Innovation and Quality

Innovation and Quality

Pet Adoptions: A Unique Approach

Whether you have a pet or not, it’s hard not to be moved by the plight of stray dogs and cats in cities and towns across Arizona. All too often, they go in an out of shelters until the most humane alternative becomes euthanasia.

For Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) employees, this scenario is all too familiar. They quickly recognized that one of the key reasons for the “vicious circle” of pet adoptions was that too many families were unprepared for the real-life requirements of pet ownership. The question was: How can we make sure more parents and children understand what it takes to adopt and raise a pet?

SEIU members worked with their managers and came up with an innovative idea: Take advantage of the Nanini Library’s popular “Story Time” to spread the message of responsible pet ownership. The weekly library event is always sold out and parents and kids who attend are likely to have or want a family pet.

Next, PACC employees and SEIU members Dennis Downing and Jose Ocano, along with Shelter Supervisor Patty Mahaney, contacted Library Associate Ed Dembowski and Librarian Julie Hagood and asked them to prepare a special Story Time program about adopting and raising a pet.

Ed (who is also an author and Story Time ‘star’) and Julie put together a full program of stories, songs and a puppet show designed to entertain and educate the children and parents in attendance. Immediately following their show, Dennis Downing introduced a couple of the shelter’s pets while highlighting the points raised during the show and then engaged the audience in a discussion about how best to match a pet with the right family.

SEIU’s Innovation and Quality program encourages county employees and their managers to develop new and creative ways to maximize county resources in an effort to improve public services. By using the county’s most popular library to promote responsible pet care, the PACC can get important information to a wide cross-section of the community and help reduce the number of animals that come through the shelter.

Thanks to the PACC and Nanini Library staff and management, Nanini Library Manager Kristie Bradford, Pima Public Services Supervisor Vicki Duraine and State Representative Nancy Young-Wright for their support of this important pet rescue program.