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The season to be jolly continues on! We have so much to celebrate from this past December and in all of 2018. Cheers to us and all we have accomplished together.
PLACEMENTS:
We had 113 intakes and 48 transfers to new fosters, for a total of 161 placements. Notable placements include: Achilles, Taz, Booboo, Manchas, Faraon, Ben, Patricia
That brings our 2018 total to 2,678 intakes and 584 transfers to new fosters, for a total of 3,262 placements!
ADOPTIONS:
We had 171 adoptions. It was a HUGE month for our long stays. Notably, in the month of December the following dogs found their fureverhomes: Chaka Khan, Gino, Indianapolis, Pooh, Saltine, Juanita (376 net days), Kiwi (419 net days), Miguel (436 net days), Bert (499 net days), Samuel (646 net days), Zoe (837 net days), Chewy (909 net days), Rufus (995 net days), Mickey (1271 net days)
This brings our 2018 total to 2,304 adoptions!
VOLUNTEER WELCOMES & NEWS:
Welcome to Joanna C. as a new Dog Foster Adoption Team Coordinator!
SHOUT OUTS:
Shout out to our Dog Foster Teams who keep this engine running! From the Dog Foster Onboarding Team processing hundreds of foster applications in a day in an emergency, to our Dog Foster Placement Team perpetually innovating to get more dogs into foster homes, to our Dog Foster Care Team welcoming new processes and forging great partnerships, to our Dog Foster Adoption Team handling a large increase in the number of adoptions we processed this year, to our Dog Foster Events Team getting our pups into the community for adoption and exposure opportunities. Thank you for working so hard and being so dedicated. You are a true testimony to the volunteer ethic that drives APA!
HIGHLIGHTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, AND INITIATIVES:
December
Thanks to the efforts of Jamison and Amanda, we held our Sit. Stay. Learn educational foster workshop, which had around 50 attendees.
32 dogs went on sleepovers for home notes since the kick off of the Home Notes sleepover program.
We created our Safety Sleepover program to help keep dogs healthy while their vaccinations kick in.
Fosters can now pre-register for the wellness clinic to avoid long wait times, and Laurel (our Dog Foster Medical Liaison) can track who has gone to the wellness clinic, improving our ability to get foster dogs the medical care they require.
2018
We launched our APA! Dog Foster Program Plea Board on Trello!: www.austinpetsalive.org/foster/canicrashwithyou With this trello board, we now have a real-time, online database of dogs who need foster.
We launched our Dog Foster Resource Website!: https://dog-foster-manager.wixsite.com/apadogfosterprogram
As a part of the website effort, we turned a lot of focus to our foster resources and developed comprehensive handouts for Distemper, Ringworm, Sarcoptic Mange, Heartworm Disease, Raising Puppies With a Mom and Without a Mom.
Our marketing butts really kicked into gear with posters, buttons, and very successful rack cards, and the launching of two new Instagram pages. Look at us getting tech savvy!
APA Foster Dog Needs Instagram Page:
https://www.instagram.com/apafosterdogneeds/
APA Foster Dog Adoptions Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/apafosterdogadoptions/
We formed our Distemper Angels and Bottle and Tube Baby mentor groups!
Lead by Regan’s targeted efforts, we placed 115 long stay dogs in foster care!
We’ve placed numerous Distemper-labeled dogs in foster care, significantly improving their ability to recover.
Staff Additions: We welcomed Amanda (Dog Foster Placement Team Assistant Lead), Laurel (Dog Foster Medical Liaison), and Shelby (Dog Foster Assistant Manager) to our Dog Foster Staff!
We welcomed several new vols, including:
Two interns from Japan who primarily worked on social media materials with the Dog Foster Placement Team.
Superstar team co-leads Fiona (Dog Foster Onboarding, joining forces with Ian), Aria (Dog Foster Care, joining forces with Pam), Jennifer D. (Dog Foster Adoption, joining forces with Jennifer S.), and lead Mary (Dog Foster Events).
With the help of our Records Coordinator, Kay, and her volunteers, we are doing a lot more tracking of foster and adoption application responses, enabling us to identify trends.
We created the "Safety Sleepover" and "Home-Note Sleepover" programs for existing fosters to take in dogs on a shorter term basis and the “Weekend Stay at TLAC/TT” program to provide more adoption exposure to foster dogs that wouldn’t otherwise get it.
We developed a closer relationship between dog foster and our Thrift Stores by educating staff and volunteers about fostering, getting foster needs on TVs, and keeping them stocked with foster materials.
We’ve significantly improved our tracking of required medical care and our outreach to fosters and the Clinic when a dog is in need of required medical care, resulting in the majority of our foster dogs being up to date!
We created a comprehensive reference guide for our Dog Foster Care Team volunteers including clinic, heartworm, and distemper information, and general FAQs to help streamline and improve our communications with fosters.
Our Dog Foster Adoption Advocate, Claudia, and assistants Priya and Luise, have fined tuned the process of getting foster dog profiles online as soon as possible, and through their outreach have achieved a number of #fosterwins, including several long stays! Claudia has also been able to successfully extend matchmaking efforts to foster adoptions and red carpet the process for adopters who missed out on a dog.
We created a Dog Foster Outreach Coordinator position, and through this, Kelly is able to proactively reach out to new or inexperienced fosters to offer direct support.
We created a Dog Foster Events Team Social Calendar Coordinator position, and through this, Lorelai & Kim are helping get our pups more adoption exposure.
We created a Dog Foster Appreciation Coordinator position, and through this, Anya is able to spread the gratitude love to our fosters via a weekly adopted foster dogs photo Facebook album and emails to our fosters.
In October, we had our biggest and most successful foster push since Hurricane Harvey when TLAC was threatened with flooding. In 6 days, we placed 143 dogs (more than 70% of whom stayed in their foster home and more than 50% of whom were adopted from their foster home), and we added 552 foster families.
Excluding the Hurricane Harvey blip (i.e., January - July), we saw a 35% increase over 2017 in intakes and adoptions!
GOAL FOR JANUARY AND 2019:
Quantity and quality for 2019! We’re setting informal targets of 200 placements and adoptions per month. As important, we will be setting our sights on our increased need for medical and behavior fosters so that we can better respond as effectively as possible to our changing population of dogs. We will also be holding at least 2 foster brainstorming sessions (first one scheduled for 1/23 @ 6:30PM) from which we hope to develop volunteer committees that target specific tasks/issues.
Onward and upward Dog Foster Team!