Grow your family campaign
Creating bigger families, one pet adoption at a time.
Ryan, Dolly & Hercules
Pet adoption is mainstream in Australia today, but there’s still a constant stream of pets being listed for adoption on PetRescue. Our goal is to help those that need the extra spotlight to be seen, so they have the best chance of finding love.
Together, let’s popularise and spark a trend of having larger pet families!
Benji, SAFE Carnevon
🐈 Cats
Thousands of cats are being killed in pounds every year. And thousands fill up rescue organisations that are at capacity and trying their best to ensure that the felines in their care find a home. In fact, cats are the front runners of the pets listed on PetRescue but receive only 25% of the enquiries that dogs receive.
In the latest Pets in Australia report, owners pointed to the importance of making sure any new pet gets along with other pets in the household as one of the main barriers to getting another pet.
But did you know that 81% of cats are listed as suitable for kids under five years old, 91% are fine with a resident dog, and 93% are fine with a resident cat? This makes them the perfect addition to families considering adopting more than one pet and the ideal species to consider bringing home first if people are considering a cat and dog combo (whether now or in future!).
Meet the cats looking for love
Tiny, Shoalhaven Animal Shelter
🐕 Big Dogs
Big dogs make great family pets. They’re larger than your lap, but we reckon that’s all the more love to go around. And while dogs are a popular search on PetRescue, people looking for pets are often surprised to hear how family and lifestyle friendly large dogs can be! Sadly, big dogs take 58% longer to find homes compared to smaller ones. Through this project, we want to help share the joy that big dogs bring; big dogs, big love.
Meet the big dogs looking for love.
Simon & Chance, Heart & Soul Rescue
💚 Bonded Pets
It was promising to read in the latest Pets in Australia report that many Australians have had more than one pet before, and 22% of all households already have more than one type of pet. Two-thirds of households have pets currently. This could be the perfect time for the remaining one-third who may be considering adopting a pet to experience the joy that a bonded pair could bring!
Like two peas in a pod, bonded pets come as a package deal. These pets have such a special bond that they can't be separated. By choosing to adopt bonded besties, you get twice the love and save TWO lives!
Effecting change with a social campaign
To help these pets get adopted faster we need to break stereotypes and draw on all the big and small ideas that can spark social change.
It’s these ideas that led to an initiative to showcase the joy and happiness that comes with bigger pet families to save more lives. 18 years of data and insights informed our strategy, and we’re leveraging our in-house technology, marketing resources to create campaigns that will:
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Boost pets that take longer to find homes
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Promote multi-pet families to encourage adopters to adopt more than one pet
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Popularise multi-pet families
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And normalise the concept of bonded pets
Micro-campaigns for a macro impact
Looking for Love Campaign
In March 2022, the Looking for Love Campaign launched alongside National Pet Adoption Month. In just one month, 4,916 pets found homes and adoptions of cats, big dogs and bonded pets increased by 22.1%.
Putting bonded pets on a pedestal
Adopting two pets = saving two lives! And this is why pushing bonded pets to the forefront is critical to get more pets out of rescue and into loving homes.
In the first phase of a long-term strategy to showcase the benefits of bringing home two pets, bonded pet profiles got extra sparkles on PetRescue’s adoption platform with adorable ‘Bonded Besties’ stickers to help their profiles stand out. This makes it su-purr easy for potential adopters to start their search for bonded pets.
Bonded pets were the focus for Valentine's Day 2022 with a big, bold banner added to the homepage. It also marked the launch of the Looking for Love Campaign for National Pet Adoption Month (March).
More to come
Popularising multi-pet families
We’re particularly excited about encouraging pet owners to grow their families by adopting more than one pet and normalising the joy experienced by multi-pet families.
Bree, Marcus, Diane and Michael are just some of the lucky adopters experiencing the joy of living in a house brimming with pet love.
More to come
Every $37 raised will help save the life of a rescue pet by giving them an adoption profile on PetRescue to connect them with their new family. Your donations go directly towards the pet search and listing management platform, adoption support programs and initiatives like the Grow Your Family Campaign to provide a better outcome for rescue pets in Australia.