Pet peeve: when a shelter is too lazy to take a decent photo of an animal.

[Peregrine Took]

I hope this is considered a related post to this topic.

I see this a lot as I'm on many shelter lists. Imagine the poor guy has his one chance for likely adoption screwed up as the photographer takes a photo of his back or hind end, etc.

It sounds crazy but I've seen this.

Right now a shelter is trying to get 7 puppies from one litter adopted and the photo has all of them scrunched in one corner - a distant shot as it is and the shelter floor is covered with excrement.

What chance to these little guys have of getting adopted when you have to enlarge the photo to even try to get a decent look at them. Plus, they couldn't take one second and try to clean up the floor?

I wrote to them about it and I'm sure they won't like it but I just had to say something.

[phantom power]

1. might be more "understaffed" than "lazy", but it can make the difference

[LeftyMom]

2. It's a good role for a volunteer.

I know I've read that some shelters have really increased their adoptions just by having volunteers come in and take well lit, attractive photos of adoptable animals. It's especially life saving for black dogs and cats, in badly lit photos with cheap cameras they just look like black blobs with eyes which makes it much harder to place them.

[flvegan]

3. What solution did you offer them?

I experienced this very same thing at my local humane society back in the late '90s. Outdated pics of animals no longer there, no web interaction.

So, as volunteers my roomie and myself dedicated a couple nights a week and took pics of every single creature in the house and hosted those pics on a website that they linked to. Was it easy? Not in those days. Was it rewarding? Damn skippy it was.

It also depends on the shelter. Many county/city run animal control offices don't have the resources to take multiple, flattering pictures. They could probably use some help from folks that care on that front.