:58] So the difference between what we do and what a general shelter does or even a foster care

[00:06:04] system is that our animals are adopted directly from the home they're in into the new home.

[00:06:10] So yes, this happens on Gumtree. Yes, this already happens on Facebook but it doesn't happen with a

[00:06:15] professional person in between making sure that the adoption is a beautiful match and like I said,

[00:06:21] bad matches are the predominant reason for animals not being not lasting in homes because

[00:06:28] they're the wrong fit for the home. So with home to home adoption what happens is people will

[00:06:34] contact us through our Facebook page predominantly or they can give us a call. So Facebook page

[00:06:40] being into loving homes, they'll jump on there and usually check out our reviews and make sure

[00:06:46] we're okay and legit because we're such a unique service because we've really I've really reinvented

[00:06:52] animal rehoming through this service. It doesn't exist like this anywhere else at the moment.

[00:06:58] So they'll check out the reviews, they'll send us a message on Facebook and from there

[00:07:03] they can answer all our questions and make sure the animal is a fit for our organization

[00:07:07] to rehome them. We do if we're low on budget so often we'll try to raise funds to be able

[00:07:14] to support people to get the vet work done that's needed. So all of that vetting is done prior to

[00:07:21] listing them for adoption. All of our cats and dogs get vet checks before being listed for adoption

[00:07:28] and we get a letter from the vet stating that yes they're healthy, adoptable, no further work

[00:07:34] is going to be done, they don't need any special diet or everything like that is going to be written

[00:07:41] in the letter so that anyone who adopts gets the same or even more assurance of the health

[00:07:48] of the animal that they're adopting as you would in a shelter or foster care. So that's all

[00:07:55] there so the vet care gets done but if we don't have the budget for that unfortunately that's

[00:08:02] what our weakness is at the moment that we can't pay for people's dogs to get de-sex casted,

[00:08:10] get de-sexed if we don't have the funding. So we're always trying to get that in so that we

[00:08:16] don't have to turn anyone away but say for example we do have the funding or the animal

[00:08:21] is already de-sexed then they go in and get the health and temperament assessments and then

[00:08:27] the vet will confirm what the rehoming family has told us about the animal and then so we've got all of

[00:08:34] the rehoming person's history as well as the the vet work and then we can match them really

[00:08:42] effectively into a new loving home from there, we'll put up an ad campaign and one of the

[00:08:48] points of difference that sets us apart from how quickly we can find new homes for animals is

[00:08:54] because we pay Facebook for our ad campaigns so we don't pay for marketing, we don't pay for

[00:09:03] trying to just reach the average person, we don't pay to try and get donations, we pay for the animals

[00:09:08] to be in front of the potential adopters so we target their specific ad to go in front of those

[00:09:16] people in that local area to where they're adopted. So one of the values that I really

[00:09:23] love about interloving homes as well is that yes it's more empathetic, yes it's more kind because

[00:09:28] they're not going into a shelter but it's also more environmentally sustainable and kind to the

[00:09:33] planet which is very important to me and it's why I started both of the organizations was partly

[00:09:40] the animals needed it but also to be aligned with the planet and what she needs.

[00:09:46] That's amazing, that's a huge job for you guys when you get an animal

[00:09:51] you know come into your care as such. As such? Yeah what's the turnaround for if someone contacted

[00:09:58] you whether to re-home to then you actually placing that animal in a new home? That's a great

[00:10:03] question because I realized I touched on that and they didn't tell you so at the moment the average

[00:10:09] is five days so as of today this point the average for an animal to go to a new home

[00:10:16] like from start to finish from when they contact us the vet work gets done the ad goes live

[00:10:23] all of that is five days so we've had times of year and when our budgets are really good we can

[00:10:30] get that get that average down to even one day and that's because we have their whole history

[00:10:37] we're not guessing anything we've got the adopters or potential adopters at that stage

[00:10:43] can go meet the animal and see if it's a fit they're seeing them in their home how they are

[00:10:49] they're not seeing them in a cage where they don't know if they're toilet trained they don't

[00:10:54] know how they're going to get along with other siblings like humans in the family let alone

[00:10:58] other pets in the family whereas in the home we know have they been around other cats or

[00:11:04] not have they been around other dogs or not have they been around farm animals or not

[00:11:08] are they gonna are they terrible with like getting out of any fence under 10 foot

[00:11:15] which for most people is an impossible dog to keep so all of those things we already know

[00:11:21] which means that the adoptions are also a very high rate of success and those that come to you

[00:11:27] what makes them choose this kind of rehoming method rather than the traditional shelter

[00:11:34] yeah that's a great question because they want to support animals staying out of shelters

[00:11:40] because they like we can see that animals don't have to anymore now that we're here go into

[00:11:48] shelters or even go into foster care to find a new home so people will rehome with us so the person

[00:11:55] needing a new home for their animal they'll rehome with us to prevent the animal from going

[00:11:59] into a shelter because they don't want that for their future and then the adoptar will adopt from us

[00:12:05] because they know the history of the animal they can see all that and to prevent them from

[00:12:11] having a different future so in shelters right now Australia wide they're all at capacity they're

[00:12:16] all full so they have a six to 18 month wait list which for a lot of animals is a death sentence

[00:12:24] because the families can't hold on to them necessarily for six to eight 18 months so imagine

[00:12:29] if you've got you adopted a cat into your home and your newborn baby is so allergic that they're

[00:12:36] rashing all over and they've done three visits to the hospital you don't have six months you don't

[00:12:41] have 18 months you have to do this today so that's why I had to come up with a strategy

[00:12:48] that got adoptions to be happening today if we needed them and so that side can make them happen

[00:12:56] in 24 hours I don't they can if they need to they can put the cat or dog in the the laundry you know

[00:13:04] feed them love them do what they need to have them that little bit isolated for whatever reason

[00:13:10] often cats will be attacking another cat in the home or the cats attacking the baby is a highly

[00:13:15] common one unfortunately dogs sibling aggression two dogs going at each other and then they're

[00:13:25] up in the vet or with high vet bills and yeah so many so many reasons we've got two dogs right now

[00:13:33] being re-homed because the family member has cancer and we've had many of those so this is

[00:13:40] these aren't bad people re-homing their pets because they're bad people this is these are

[00:13:49] beautiful people in tragic circumstances and then now those dogs that you've sent out to

[00:13:55] when you're home how do you think they act emotionally and physically comparative to shelters you mean

[00:14:01] or just in general yeah yeah great question so comparative to shelters they haven't the

[00:14:10] shelters have an average of 77 days that animals are in the shelters if they've decided to put

[00:14:16] them up for adoption 12 percent of dogs right now won't be put up for adoption they'll be

[00:14:22] euthanized healthy adoptable dogs in shelters cats is 20 percent so we're talking one in five

[00:14:30] cats if you take a litter of five cats in one in five of them would be euthanized that's the stat

[00:14:37] so preventing that you've got the 77 days in the shelter which i think is tragic because i think

[00:14:47] we've been vocal about doing these ad campaigns for our animals since i founded

[00:14:53] almost three years ago and i know a lot of organizations hear about it and i think their

[00:14:58] funding should be going there instead of other places instead of building more shelters put

[00:15:04] the funding into the ads to get them to the people because adopters are out there

[00:15:09] i've proven that the adopters are out there so um preventing that 77 days in a shelter and the trauma

[00:15:17] of being removed away from any normal loving care or home environment is so unnatural and

[00:15:27] unkind and i sound like i'm bagging out i realize i sound like i'm bagging out

[00:15:32] shelters which i'm absolutely not i think they have a place so i hope that's not what's coming

[00:15:36] across i think they definitely have a place i think we shouldn't be dropping animals to

[00:15:40] shelters if they're healthy and adoptable today i think if they need rehabilitation they can go

[00:15:45] into a foster care or um or a shelter if the shelter offers that service but i don't think we

[00:15:51] should be dropping the average animal 99 percent of them into shelters so and then they won't be

[00:15:58] overcrowded yeah this is so overrun and you know they're so overburdened with all these animals

[00:16:04] that they do have such long stays what kind of effect does those long stays have on the animals

[00:16:09] yeah so um they'll develop things like um no longer toileting normally no longer

[00:16:17] toileting outside because they're used to toileting where they are and then it gets

[00:16:21] hosed away so that deeply affects whether or not they're adoptable anymore because

[00:16:28] we can't have adopted animal into our home and have them toileting everywhere

[00:16:33] um so you've got that which is stressful to them in the first place because a lot of them

[00:16:38] are toilet trained before they go into there so imagine you're you've got a toilet where you are

[00:16:44] like that's not even a human jail this is worse because they have a toilet and the

[00:16:49] feces go away these guys sit in it for however many hours every single day so they have to

[00:16:55] do that which goes against all their training and against all their natural instincts of what

[00:17:02] they would have learnt when they were puppies or kittens um so even just that tiny thing about

[00:17:08] toileting there's also having toileting right next to their food and water um not hygienic

[00:17:15] even though shelters are often good at moving it out as needed but there's that which is unhealthy

[00:17:22] and then there's the trauma of the sound of the other animals next to them all the time

[00:17:29] a lot of the animals that come through rehoming services or shelters

[00:17:33] have done so because they haven't gotten along with another animal because a cat may want to

[00:17:38] live in an only cat home um but they go into a shelter and they've got cat after cat after cat

[00:17:45] after cat in rows uh they can hear the cats they can smell the cats they will know in every

[00:17:54] instinct in their body every cell in their body they know this is not where they're safe or comfortable

[00:18:02] so there's also separation anxiety there's depression there's like so many so many normal

[00:18:13] things that would happen to even humans i've had a foster dog here before and it takes a

[00:18:17] long time for them to unpack all the trauma that they've been through and so that's hard for

[00:18:22] them going forward absolutely so we say it's like three days just to decompress an animal into a new

[00:18:29] home and then it's a few weeks so even a few weeks to become their normal character and selves and

[00:18:36] then it's a few months to be able to really be okay and comfortable and attach so yes it's different

[00:18:44] for every animal but that's an idea of what it takes for them so to go into a foster care

[00:18:49] which is often not the only foster care they might bounce from foster care to foster care

[00:18:54] because foster cares often will have other animals that aren't suited to this animal or

[00:18:59] they need a break or it's overcrowded so many reasons um so we just love that they can go

[00:19:09] directly to a new home no no bouncing around different homes no waiting in unknown shelters

[00:19:16] not knowing what and if they did to deserve this or when they're going to get out and i know you

[00:19:23] touched on it briefly before but what kind of challenges do you find that home to home adoption

[00:19:27] has for us it's the uh because we're a professional service that has the professional in between

[00:19:35] making it happen so we have requirements and we're a registered organization so we have requirements

[00:19:41] that we need to be done such as the vet care so the real struggle that i touched on before

[00:19:50] is that if we don't have the funding then animals get sent away and then what happens to them

[00:19:58] so they didn't get a chance because their person didn't have four hundred five hundred

[00:20:02] dollars to do desexing or even a hundred dollars to do a consult and we don't have if we don't

[00:20:09] have it so we do do cryouts every now and then to try and get people to help us in that process

[00:20:19] because i think i would say we would four times our rehoming this year if we could

[00:20:31] do everyone's desexing who couldn't afford it even just that one thing

[00:20:34] and what kind of things do you do to promote home to home adoption so to promote home to

[00:20:41] homes adoption i would say the ads of the animals for adoption are a big one that's when we see

[00:20:53] our um social media increases for example which i haven't compared it here within interloving

[00:21:02] homes to paying for a normal ad because i like to see it go to those ad campaigns because i want to

[00:21:09] see the turnaround of them turning into adoptions um but i find them incredibly successful so anyone

[00:21:16] i speak to in animal rehoming i'm always like you've got to you've got to boost the you've

[00:21:20] got to boost the animal adoption that boost the animal adoption ad i'm like i'll show you how

[00:21:26] i try and get everyone to do it because it's gonna save the organization's money

[00:21:32] for one these charities and um adoption services and it'll get more animals out of shelters more

[00:21:40] animals out of foster care more animals into loving homes and i think we should all have that

[00:21:45] same goal and i think we do but i think a lot of people don't believe don't believe the results

[00:21:53] are coming from that for whatever reason and with home to home adoptions because obviously

[00:21:58] not all our listeners are from Australia Australia is a huge country um do you just

[00:22:03] do state to state or can't go all over Australia so interloving homes is an Australia-wide service

[00:22:11] so i realized how important and doable that was when i was running till the cows come home

[00:22:17] and at first with till the cows come home i would have one cow who needed a new home

[00:22:23] and we had very little following and everything so i would drive my first cow i drove 12 hours

[00:22:30] to get him to his new home and it was the best time and never regret the drives i must have done

[00:22:37] that 12 hour drive i did many many many times for the first 12 months

[00:22:42] um so and then many shorter ones three four five six hour days of driving

[00:22:50] um but i would get all my best ideas for my organizations on the road so yeah

[00:22:56] um like would you home uh animal from a different state to another state

[00:23:00] very rarely unless the border is so close like we have in new south wales and queensland

[00:23:07] you can step across the border and in minutes and you're in like one city here one city there

[00:23:11] but it's two states so there we do it often um but for the rest of the country what i strive to do

[00:23:20] is local adoptions for the planet for the animal for the adopter for the re-home uh um this way

[00:23:28] it's faster it's safer it's kinder so how it will usually work is because we're targeting the

[00:23:38] facebook ad not to where i live on tambourine mountain queensland and run the organization

[00:23:43] but to where that animal is who needs a new home so that animal will usually get adopted

[00:23:51] if they're in a city blocks away or in the same suburb or the next suburb if it's out in the

[00:23:57] country it'll be within 20 30 40 minutes drive uh so but we have incredible success with that

[00:24:05] obviously that's a very amazing work yeah so almost always local adoptions every now and then

[00:24:14] um and i'm talking once in two years um an adopter will stand out so much that i'm not going to

[00:24:23] turn them away so i'll get i'll make it the option of the re-home to agree with me to be able to

[00:24:30] make this happen i'll say for example we just had this beautiful dog monti who was here on tambourine

[00:24:38] mountain i knew him very well he needed a new home and i thought oh this is going to be such a hard

[00:24:43] dog to find a home for um and there's so much pressure so turns out we had various inquiries

[00:24:51] who were all really really good but in in 24 hours various inquiries they're all very good

[00:24:57] i've screened their social media pages i've had chats with the potential adopter i've seen photos of

[00:25:03] their yard and fencing and their past dogs that have passed away and the life they had and we've

[00:25:09] talked about all these different kind of things and so feeling like they're really great but

[00:25:14] they're just not every box is tipped for example um monti was never seen with a cat so one home

[00:25:21] had a cat but they had everything else right and it's just like oh it's not perfect though

[00:25:27] and so when the inquiries are coming through i'd run it by the re-homing family i'm like i can do

[00:25:33] this right now because they're beautiful family they've had this breed of dog before which is

[00:25:38] very challenging breed and very different and so i ran it all by them they're like nope

[00:25:46] not with a cat i trust you keep going and then we ended up getting in within 24 hours still

[00:25:51] an inquiry in adelaide so Queensland Adelaide and they were just every box except location

[00:26:02] every box they're on two acres they've had that breed of dog before who passed away as a

[00:26:07] 12 year old i think it was 12 year old dog and his best friends now lonely who was another

[00:26:13] rescued dog and it was just everything perfect and they're like we'll fly over there right now can you

[00:26:19] fly and they were like coming that day and i see why i went back to the re-homing family i'm like

[00:26:27] can you fly i said every box is tipped you don't have to say yes to this because i told you the

[00:26:34] probability of it being a local adoption is so high so don't have to say no but look how good

[00:26:38] it is and they were like oh it's everything they were like me it's everything except location

[00:26:44] and they said let let's do it but if they'll drive so if they'll drive him back instead of going on

[00:26:51] the flight so they flew here on that weekend flew here hired a motorhome had two hours with the

[00:27:02] re-homing family like getting to know monti making sure they knew all these tricks and

[00:27:07] saw him around the other dogs in the yard and what he was like and all of that

[00:27:11] and then drove back to adelaide together the couple it was a couple they're putting it together

[00:27:17] so if it's a situation like that where there's not a more suitable one presenting

[00:27:24] quickly here we'll take it just oh wow was that a beautiful one though? Lucky Monti he hit

[00:27:32] the jackpot he really did hit the jackpot it's so good so happy for him and i love getting the updates

[00:27:38] like i get photo i check in on my adopters as well so within 24 hours and then within a few days and

[00:27:45] then a few weeks and then a few months and then just annually so i'm not too annoying but it's

[00:27:50] really it's really good feedback for us to be able to see what's working what's not what we could

[00:27:56] have done better potentially or what systems could be better or if it's working for a certain

[00:28:03] species or if we need to tweak something so we're always doing our best to improve and grow especially

[00:28:11] because we're paved this way so there isn't another professional in between doing it like this

[00:28:18] and because you put so much effort into matching up the dogs with the homes do you find that

[00:28:23] you have a really good success rate? Very good success rate and if they don't work out they'll

[00:28:29] usually come back through us as well for the rehoming again so very high success rate almost

[00:28:36] almost at 100% so we're talking in a thousand of a thousand animals which we went over that last

[00:28:46] year i'm pretty sure um to rehoming that we know of and we got to rehome them back through the service

[00:28:56] wow that's amazing you do such a good job Donna thank you i appreciate that well what's one thing

[00:29:04] that you think our listeners can take away from this episode if there's one thing that stands

[00:29:10] out what should that be? Yeah let people know about home-to-home adoption that it's here

[00:29:15] that we don't need to be putting animals into shelters that we don't need to be putting them

[00:29:20] into foster care unless it is needed which most are not but if you have a healthy adoptable animal

[00:29:25] so they can contact us through ideally the facebook page is your best spot so you go on to

[00:29:31] interloving homes on facebook the banner is green and gold or green and yellow you'll see

[00:29:36] that there and it says animals for adoption interloving homes and there's a lot of businesses

[00:29:43] called interloving something in the world so just make sure it's the right one and then go on to message

[00:29:48] us and it'll even say get started and it'll give you the options of how you want to proceed are

[00:29:54] you rehoming or adopting and it will help you through there and our humans it's not all

[00:29:59] automated our humans absolutely jump in and i oversee every single adoption that still happens

[00:30:05] today so you're in my hands if you need any help or if you know somebody who needs help

[00:30:11] yeah but if anyone also wants to get on the phone and have a call they absolutely can the number is

[00:30:19] 1 300 5 7 7 3 0 2 lovely we'll put um links to that in the show notes so um everyone can find it

[00:30:29] really easy i appreciate that a lot well thank you so much don i've really appreciated you

[00:30:34] coming on today and telling us about home to home adoptions it's been a pleasure thanks so

[00:30:38] much for spreading the message that's all right and thanks for joining us to all our listeners

[00:30:42] on another episode don't forget to follow subscribe and leave a review if you found this

[00:30:47] interview interesting this helps us reach more pet owners who might benefit from this information

[00:30:52] i will see you next time see everyone thanks so much for your time