Posts Tagged ‘ Humane Society of Indianapolis ’

As announced in January, the Carmel Petco store honored Petco’s commitment to “Adoption First.”  Since January 12th, Petco has ceased the sale of rabbits at the Carmel location and Indiana HRS has had adoptable rabbits fostered in the store.

The program has been a resounding success!  The success of this program is due to continued positive public interaction by our hard-
working Carmel Petco volunteers.  I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all of our volunteers who have worked with
rabbits in the store – Amy Deitchley, Amanda Lenz, Chelsea & Gabe Meyers, Becky Tharp, Kirstie Anderson & Aaron Schmoll, Laura Krieg, Anne Sailer, Karen Woznick, and Dana Bookman.

Program Summary:

*Fourteen rabbits have been taken into Indiana HRS foster care that we would have had no open slots for

*Nine rabbits fostered in the Carmel store have found forever homes (2 bonded pairs, 5 single rabbits)

*Indiana HRS volunteers have a minimum 16 contact hours with the
public each week.  Our volunteers exercise rabbits in the store, model values for appropriate indoor living enclosures, and answer questions for the general public.

*Indiana HRS displays, loaded with information such as living with a companion rabbit, appropriate indoor housing, rabbit care and diet, enrichment (eg toys and treats), and veterinary care, need to be restocked every week or so.

*Our binder of Central Indiana adoptable small animals (Indiana HRS and Humane Society of Indianapolis) is heavily utilized – the Humane Society of Indianapolis has gone from 54 rabbits at the shelter to 20 rabbits or less over the last 2 months.

Working collaboratively with Petco Carmel and the Humane Society of Indianapolis, we have been able to *stop* the euthansia of healthy companion rabbits in Central Indiana.  We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Carmel store and expanding our Petco partnership with other stores in the metro Indianapolis area and around the state.

Dawn Sailer-Fleeger
on Behalf of the Indiana HRS Leadership Team

We have been busy as usual, trying to educate post-Easter impulse purchasers. Three events in late April: NSAL Tour for Life, Earth Day, and Ed Event in conjunction with shelter fundraiser (HSI Mutt Strutt). Three events in May, with dual events on May 1st – 500 Kids Festival (~50,000 people) and an Adoption Day. On May 2nd, a Pet Fest Adoptathon at the Fair Grounds and also our Rabbit Expo on Saturday, May 8th.

With December’s “Home for the Holidays” (H4TH) adoption event, we provided complimentary Local and National HRS memberships for Humane Society of Indianapolis Rabbit Adopters. Our driver was to provide support, reducing re-surrenders.

After the H4TH promotion ended, we made the decision to extend the complementary local membership to HSI rabbit adopters – YTD we have issued 26. We recently committed to expand this program statewide and are working out the logistics to implement. As you know, support is critical for rabbits adopted from shelters where rabbits are not altered prior to placement.

Indiana HRS also trained HSI customer service, vet techs, and kennel staff on rabbit care/behavior/adoptions. We are currently working with the shelter to rewrite all of their staff training for intake profiles, behavior evaluation, rabbit care, and adoption policies at the shelter. The feedback has been very positive.

We have approached HSI about serving as a “peer trainer” for other shelters. We’ve been working with HSI for 4 years at this point, they have excellent shelter model. We are currently developing resources for shelters state-wide, in an effort to help them build high-quality rabbit adoption programs.

During 2002, 31 volunteers participated in 28 Indianapolis-area education events. These events reached a broad crosssection
of individuals including children, adults and animal welfare advocates.

We were able to spread out our volunteers over a six county area – Hamilton, Marion, Hendricks, Hancock, Monroe and Morgan counties. It has been estimated that approximately 14,000 individuals were reached during the ~320 hours of volunteer service.

Some example events include various Kids Kindness Club Presentations where volunteers would explain the importance of proper rabbit care and responsible rabbit guardianship. Usually at these events, the guest rabbit would steal the show !!!

Earth Day, PAWS Dog Walks and the Indianapolis Women’s Expo were some of the other events we attended. At these events, our goal was to raise public awareness on several fronts. We stressed the importance of veterinary care and spay/neuter of any pets. Rabbits as indoor companion animals were also stressed, including their unique diet needs and behavior patterns, especially when compared to
dogs or cats. The overall estimated public attendance to these events was well over 9000.

A very big accomplishment for the year 2002 was the establishment of a wonderful working relationship with the Humane Society of Indianapolis (HSI). IN HRS provided several resources to HSI to help with cage cleaning, rabbit socialization and rescuing rabbits that have reached their time limit at the HSI facility. HRS educators also provided guidance on spay and neuter of the shelter rabbits before they are adopted – reducing returns and re-surrenders due to behavioral issues.