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Thursday, April 11, 2013

"Banjo" The Wildly Popular Shelter Dog!

Banjo ready for his 15 minutes of fame. Photo courtesy of the LA Times

Does this scenario sound like a 1960's TV show plot to you: Elderly man (probably senile) ties small fluffy dog to railroad tracks. Oncoming train's engineer spots man and dog and slams on the train's emergency brake, saving dog from certain death. Dog just happens to be adorable and is a real hit on TV and at the Riverside County Animal Services shelter in California, where he's temporarily residing. When word gets out about this story and that the pooch is ready for adoption...the shelter's website is inundated with potential adopters and crashes.

This article in today's LA Times will give you the details on Banjo's near death experience, but we think the real takeaway from this amazing story is the power of social media to help shelter pets find forever homes. Unfortunately, it's still the case that many shelters and rescues don't optimize their use of both traditional and social media to get pets adopted. In this case, a local TV station ran Banjo's story and it was picked up by international media outlets. Within hours, the shelter had over 200 requests from all over the country to adopt sweet Banjo, and a "Colorado man called wanting to donate to the shelter."

Now, we realize that not every orphaned dog or cat's story is as riveting as Banjo's, but that shouldn't stop shelter staff from playing up their residents to the hilt! What do you think? Are the shelters near you using social media to its fullest potential? Please let us know!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Love that Banjo got people adopting and interested! Thanks for sharing this!

Two French Bulldogs said...

That is nutty! We saw the article
Benny & Lily

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