Adopt A Rock Star From Motley Zoo Animal Rescue
At The Music Zoo we talk about guitars all day, but at home we are also animal lovers. So when we heard that the non-profit animal rescue and adoption outfit in Washington state named Motley Zoo is raising money to acquire a permanent facility in order to better find animals new homes, we wanted to get on board and help spread the word. The Music Zoo isn’t connected with Motley Zoo – well, except that our names obviously forever unite us in a “Zoo” brotherhood – but their style and attitude definitely struck a chord with us. We’d like to share their story. As of February 2013, Motley Zoo has adopted out 865 pets and is going strong with at least one pet finding a new home every day. If you’re in or near Washington state, please consider adopting or fostering one of these animals. Everyone else, please donate to Motley Zoo!
Read on to get an overview from Motley Zoo’s executive director Jme Thomas:
Motley Zoo Animal Rescue (MZar) is a rock-n-roll style, all-volunteer, foster based, 501c3 nonprofit headquartered in Redmond WA (just outside of Seattle). Since 2009 we have rescued and rehomed over 900 pets. As our name implies, we truly are a motley crew of ages, backgrounds, careers and styles, all coming together to save the lives of an equally varied group of animals, including deaf, blind, one eyed, 3 legged, and animals with very expensive and unusual situations. Primarily we work with dogs and cats, although we have helped the occasional ferret, guinea pig, bird and even a cow! We dub our animals “roadies” when they come into our care, as they start their whirlwind tour to find a new home!
As a foster based group, we don’t have a traditional physical shelter where the animals stay- rather, they stay with loving families, in their homes, and they are treated like one of the family until a “furever” home is found. This allows us to really get to know the animals, to see how they behave and interact with people and other pets, which helps us find great matches that last, indefinitely. We have about 35-50 families fostering at any point in time, and most of them work, have other pets, cats and kids- so really fosters are truly just like any one of you out there. Our fosters simply took a chance to give it a shot, and have a new furry friend stay with them for a while! Although it can be hard to watch them go to new homes after loving them like our own, we know that it is such an amazing gift we can give both the pet and new person- so it’s more happy than sad, and kids LOVE it. Like giving a really great present, there is nothing as wonderful as the smiles on new adopters’ faces when they walk away with their adopted “rock star”. It is a great learning experience for kids too, empowering them and teaching empathy, and altruism- and they keep coming back for more…we have quite a group of youth volunteers.
We are currently working to raise funds for our future- to buy some land where we can eventually build our own brand new, eco- friendly facility (again, not a shelter)! This campaign called “Rock Solid” is a crowd funding campaign hosted by Indiegogo and the promo poster is attached. Although we desire to have a facility where we can convene, gather train and unite our people and pets, we do not want to change the good thing we have going with the foster system, because it allows us the freedom to operate outside the constraints of time or space, such as a shelter does- which leads them to consider euthanization of animals whose “time is up”. Because we don’t have these limitations, the pets have homes with us until they are adopted! On occasion this may take a year- but more typically they stay about 2-4 weeks. We have a rate of adopting out about a pet a day- in busy times, more than double that- but to us it isn’t about the numbers either way…it’s about the quality of the match, and the relationship we have built with both the animals, and people!
Our goal for the facility is a big one, and a bit daunting, but any progress saves lives and helps ensure that we will be there to help more animals well into the future. We are also about to open a temporary location until we can build this new one- so stay tuned for this exciting grand opening soon…and in the meantime we’d love if you would consider looking into adopting, fostering or volunteering for your local shelter or animals rescue group. We would appreciate you sharing our message and campaign, so that we can help many more animals who are struggling in shelters. Most animals who land in the shelters are there for no fault of their own- and many are pure breds…
We are the voice for the animals that have none! You will find an amazing gift waiting for you when you volunteer, foster, adopt, or donate to help rock rescue!
ROCK ON!
Visit Motley Zoo online at their website.
