As cute as adoptable pets are, you need more than just a few photos to gain someone’s attention. People want to know details about their future furry friends so that they can decide if they are a good fit for their home or not. Because of this, it is important for shelters to write the best descriptions possible for each adoptable animal.
How to Write Posts About Adoptable Animals
Descriptions about adoptable animals are extremely important. This is the information that potential adopters will first learn about an animal, so it needs to be interesting to catch their attention, but also honest to help each animal find its perfect placement.
Start by creating a persona for each dog. Instead of simply listing out all the facts about them, write it in a story format to make it more exciting to read. Make each animal’s description unique from the others, and especially make the introduction enticing and fun.
Once you have introduced the animal in an entertaining way, that’s when you can move on to some of the details about them. Again, keep this lighthearted and interesting. As much as you want to entertain potential adopters, you need to give them clear and accurate information about each animal.
At the end of each description, encourage potential adopters to reach out. Tell them where the adoptable pet is located and give them a number to call. Remind them how much this animal needs a forever home, and pull at their heartstrings a bit. A good description can often determine whether or not an animal will get adopted.
How to Keep Your Posts Truthful
Even though you want to get animals adopted as soon as possible, you don’t want to give anyone false information or have the animal returned later due to miscommunication. A lot of information about shelter animals are not known for certain, so don’t make promises that you can’t guarantee.
For example, most of the dogs at shelters are mixed breeds. Therefore, unless they’ve had a test to determine which breed they are, you can’t really say for certain. You could say that they “appear to be” or are “guessed to be” a certain breed or mix, but some adopters could get upset if they are told that their pet is one thing and then turns out to be something else.
Also, animals can often be unpredictable. The true personalities of animals can change in different settings. So, you can tell them that a dog behaves a certain way to your knowledge, but don’t promise them that the dog will behave that way all the time.
Highlighting the Pros
Just because you need to be truthful in your descriptions doesn’t mean that you can’t be positive. When giving the information about each animal, you should cover the positives first and then go on to the stuff that is more serious.
Present the negative information in a positive way! For example, if a cat meows a lot, you can say that they love to talk. Just because certain behaviors might seem bad to one person doesn’t mean that everyone will see them negatively.
Every animal is different, but they all have great qualities to them. Decide how each animal shines, and then go off of that when writing your description. For example, one dog might not be good with other dogs or children, but they are extremely loyal and lovable to adults. Therefore, you can emphasize how caring and compassionate this dog is first, and then mention that they prefer not to be around kids or other animals.
Cover the Basics
Lastly, make sure to cover the basics in the description. You want potential adopters to have enough information to decide whether they're interested and ready to reach out. This will save shelters times by not having to answer as many questions about the animal pertaining to simple things and allow them to focus on applications and emails from serious adopters with more complex questions. Make sure to include their age, any commands they know, if they walk well on a leash (if applicable), personality traits, if they're house trained (this should almost always come with a disclaimer as animals in new spaces can have accidents or set backs), breed (should also come with a disclaimer since most of the time, shelters cannot be 100% sure), and if they're good with kids, dogs, or cats.
Descriptions are a huge part of helping an animal get adopted, so the more detailed and entertaining your descriptions are, the more likely people will want to adopt those pets. Writing about adoptable animals might seem like such a simple task, but it could greatly change their lives for the better.
Comments