Help your foster get adopted!
You are your foster's greatest advocate. Every day you learn new things about your foster, and you are what helps your foster learn manners, adjust to being in a home, and rebuild their trust in human-beings. Help your foster get adopted with these tips.
Frequent updates
The homecheck committee helps to match dogs with potential adopters by what they know about the dog. If that knowledge is limited, then they are not going to be the first dog the committee will think about. When sending updates or talking to a committee member, be specific about what your dog is capable of and what are areas of concern. All of our dogs are special, but what exactly makes your foster special? What type of home do you think they will thrive in?
Pictures
IAMRA Alumni, Kona, playing in her foster parents yard.
Don't be camera shy! We need to see them. And we would love to share them on facebook. We try our best to get decent pictures before they go into foster home, however sometimes circumstances don't allow for it.
If you are sending pictures, it's best if you could send the original, not a copy from online. Email one of our foster coordinators with the picture.
Some tips when taking pictures of dogs:
1. Take pictures in natural lighting when a flash isn't needed. The flash will give the dogs red eye and if the picture still turns out dark, it's hard to see the beautiful contrast of colors in the malamute's coat. The best pictures are usually taken outside.
2. Get on the dog's level. You would be surprised how much your pictures improve by just changing the angle that the picture is taken.
3. For petfinder pages, we can only use 3 pictures. Usually we try for one close up of the face, one full body picture, and one that helps show the dog's personality. Do they like belly rubs? Do they enjoy a certain toy? Are they good at keeping the couch occupied? Help potential adopters see a moment in your foster's life.
If you are sending pictures, it's best if you could send the original, not a copy from online. Email one of our foster coordinators with the picture.
Some tips when taking pictures of dogs:
1. Take pictures in natural lighting when a flash isn't needed. The flash will give the dogs red eye and if the picture still turns out dark, it's hard to see the beautiful contrast of colors in the malamute's coat. The best pictures are usually taken outside.
2. Get on the dog's level. You would be surprised how much your pictures improve by just changing the angle that the picture is taken.
3. For petfinder pages, we can only use 3 pictures. Usually we try for one close up of the face, one full body picture, and one that helps show the dog's personality. Do they like belly rubs? Do they enjoy a certain toy? Are they good at keeping the couch occupied? Help potential adopters see a moment in your foster's life.
Videos
People love to see videos on petfinder. For a basic video, you really don't need much more than 40 - 60 seconds. Unless there is something specific people need to consider (like a health complication), let the dog do the talking. Interested adopters can read about the dogs likes and dislikes on the profile.
If you are tech savvy, you can make a nice movie clip out of it. Unfortunately, right now we don't have anyone who has the time to do that ourselves, but you can see how a simple video can share a lot of information about a dog. In the video posted to the left, there is only about a 20 second clip of a dog named Bella (now adopted). You can see that she has a lot of puppy energy and still has some learning to do, but at the end she does a very nice sit for a treat, so lots of potential there. What it shares with adopters is: this dog will need training, this dog will need exercise, but this dog does look to humans for direction so she should pick up manners quickly.
If you can, please send your video directly to a foster coordinator instead of using your own youtube account. This will keep unwanted traffic off of your family's personal videos. |
If you have a facebook, share stories and pictures on our facebook wall so that we can share it with our followers. Many of the people on our facebook are not IAMRA adopters, and so they do not get the updates on our yahoo email list.
Events and Kennel DaysBe active with your foster! When we have kennel days or malamute-savvy events, such as our annual Malawalk, bring your foster out for socialization. We have had some successful adoptions that were unexpected. While we do match dogs with adopters, sometimes adopters are approved for more than we actually tell them, particularly if they are only interested in male/female, a certain age, or a certain look, but decide upon meeting the dog that they should not have judged the dog before meeting him/her. It's also a great opportunity for committee members to assess the dog's progress. After some time in a foster home learning manners, dogs may become more adoptable than they were when they first arrived with IAMRA. Let us see them progress so that when you send us your updates and pictures, we really know your foster and can make sure that they are approved to the right home.
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Advertise for IAMRA
We can't adopt dogs if we do not have people applying. If you have a local pet store that allows for local ads, place up a flyer with our website and contact information. We have premade flyers available, just contact a foster coordinator and we can email it to you. We are a small rescue and don't have a lot of money to spend advertising, so please spread the word!