Abandonment Uptick – 5 Tips to Manage the Intake Flow

As the end of summer approaches, we begin to have a larger inflow of surrenders to our shelters. Why does this happen? Yes, we have the addition of kittens coming into our shelters, but in areas where the kitten population is somewhat under control most kitten surrenders can primarily be managed by foster homes and having dedicated adoption events. That being said, our adoption centers are STILL facing the rise. When it comes to adult cat surrenders, see how this Abandonment Uptick – 5 Tips to Manage the Intake Flow tips can help your shelter.

If you live in an area where there is a lot of seasonal housing, you most certainly will see up uptick in surrender demand at the end of the month. Late August and early September tend to be times that cats are at their most vulnerable. Below are 5 steps to take that can help your community prepare for this Abandonment Uptick:

1. Reach Out

Reach out to volunteers and foster homes before it happens! I would even recommend reserving some volunteers specifically for the purpose of emergency foster care in August. In March/April, when you do your foster care recruitment for the summer, please ask your foster homes if they could be available in August! Many foster homes are burned out by August and in many cases won’t take on more cats at that time. This, however, is the most critical time to save the lives of adult cats. So for the foster homes that are available in August, try not to use them and intentially tell them you’re saving them until August. When the need is greatest and the number of foster homes goes down, you’ll be glad you did!

2. Acknowledgement

Acknowledge the uptick that may take place to the Community and ask for help! Reach out to the local paper and send a message such as, “We know this will happen/how can you work with us to save the lives of cats?”. Issue a Press Release to the local paper stating that as an organization, you know that this uptick will happen. You are looking for the communities’ help for foster home recruitment, supplies, fee-waived adoptions and donations. You’ll be surprised what acknowledging the situation will do!

3. Aggressively Manage Intake

Work with the people bringing in the additional surrenders. Make sure you are aggressively managing intake! As people contact your organization about surrendering cats, triage the urgency of the situation. Ask people if they can find temporary foster care until room can been found. Offer free spay/neuter and vaccinations for the cats if the caller can help with holding the cat until there is “room at the inn”. Potentially stray community cats should be spay/neutered, vaccinated and returned to their colony until they can be brought in during the fall when there is space in the adoption center.

4. Fee-Waived Adoption

Fee-Waived Adoptions for adults is a great way to help with the uptick. We do free-waived adoptions for the month of August, which works great. If you can convince your board/management to do it, this will provide much needed help in reducing the census in the adoption center. See my earlier blog post on this topic, Fee-Waved Adoptions Can Help Your Organization.

5. Manage Transfers

Think twice about doing any transfers in from other parts of the country. This is the time your local area needs your help! Therefore, if your organization has any extra capacity, please help your local/neighbor organization first.

It is good to know the cycle of surrenders so that you can prepare your organization for when intakes will be at their highest. This type of management will save lives!

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