Beyond Breed: Putting Our Best Face Forward

We love you, Sarah McLachlan, but there’s a new-and-improved way to market shelter dogs to adopters.


Based on our industry’s latest research and best practices, here’s what’s helping shelter dogs charm their way into new homes:


(1) Celebrate the ways dogs make our lives better.

(2) Focus on who the dog is now; don’t dwell on or speculate about the dog’s past.

(3) Ditch the sob stories. Really. They gotta go.

(4) Trust the public! Have open conversations with adopters, instead of using overly restrictive policies to reject them.

(5) Show the dogs in their best light; don’t fuel the myth that shelter dogs are “damaged goods.”

(6) Get to know each dog as an individual, instead of relying on stereotypes.

(7) Most of all…. have fun!

Seems like common sense, eh?
But there are still some folks who need convincing. So to help turn them into believers, I made a very special present.
I call it….

“How My Match.com Profile Would Look If I Wrote It Like An Old-School Shelter Adoption Listing”




(Yep. I really did this. Goodbye, pride…it was nice knowin’ ya!)

But seriously, this is how our doom-and-gloom, defensive, hostile, fear-based pet adoption listings come across to the general public.
When you look at this mock profile, it’s obvious why this wouldn’t work for meeting people. It’s embarrassing for me to share. Why? Because it puts my worst face forward.

Shelter pets deserve nothing less. Let’s learn from what’s working in our industry.

Let’s put their best face forward.

Posted by Kim Wolf Beyond Breed Blog
on Jul, 03, 2013

Putting Our Best Face Forward | Beyond Breed