Even dog trainers, behaviorists, and psychic animal communicators couldn't prevent Melissa Bekis' two dogs from fighting.
The New York resident took over her ex-partner's four-year-old Australian Shepherd, Marjoram, after he moved away. Marjoram began verbally abusing Bekis' other dog, Louise, a Jack Russell terrier/Chihuahua mix. Louise will probably rebel even more against Mr. Marjoram's attack.
“It stopped for three months, but it will come back again,” Bekis said. “In the end, the veterinarian said they couldn't keep sending Louise away with her injury. We can't keep letting things like this happen.”
Bekis began contacting local rescue groups to find Marjoram a new home, but Facebook adoption group scams and a lack of positive matches made the relocation process difficult.
“I felt guilty about the fact that we were rehoming Marj, but then I also felt guilty about the fact that Louise kept getting hurt,” Bekis said. “I felt so taboo about rehoming the dog that I felt guilty and had to admit to even doing it.”
A common reason customers contact Rehome with Love is fear of judgement. Rehome with Love is a service in Amherst that is part of Joyful Pets Rescue, which recently relocated to Wendell. Rehome with Love aims to find new homes for animals whose owners can no longer keep them.
“These are not shelter pets. These are beloved pets that have not been surrendered to a shelter,” said Lauren McCarron, who founded Joyful Pet Rescue in 2018.
McCarron said she is sensitive to how difficult it can be for humans to find new homes for animals, and wants her clients to feel comfortable throughout the process.
McCarron guided Bekis through reference checks, phone calls with potential adopters, and even meetings with Marjoram and the prospective owners. Within two months, Marjoram found the perfect loving Australian Shepherd owner, but she needed an older dog with less energy.
“I really recommend Rehome with Love because I loved being able to foster my own dog,” Bekis said.
McCarron believes family pets should never be placed in a shelter, but should be moved from house to house. As the owner of Joyful His Pets Rescue, Mr. McCarron has rehomed many animals over the past 10 years. First through Paws Crossed, an animal rescue organization he started in 2014, and then for six years through Joyful Pets His Rescue. But she is moving away from animal rights groups. At her animal rescue site, she focuses full-time on this specific population of surrendered animals.
Launched two years ago, the Rehome with Love service has matched more than 500 animals with new homes, saving furry animals from being exposed to stress, disease and the possibility of euthanasia in shelters. It has been used to prevent
“A third of animals in animal shelters are family pets. If we could keep all that third out of shelters, shelters would be able to do their best job of helping lost and stray animals. “We'll be able to do that,” McCarron said.
Rehome with Love operates like any other pet adoption website. Pet owners looking for a new home for their furry friend fill out a medical history form and provide their animal's medical information. Rehome with Love then collects the remaining health records and looks for discrepancies between the forms and the animal's medical history.
The service creates animal bios, screens potential adopters, and mediates adoptions between the two parties. This rehoming service costs $195 for the standard package and $295 for the Preferred Service, which increases your pet's visibility through targeted social media advertising and active involvement in professional groups.
The process is detailed and time consuming. Owners can submit more than 100 pages, so it takes McCarron several weeks just to review veterinary records. She hired hundreds of writers to help with pet introductions, online advertising, and social media posts. All the paperwork and writing takes away McCarron's time on her phone to talk to her clients and employers and find the perfect match.
So, to speed up the rehoming process, McCarron scrutinizes forms for discrepancies, summarizes your pet's health history, writes bios, creates promotional videos for your animal, and generates ads. adopted 88 artificial intelligence tools. Using his other AI programs, it compares potential adopters' applications to the current pet waiting list and makes matches based on compatibility.
“We're going a lot faster. I'd say 10x,” McCarron said. “Everything's written faster, the reviews are faster, the matches are faster. It used to take him six weeks, and now he can swear it's three weeks.”
However, artificial intelligence suggestions do not determine where animals live. McCarron, like Bekis, said he is constantly discussing matches with prospective employees and clients.
“It's the final frontier for us. We're always on the phone and talking to adopters. We leverage technology as much as we can, but we believe the human overlay cannot be replaced.” she said.
