Supported Self-Rehoming

1. Evaluate Your Current Operations

• Do you ask every person who comes to surrender their pet if they want to keep their pet but face barriers to doing so?
  
• Do you ask every person who comes to surrender their pet if they are willing to rehome their pet themselves if they have support and assistance from the shelter? 
• Do you tell every person who comes to surrender their pet about self-rehoming through Rehome, Home-to-Home, and social media platforms like Craigslist and Facebook? 
• Do you offer people coming to surrender the option to foster their pet until it is re-homed?

2. Explore Your Technology Options and Select Which You Plan to Use

• Refer to Rehoming Technology At-a-Glance for a full comparison of tools available.  
• Determine which social media platforms you’ll encourage people to utilize for self-rehoming. These may include Facebook, NextDoor, Craigslist, Instagram, and others.
• Decide if you’ll have a self-rehoming page managed by staff and/or volunteers. The Austin Pets Alive! PASS Facebook Page and Dallas Pets Alive PASS Facebook Page are excellent examples of how a self-rehoming page can work!

3. Explain the What and How of Supported Self Rehoming to Pet Owners Needing to Rehome

• Change the name of the website page from ‘surrender your pet,’ to ‘rehome your pet.’ 
• On the “rehome your pet” page, explain that surrendering a pet should be the last-case scenario and include information on any resources they can access that may help them keep their pet. 
• Tell people about resources they can utilize to rehome their pet, including the link to Petfinder’s searchable database  of rescues and shelters
• Provide people with detailed, step-by-step recommendations for rehoming their pets.
•  Tell them how the shelter can support them. Various services you may offer include: 
  • Providing a sample adoption questionnaire. 
  • Serving as a place where owners can perform ‘meet and greets’ with potential adopters and their existing pets.
  • Staff/volunteers can write pet listings for owners and take photos.
  • Providing counseling and services to the new adopter including vaccines, spay and neuter and a routine medical exam.
  • Shelter can post listings for owned pets who need to be rehomed on their own websites and help market them.

4. Reframe Rehoming to Your Community

• Tell internal and external stakeholders about how you are offering better services to help people rehome their own pets rather than surrendering them to the shelter.
• Create a volunteer position to help people rehome their pets.
• Make sure your website, social media, and communications plan reflect that your organization encourages supported self-rehoming.  See our supported self-rehoming marketing toolkit.
• Track your data so you can count all the animals you helped find a new home without them having to enter the shelter.

5. Manage Your Program Effectively 

• To manage your program most effectively, start communicating with owners BEFORE they come to the shelter. Read about how Pet Support Services gives you a proactive approach to helping animals while they’re still in their homes and communities. 
• Use a case management approach. In some cases, pet owners and caregivers are facing urgent crises which mean they cannot conduct the rehoming themselves. If owners have an emergency or cannot participate in the rehoming process, the shelter will need to take those pets in and should utilize the HASS Element, intake-to-placement, to move them as quickly as possible through the shelter system.