Above: Oliver, adopted thanks to Shoalhaven Animal Shelter.

Thanks to your support, thousands of adopters, rescue organisations and pet owners throughout Australia were able to secure a better future for pets in their care. Here’s how you saved lives and created happiness for thousands of Australian pets, just like Oliver pictured above, in the last financial year:

A home for every pet that needs one.

You helped 53,203 lucky pets find loving homes.

Even pets like Marley, who found herself in a pound and patiently waited five months before she found a home. Marley’s beautiful story, from facing an unsafe future to a loved pet living her best life, is a testament to how crucial your ongoing support is to the thousands of pets that rely on PetRescue’s adoption platform to find loving homes.

Your support helped homeless pets find homes quickly through PetRescue's free adoption platform, rehoming programs and activities! Things like;

Pet Alerts: Ensuring that not a single moment is lost to help a pet get closer to their perfect family, over 11 million pet profiles (11,146,728 to be exact!) were delivered directly to adopters' inboxes, even when they weren’t actively searching. The “pet alert” feature continues to help more pets be seen and matched with their new humans faster.

 

Bonded besties Bert & Ernie, adopted thanks to Baw Baw Shire Council.

Spotlight on bonded pets: Twice the challenge. Finding a perfect home traditionally has taken a bit longer for pets that need to be adopted together. New website features that helped bring bonded pets to the forefront were made possible because of your support. As a result, these pet profiles garnered a whopping 1.7 million+ views from potential adopters and adoptions increased by 5.8%.

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Topsy, adopted via Friends of the Hound Inc just six days after starring in the PetRescue Post.

Building a pet-loving network: By combining the strength of the website alongside social media promotions, newsletters and communications to the PetRescue community and beyond, your support is creating a huge and diverse network of potential adopters, increasing the options for a pet to find a home. Pets just like Topsy the greyhound, who was adopted just 6 days after being featured in the PetRescue monthly newsletter.

 

Helping the ones that need more love: Introducing a new ‘mega menu’ completely changed the way people can search for senior pets, cats or bonded pets, resulting in increased traffic for these pets - search traffic almost tripled by 167% for senior pets! Read how this new mega menu is helping pets.

 

Big boy Oscar, adopted during the Looking for Love campaign via AWL Kemps Creek.

Making adoption the first option: Leveraging the annual National Pet Adoption Month, the ‘Looking for Love’ campaign was launched in response to data from the PetRescue website that shows that cats, big dogs and bonded pets take longer than others to find a home.

By showcasing the joys of owning a bigger dog or twice the love of a bonded pair, the campaign increased adoptions resulting in 4,613 pets rehomed during March like Oscar pictured above. The biggest win was for our feline friends, with cat adoptions increasing by 9.7%, big dog adoptions increasing by 6.6% and bonded pets by 5.8% - amazing!

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Reduce intake to shelters, rescues and pounds.

You helped keep pets out of an unsafe system.

Bella & Luna bonded besties adopted via Home2Home.

Because of your support, the Home2Home program helped 196 pets like Bella and Luna that otherwise may have had to be surrendered. These bonded besties found a wonderful new home via the program after their previous owners had to move overseas.

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Pandora and her owner are happily together.

The Home2Home program is not only safely getting pets from one home to another, but it’s also having many other benefits for pets and their owners. Like in Pandora’s case, the team could provide support, and Pandora’s owner ended up being able to keep her.

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Home2Home also aims to keep pets out of the rescue system so rescue groups can focus on the most vulnerable pets and those needing urgent care.

Since expanding this program, many pet owners have reached out to give their pets a safe and hassle-free rehoming experience, proving just how critical this service is to pets and pet owners. But the need has rapidly outgrown the start-up team. With your ongoing support, we can increase resources in this vital area and aim to urgently reopen intake as soon as possible.
 

“Thank you so much for all the support along the way. This experience has not been as stressful as we expected, and we found some amazing homes for our two girls. I am super happy and impressed with this service, helps owners who can look after their dog during the process do this and not put the dogs in a stressful situation like being at a shelter.”

~ A pet owner who rehomed her two dogs, Holly and Lucy, via Home2Home.

You helped increase safety for pets within the current pound system.

Gus, adopted via new Safe & Sound Pound member Midcoast Council.

Your support saves lives by giving pounds the tools to rehome pets directly. The PetRescue Safe and Sound Pound community grew by 5 new pound members last year! Now, dogs and cats from council pounds in regional areas such as Lithgow, Bobs Farm, and Scone in New South Wales will get their very own profile on PetRescue, giving the best chance to find love with an adopter from anywhere across the country.

Getting more pounds on board using PetRescue’s adoption platform as a rehoming pathway is crucial in keeping pound pets safe. Your support allows the PetRescue team to do important behind-the-scenes work to build relationships with council pounds, including a special webinar for pound representatives to introduce them to the benefits of PetRescue’s adoption platform as a rehoming tool.

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Suzi, adopted thanks to Gilgandra Shire Council.

Digital rehoming gives pounds and shelters access to a much bigger community of adopters (including the possibility of interstate adoptions) while reducing the burden on rescue groups at capacity.

“PetRescue is a hassle-free way to promote the animals we have on a nationwide website. We have rehomed our animals to loving homes from Sydney Harbour to outback Queensland. It connects people who are looking for a new pet with pets who need a loving home.

When you find the right owner for your animals, it is the most satisfying feeling! In our experience, rehoming using PetRescue gives our animals their happily ever after story! The animals go to loving homes, and often the owners keep in touch with updates – so you get to see the dogs grow to their full potential. It is a really positive experience.

PetRescue provides a valued service to our organisation, and we appreciate their assistance in rehoming the animals that come into our care. “

~ Gilgandra Shire Council

 

You helped the rescue community support pets in their care.

Onyx Rescue’s very cute helper collecting their food donation drop.

Your support helped coordinate the complex logistics of $1,483,044 in food and $154,440 in products (such as free treatments, shampoo and dog collars) donated to pets across the country. This includes $16,000 (4,000 kgs) worth of vital food donations to flood-affected pets in New South Wales and Queensland and $12,927 (1,022 kgs) to a remote community in Newman, Western Australia. 

Kepler from Starting Over Dog Rescue says thank you!

PetRescue member rescue organisations raised vital funds directly from the PetRescue platform. This donation functionality is available on individual pet profiles and funnelled $67,622 in donations directly to rescue groups. These funds help pay for vet bills and other critical expenses that help the pets in their care.

Recognition & support of the bond between pets and their families.

You helped people and pets in crisis.
 

Thanks to your support, the PetRescue helpdesk team answered 8,193 calls for support from people and pets in crisis. Using the new crisis care directory to assist adopters and pet owners with helpful resources and suitable solutions, rescue groups are available to help the most vulnerable pets.

Prevent 100,000* pets from being killed in pounds each year.

Effecting change for pets at a legislative level.

Aggy, adopted via Port Macquarie Animal Shelter.

In a recent Victorian government initiative to take steps to change the future for pets, PetRescue contributed to the taskforce by providing 18 years of data and insights from the PetRescue adoption platform. These insights help to provide an accurate picture of the current state of animal management to lobby for effective change. Creating a safe future for homeless pets includes changes at a legislative level to provide protection by law.

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Thank you for putting a smile on a whole lot of faces in the last year. Just like sweet Dee from Doggie Rescue, who was the last pet to find a new loving home just before the end of the year!

With 6,964 pets currently available for adoption there is still much work to be done but thanks to you, these pets will have the chance to find a new home! Thank you so much.

A big thank you to you from Dee, the 53,203rd pet to find a home at the end of the financial year.

Thank you to our generous pet-lovin’ partners and sponsors for supporting the mission to find a home for every pet that needs one:

Pets Regardless | Elsie Cameron Foundation | Bunderra Foundation