Above: Tony, adopted thanks to Ballarat Animal Shelter.

 

Thousands of homeless pets have been connected with new families, and hundreds more pets and the people who love them have been provided support to keep them safe and together in times of need - all thanks to your kindness.

Here's how you saved lives and created happiness for thousands of Australian pets and the people who care for them in the last financial year:

You helped find a home for every pet that needs one.

Thanks to your kindness, 62,734 lucky pets found loving homes via PetRescue's adoption platform. 

Pets like Tilly and Teddy, whose family drove hours to meet them (a year apart and in different directions!) after seeing their profiles on PetRescue.

Boop here to read more happy tails!

 

But that's not all! Your support was crucial in helping homeless pets find homes quickly through PetRescue's rehoming programs and activities, things like:

 

Pet alerts: Helping pets find their new family as fast as possible meant over 1.2 million pet alerts (1,249,029 to be exact) were sent out to potential adopters, even when they weren't actively searching. The 'pet alert' feature continues to give pets listed on PetRescue a chance to be seen and matched with a human faster.

 

Red, adopted thanks to Campaspe Animal Shelter.

 

Did you know that over a hundred thousand people (107,431 to be exact) enquired about a pet via PetRescue's adoption platform? That's 12 people wanting to adopt a pet per hour! 

“Using PetRescue, and its huge reach allows more views of our animals nationwide and gives them a much bigger chance of being adopted. People don’t generally Google shelters and pounds that are out of their area, so it means that we have the ability to be seen by many. We also encourage all people looking to adopt to look on the PetRescue website because it has a huge database of pets in their area and is much easier than searching for and visiting individual websites.”

Kate Kemp, Operations Manager at Campaspe Animal Shelter.
 

Improving the quality of enquiries that come through for pets helped to create these connections and frees up a rescue group's time spent sorting through adoption enquiries. Thanks to your support, some tweaks were made to the adoption platform to ensure that rescue groups receive more details about the enquirer's home, saving time for everyone. 

Read more about PetRescue platform features here

 

Keeping adoption in focus: PetRescue TV launched! A project to help promote rescue pets, the hope is that PetRescue TV will reach a whole new audience and introduce people to pets they might not have considered before. Helping people looking for pets get to know their quirky personalities and imagine what life would be like with each one.

10,926 people have tuned in to PetRescue TV since it launched in April. 

Read more about PetRescue TV

 

Helping the ones that need more love: Some pets need more help than others to be seen. By combining the strength of the website alongside social media promotions and other 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.

Pixie adopted thanks to Tiny Kits Rescue.

Pets just like little Pixie, who had been searching for a home for three months. Jenny from Tiny Kits Rescue got in touch for some support. After the PetRescue team rewrote her profile and shared it with the PetRescue community on social media, Pixie was adopted within weeks!

"I am excited to say that after the advice, support, and help your team has given me, my kitten Pixie has been adopted. Thank you." - Jenny Tiny Kits Rescue

Max was adopted thanks to Lake Road Veterinary Clinic.

 

Small changes that make a big impact. All the cute photos, videos and personality quirks shared on a pet's profile help them reach the right human. Even something seemingly small, like updating the adoption poster layout to highlight a pet's best features, gives pets the best chance to be seen. 

It's a testament to how crucial your ongoing support is to the thousands of pets that rely on PetRescue's free adoption platform to find loving homes. 

“...We are finding the PetRescue website to be a great tool to use in advertising our adoptable pets, and we especially like the new Adoption Poster layout. We use these displayed in one of our clinic's windows, and it is definitely something that everyone stops to see :)

Thank you and everyone at PetRescue for providing such a wonderful platform to help get our rescues seen across Australia :) - Lake Road Vet Clinic

You helped keep pets out of an unsafe system.

Home2Home continues to provide an alternative option to surrendering that directly helps people and pets in need and prevents them from entering an unsafe system where their fate could become unknown.

Thanks to your support in the last twelve months, the Home2Home program helped 418 pets like Sasha that otherwise may have had to be surrendered.

“This amazing program gave my cat a second chance at a wonderful life with a loving owner when I was no longer able to care for her. I now receive regular updates and photos from her new owner, which would not happen if she had been adopted from a shelter. Rehoming my cat was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made, and I was feeling very guilty that due to ill health, I had to do so. From the first email Vicki from Home2Home sent me, I knew that I had found the perfect program to help me find my cat a new home. Vicki was so understanding, and there wasn't a hint of judgement, which meant that I felt comfortable with the process. I will be forever grateful to Vicki and the Home2Home team, as I believe they saved my cat's life.” ~ Maria.

 

 

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

The Home2Home program is not only safely getting pets from one home to another but also providing much-needed support to pet owners to help them keep their pets when they have nowhere else to turn. 

People like Emma, who reached out to Home2Home when surrendering their beloved dog, Lenny, seemed like the only option.

“I wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU for going through this process with us. Even though we didn't match up with someone to take Lenny, it gave us an opportunity to work on him while actively looking for a better situation for him. We've really come to the conclusion that our family is the best situation for him, and we just can't imagine our life without him in it! We truly see this as a Home2Home success story and think this service is absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much for making it so easy for us and doing such a wonderful job in helping us when we didn't know where else to turn.” - Emma

Read Lenny's Happy Tail here

 

You helped people and pets in crisis.

Thanks to your support, the PetRescue helpdesk team answered 579 calls for support from people and pets in crisis. Using the new crisis care directory, folks experiencing crisis situations such as hospitalisations, homelessness, domestic violence and financial hardship are connected directly with local organisations that offer outreach, crisis support services and safe short-term accommodation for their pets, saving precious time and resources.

 

A step forward for pets and the community.

Pets are very much a part of our families, which is why PetRescue fully supports including companion animals and pets in the next Census survey. The Census captures lots of information about what's going on in the family household - but doesn't currently recognise pets as part of this unit! 

Find out more about how including pets in the Census will help the community.

 

You helped increase capacity for rescue organisations to help the most vulnerable pets.

The new AI-powered feature helps the PetRescue member community to write pet adoption profiles. It's designed to help relieve workloads for the PetRescue member community and speed up the adoption process!

Maneki Neko Cat Rescue wrote Barbados with the help of PetRescue's AI writer.

 

Over 15,000 pet profiles were created by using PetRescue's AI writer by 507 different member rescue organisations, like Maneki Neko Cat Rescue:

“PetRescue's AI Bot is already making a significant impact and has the potential to save our volunteers so much time. The bot generates a compelling profile that engages potential adopters from just a few key points describing the pet's personality. This frees up volunteers to focus on caring for cats in need. The AI Bot is a game-changer in our mission to support cat welfare and increase adoptions!” - Samantha, Maneki Neko Cat Rescue.

Read more about how Ai can help rescue pets and the people who care for them

You helped the rescue community support pets in their care.

Your support helped coordinate the complex logistics of $1,060,437 worth of vital food and pet products that were delivered to pets in need. This included support to remote indigenous communities in Western Australia, thanks to the amazing folks at Pilbara Meta Maya Regional Aboriginal Corporation (PMMRAC) and PetRescue partner MARS Petcare. PetRescue's food and product donation program helps rescue organisations feed pets in their care, freeing up funds to cover other critical care needs. 

Happy dogs in WA indigenous communities receive a year's supply of food.

 

Rescue kitties were purr-ty excited to be doing their ones and twos on some fancy kitty litter.

 

 

Thanks to the kindness of partners, supporters, and pet lovers like you, PetRescue's food donation program has donated over $10 million worth of food to rescue groups and community organisations nationwide since its beginnings in 2011. 

Read more about this monumental milestone here

 

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

Your support saves lives by giving pounds the tools to rehome pets directly. In exciting progress, the PetRescue Safe and Sound Pets community grew by 11 new pound members last year! Now, 60 pounds across the country are giving pets the best chance to find love through PetRescue's adoption platform.

Getting more pounds on board using PetRescue's adoption platform as a rehoming pathway is crucial in keeping pets safe. 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. 

Your support allows the PetRescue team to do crucial behind-the-scenes work to build relationships with council pounds and introduce them to the benefits of PetRescue's adoption platform as a rehoming tool.

 

A positive step towards vulnerable pets becoming safer in the system.   

PetRescue took part-animal Welfare Victoria's Taskforce on Rehoming Pets by providing and supporting recommendations that will change the future for pets and ultimately help keep them safer in the system. 

PetRescue's Founding Director, Vix Davy, and Program Specialist, Dr Diana Rayment, were part of a stakeholder workshop, along with several rescue organisations from Victoria. The workshop focused on finding out what aspects of the law currently are and aren't working, as well as feedback on the development of regulations for all pet rehomers in the state. 

Recommendations include proactive and preventative measures to keep pets in their homes and out of the system, where this provides positive welfare outcomes. 

Read more about Animal Welfare Victoria's Taskforce on Rehoming Pets

 

Thank you for creating a whole lot of happiness in the last year. 

And 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 | Naylor Stewart Foundation