The plan for 2009

I've been thinking a lot recently about how we can improve things in the future. In all honesty the last few months have been a real struggle. Well you only need to look back through the blog to see its been one crisis after another really. Obviously we always prioritise caring for the animals and a lot of the time that has left us with no time at all for looking at homing applications. We've missed out on a lot of homes cos they've, understandably, gone elsewhere while waiting to hear back from us. Of course its a vicious circle cos if we don't find time to home animals the numbers will never decrease!

So my plan for the future is to reduce the number of animals we have here at any one time considerably. My hope is that we'll still be able to help a similar number of animals. But having fewer in at any one time should leave me more time to advertise them for homing and then process the homing applications, thereby reducing the length of time they spend here and having a higher "turnover" for want of a better word. Last year animals were here for an average of 78 days before they found a home - that's almost three months. I'd like that to be more like one month really. In animals with a lifespan of 24 months, spending three of them in rescue isn't good. Currently we have several animals here who have been in rescue for getting on for a year, some have been here even longer. I really want to have more time to work hard on finding the right home for them.

Realistically it's going to be a while before this new way of doing things kicks in. I want to get to a maximum of 15 cages here at any one time and at the moment we have 25 so we have a fair bit of homing to do before we're at our target level. Hopefully this time next year we'll be able to report a difference though :)

In other news, we've had a very kind offer of help with the website. I've had a sneak preview this evening and I can't tell you how excited I am! Hopefully before too long we'll be unveiling a snazzy new look website which will also do some clever things behind the scenes to make keeping it updated easier :D