Humane Society launches Meet Your Match™
New adoption program uses research to match dogs with people
Tacoma, WASH. – A new matchmaking service will help you distinguish a couch potato from the life of the party, increasing the odds of a lifelong relationship.
Thanks to Meet Your Match™, an innovative new program launched recently by The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County, dogs at the shelter are now given a personality description, increasing the success of adoptions by better matching pets with their new families. The program uses a research-based approach to assess every dog’s personality and assign it a “canine-ality.” Potential adopters also complete a comprehensive survey about their lifestyle and are then matched with dogs that best fit them.
“Meet Your Match helps people find the dog of their dreams,” says Cecily Joque, animal behavior specialist at The Humane Society. “People have fun with it and walk out of the shelter knowing all about their new dog’s personality and needs.”
A key part of Meet Your Match is its “canine-ality” descriptions, which were developed by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in partnership with Iams. They help potential adopters focus on the dog’s personality and needs, rather than on more superficial characteristics such as size, age, coat length and color.
Dog descriptions are upbeat, positive and easy-to-understand. For example, one description, Goofball, reads, “I’m a fun-loving, happy-all-the-time, glass-is-half-full kind of dog looking for someone who loves to laugh and play around. Must have a great sense of humor and a bunch of tennis balls.”
Currently, about 15 percent of dogs adopted at The Humane Society are returned every year. Meet Your Match has reduced this statistic by an average of 50 percent in other shelters that have implemented the program. The Humane Society is the only shelter in the state and one of the largest nationally to use Meet Your Match.
Meet Your Match is one of the many tools The Humane Society is using to reach its goal of becoming the state’s first no-kill, open admission shelter by December 31, 2008.
