TIPS AND TRICKS: Find your strength, and go with it!

Everyone has their own set of strengths. The things that our friends are always saying "Wow, can you please show me how to do that?" or even, "Can you do this for me? You are so much better at it than I am." The things that we have going for us, the advantages that we were given in life, the skills that we have worked really hard to hone into expertise, the knowledge we have built up over time.

In crossposting, you can be incredibly helpful by identifying your strengths, and figuring out how to focus on those. By utilizing your strengths, and aligning with others that have different strengths, you can help save many more lives. For example:

* Do you have a way with words? Consider writing creative bios for animals that can be posted with their photos. A lot of ACs and rescues don't have the time to write up a really compelling story for each dog or cat.

* Are you good behind the lens? Consider going to your local AC or rescue and donating some of your time to take attractive pictures of the dogs they have available (a good picture can make a HUGE difference in how much attention is paid to a dog or cat online). Most ACs or rescues don't have access to the kind of skills and equipment a photographer possesses.

* Are you artistic? I have seen a few people add borders with information and adorable speech bubbles to pictures in an attempt to draw in the viewer, and it seems to really help!

* Do you have some money each month that you can set aside to help with emergency rescue efforts? Often when an emergency comes up (a senior dog, a sick cat), the rescues that would love to help don't have the money readily available to pay for transportation or surgery. People who help with the financial aspect of rescue are vital - remember that rescues are not businesses that make profit! Often, they are people with big hearts that are running on donations and credit card balances. Your $25 here or there can make a big difference.

**NOTE: Make sure before you donate that your money is going to a trusted individual or rescue. Unfortunately, there have been people out there that have used animal rescue as a front for deceit. PLEASE check out any person asking for donations BEFORE you give, so that you know that your money is going to the right place (helping animals)!**

* Are you good with organization and using Facebook? Offer to post animals at an AC or rescue in an album on FB and help keep track of their status. A lot of times, organizations don't have the time and resources to keep everyone directly informed of what is going on with the animals. A good photo album setup is a great start, so that crossposters can easily see the animal's information, location, and status. I will do a post about this subject later.

These are just a small number of examples of strengths that one can leverage in the pursuit of helping to save animals. What are your strengths? In what ways are you using your gifts to help save the lives of animals?

TOOLS AND INFO: The Rescue Shelter Network

Today I want to share a neat site that a fellow crossposter showed me a while back. It's called The Rescue Shelter Network.

The Rescue Shelter Network

It allows you to search a list of breed-specific rescues for all sorts of animals, based on geographic location. This allows you, as a crossposter, to not only share those pictures on Facebook, but to contact rescues that may be interested in that dog or cat directly.

For example, you see a Boston Terrier listed as urgent in a rural shelter in Georgia. You select "Boston Terrier" from the Dog Breed drop-down menu. This takes you to a page where you can select the state..."Georgia Boston Terrier Rescue Groups" (you can also select to see all groups nationally). Once you get to the Georgia page, it will tell you that there are no rescue groups for Boston Terriers in Georgia that are listed on this site, but it does give you links to the closest rescues to Georgia. You can then find these groups' contact information, and send them the information for the dog. Sometimes out of state rescues will be willing to help dogs in other areas, if they are a breed that fits their rescue.

Remember to be as thorough as possible when contacting rescues, as they sometimes don't have the extra time to look up information on a dog that they may be interested in, but came to them with limited information.
Making sure that you give a rescue all of the information they will need, even if you have to look some of it up yourself, makes it easier for the rescue to act on saving animals that they are interested in. And we all like to see "SAFE", right?

What tools do you use in your crossposting efforts? Give me a shout and let me know. 

My Crossposting Story - What's Yours?

I was introduced to crossposting animals on Facebook when I started to get into animal rescue volunteering again. I friended a few local animal rescue organizations, and from there, found that there was a whole community of people who spent hours, and sometime days a week, sharing death row animals in the hopes that they would be seen by that perfect person or rescue group. Sometimes there was triumph when an animal was saved, and sometimes heartbreak when they were listed in an RIP album. But these people kept going, stopping for a bit to mourn the lost, and continuing to fight for those still in peril.

Koba is in a foster home, looking for his forever home

I found precious little information online about how people did this, so I jumped in with both feet and vowed to figure it out, in hopes that I could help make things better too. I started on my own personal profile, but I soon realized how difficult it was to keep track of things, so I started a dedicated profile, Animalrescue Crossposting. I wasn't sure how to make "friends", so I just friend requested every rescue that I could find, any death row animal listings from shelters, and other people with "crossposter" or "crossposting" in their profile names. I began reposting the dogs and cats that were out there looking for homes, especially the ones labeled "URGENT". Over time, more people began to friend request me, and I built up a great network of people who see my posts and can act on them (and vice versa). 

Teaki was saved from AC in N FL.

I have learned a lot about what it takes to save animals from certain death, and I learn more every day as I do this. I have learned the importance of fosters to rescue efforts, the joys and pitfalls of long-distance adoption, the plight of smaller rural shelters with tiny budgets and lack of manpower. I have learned that there are people that spend their every waking moment fighting to save dogs and cats from all over the country that they have never even met, and that there are people that use the animals' misfortune to line their own pockets. I have learned that rescue is a labor of love which often comes with a lot of needless drama...and that running a small rescue is a job that pays only in dog kisses and pictures of animals in new, happy homes as opposed to in cages. I have learned about breed specific legislation, and the different sides that argue for and against it.

Still waiting to be saved from AC in Sebring,FL.

All of this has led the formation of this blog. I don't know everything there is to know about crossposting and rescue, but I would like to share what I have learned with others who are taking the same path. I also want to give other crossposters the opportunity to share what they know, and get a much-deserved (but often forgotten) pat on the back for their hard work and dedication.

Thank you to everyone who undertakes this sometimes joyous, sometimes grim journey with me. The animals depend on all of us.

What's your Crossposting Story? What got you started in helping to save shelter pets?