Together with established promotions like Cause for Big Paws and Seniors for Seniors, these exciting developments helped enable a 40% increase in adoptions.

Our staff attended a training series designed for the shelter setting, learning more about how dogs and cats communicate and how to practice fear-free™ handling. Additionally:

• Techniques aimed at reducing stress were adopted (pun intended!) at both locations.
• All fearful animals have a fully covered “den” space in which to hide if they choose.
• Daily enrichment schedules include activities like rewarding a pet for quietly being with you.
• Play groups increase wellbeing for dogs who thrive around other dogs.
• “Doggy Day Out” excursions with volunteers offer a big serotonin boost.
• Spacious housing is used for adoptable cats who are not quickly finding families.
• Complimentary “rabbit kits” that include everything an adopter will need for the first few days are sent home with each bun!

And just as we support families with existing pets by reducing barriers to care, new shelter initiatives reduce barriers to adoption for pets who need a little extra TLC: Last year we began giving post-adoption training scholarships to families whose PIN dogs might benefit from extra support as they adjust to their new life. And while our Bacon Memorial Fund has historically covered adoption fees for animals with ongoing medical needs, select Bacon Fund pets are now eligible for financial veterinary support after going home! Tools like these encourage adoption by reinforcing PIN’s role as a partner throughout a pet’s lifetime, undoubtedly contributing to our terrific year-over-year program growth.

So, how have we broadened these vital programs? We launched our Pet Pantry, which is open twice a week at both locations, providing essentials like food, litter, crates, and toys at no cost. And we leveraged the success of last year’s inaugural Pet Care Assistance Day to enable a full month of Pet Care Assistance offerings throughout June 2023! This year’s program featured two vaccine clinic events—one offsite at the Ecumenical Hunger Project in East Palo Alto—and monthlong access to free and low-cost vaccines by appointment. Each time we pilot or expand a service, our learnings are applied to ensure we’re doing our best to meet the community’s needs.

Community-affirming programs like Pet Pantry, Vaccine Clinics, and Pet Care Assistance Month are pivotal to the lifesaving results you help enact at PIN because they create practical alternatives to pet relinquishment. By keeping cherished pets out of shelters, we improve outcomes for those that do rely on PIN’s fantastic adoption programs.

The importance of foster care within the ecosystem of a worldclass shelter cannot be overstated: Without it, the shelter (we’re lucky to have two!) has limited lifesaving capacity; pets like Dewey, who’s story you read above, would have no place to heal. Underage kittens separated from mama would have no one to bottle feed them. Put simply: With a powerful and strategic foster program PIN can push the boundaries of lifesaving in our community and beyond.

With two new team members joining the department in 2023, PIN’s Foster staff boasts an impeccable 40 years of collective professional expertise—wow! And it shows. This powerhouse 3-person team is constantly identifying opportunities for strategic growth that will help save more lives. This year they implemented a tool that tracks where every animal is in the foster cycle. Among other benefits, the tracker helps balance demands on foster families with differing expertise and availability. For instance, on a case-by-case basis our rescue team is proud to assist pet owners who are temporarily unable to house their pets. By leveraging this new tool PIN has been able to provide temporary care for pets in these situations, eliminating the risk of relinquishment, creating a path home to the families who love them.

So, here’s a glimpse of what that change in team structure enabled in 2023: Spay/neuter surgical capacity has increased by 25%, and we have doubled our provision of dental surgeries, which are commonly needed for both shelter pets and pets seen through our Outreach Program. We’ve also formalized ongoing spay/neuter partnerships with seven nearby rescue organizations! And, always focused on shortening a PIN pet’s length of stay at the shelter, foster pets in need of medical treatment are triaged to the team with the earliest availability.

The focus and efficiency of our medical team—and the investment in its excellence, made possible by our community—means other shelters and rescue organizations can rely on PIN just as members of our community do. We can say yes when less-resourced shelters need help caring for animals with complex orthopedic conditions or chronic allergic dermatitis. We are delighted and proud to have implemented a strategic vision that brought our medical team to this place of yes. Thank you for helping us get there!

With their close engagement, our training has been updated and we’ve added new volunteer programs like Doggy Day Out. Doggy Day Out volunteers provide vital socialization and positive exposure for PIN dogs through offsite excursions like neighborhood walks or a trip to a coffee shop. The introduction of this program—which PIN volunteers love almost as much as their canine companions—contributed to the past year’s incredible 157% increase in volunteer hours given!