The Capital Area Humane Society has perused a

Maddie's Fund Marketing Competition
The Capital Area Humane Society (CAHS) has used many strategies to find new homes for
“hard to place pets.” Although these animals can require a little more work, there is no reason
they shouldn’t have a great home. We know that each animal has something great to offer!
Pets for the Elderly
To help these animals find great home we started with the elderly community. Many times we’ve
seen an older person come into the shelter and fall in love with a senior animal. More mature
animals usually have better manners than their younger counterparts, and are easier to control.
To get elderly people into our shelter to meet our animals, we started with a poster. The poster
extols the number one reason to adopt a pet; they give you unconditional love.
We hung the posters in every assisted living home, senior center, and bingo hall in the area! We
placed ads in the “Silver Lining” section of our local newspaper, which is aimed at seniors. An
article about our Senior Adoption program also appeared in our Paw Prints Newsletter, which
reaches over 10,000 households. We’ve had a great response to this campaign, and while some
seniors go for kittens or younger dogs, most adopt older dogs and cats.
Senior cats and dogs have been placed with 105 senior citizens so far this year. If this trend
continues, we will place over 140 pets with seniors this year. Last year we adopted 72 animals
to seniors. With the help of our targeted marketing, we have doubled these adoptions!
Special Behavior Needs
Now that we found a great match for our older pets, we needed to help the dogs with behavioral
problems. Stephanie, a member of our staff, works with special behavior needs animals in the
shelter and continues to help them after they’ve been adopted. Our Behavior Help-Line is a great
tool to help adopters once they have their new pet at home. We encourage all pet owners to take
advantage of this phone number, and Stephanie handles all of these calls.
Anyone can call and ask for advice, even if they didn’t adopt their pet through us. We have
advertised our Behavior Help-Line in our Paw Prints Newsletter and on our website. If people
have a pet that they are having issues with, we’d like to help them work with their pet. In this
way we can prevent people from surrendering their animal!
The Capital Area Humane Society works hard to find great homes for all of our animals. We
make sure to provide help to people that adopt special-needs pets. Through our Behavior HelpLine Stephanie has been able to help over 800 people this year!
Summer Babies
Each summer the CAHS is over-flowing with puppies and kittens. We have a constant influx of
younger pets, and people looking for a kitten or puppy are often drawn to the smallest ones in the
nursery. This makes it harder for our “older” ones (those three or four months old) to get
adopted. This summer we came up with a creative way to get those older puppies adopted!
We planned our “Puppy Palooza” for a Friday in July. We were particularly full of puppies that
week- and by Friday we had 50 in our nursery. We planned to offer a $100 discount on puppy
adoptions for one day only. In the middle of the week I sent out a press release to all area radio
and television stations and newspapers. What really caught people’s attention was the Friday
morning news. We usually bring one dog or cat to our regular “Pet Pals” spot on the NBC newsbut that Friday we took five puppies! The puppies sold themselves as they ran around the desk
and cuddled with the news anchors!
That day we thought we would be prepared for the rush on puppies- we were wrong. People
lined up around our building to come in and see the puppies. Our staff worked efficiently and
got everyone in, and out, with their new puppies! In one day we had adopted out 45 puppies, 8
kittens and 5 adult dogs. It was a very proud day for our staff, and a happy one for each puppy
that went to a great home.
Unconditional Love.
The Capital Area Humane Society is proud to offer up to $100 off the cost of each
pet adopted by a senior. We also offer discounts to seniors on pet spay and neuter
services and dog training classes. Please stop by and see all of our animals; there
are plenty here just waiting to adore you.
7095 West Grand River • Lansing, MI 48906
(517) 626-6060 • www.cahs.lansing.org
Hours: Monday-Friday 12-7pm; Saturday 12-5pm
Discounted adoptions are made possible by Jackson National Life Insurance Company
and the Pets for the Elderly Foundation