IPOH, May 21 ― Marketing personnel Tan Chooi Chooi knows the importance of promoting something.
Hence, the animal adoption page founded by her, the Ohana Paws N Claws adoption page on Facebook, stresses on that.
In the form of a short description and a photograph of the animal, preferably smiling.
Tan said she would get rescuers, wanting to post their rescues on her page, to write a short introduction about the animal they are putting up for adoption.
“Besides the write-up, I also ask for a picture of the animal, preferably of them smiling,” she said, adding that sometimes the team of page administrators would also help in the write-up.
Speaking to Malay Mail via telephone from Petaling Jaya, Tan explained a picture of the animal smiling would be when it is panting.
“Normally I get the rescuer to play with their animal and get them panting before snapping a picture.”
“All this is to increase the animal's marketability.”
Since starting the page nine years ago, Tan's page, which has 4,643 followers, had successfully rehomed more than 15,000 animals.
“Although most of them are dogs and cats, my page also helped to rehome rabbits, tortoises, guinea pigs and hamsters,” said Tan.
She does not charge for postings on the page.
Besides providing a platform for rescuers to get their rescues adopted, Tan also educates adopters on being responsible adopters.
“We get adopters undertaking that they agree to spay or neuter the adopted pets when the time comes and also to provide the pet with medical attention when it needs it,” she said.
Concurring with Tan, rescuer Mel Lee said a nice photo of the rescued animals helps to get them adopted.
The businesswoman said she puts her rescued animals on adoption via the Petfinder website.
“The longest I kept a rescue was for nine months before I successfully got the dog adopted,” she said.
Lee said those who like her rescues will contact her via telephone and a short interview will be done over the phone.
“If everything works out fine, I will send the animal to the adopter,” she said, adding that the furthest she travelled to send a rescue was to Seremban.
To rescuers, Lee encourages them to post their rescues on social media.
“Only once your rescue gets adopted, you can continue to rescue.”
Meanwhile, Malaysian Dogs Deserve Better (MDDB) has its adoption exercise at adoption drives.
Founder Wani Muthiah said the organisation initially had an online adoption page but had to suspend it due to problems created by some rescuers.
“Now we let serious rescuers join our adoption drives but they must show they have vaccinated the rescue before coming in.”
“This is to ensure our other rescues are not infected by highly contagious diseases like distemper or parvovirus.”
Wani said sometimes they also allowed out-of-town rescuers to use their Facebook page to put up adoption posts.
MDDB has 108,000 followers.
