With overwhelming support by the public and the mall management, the reTails adoption center in the Washington Square Mall will be staying for 2011! We are also hopeful that we will be able to upgrade to a larger space in the mall, as our current store is now often literally packed with visitors.

The store opened October 8th and has operated Friday-Sunday every weekend, closing only for Christmas Day. Despite only being open weekends (about 20 hours each week), our store saw 222 adoptions in the 12 weeks since opening, with 31 adoptions in the 2-day Christmas weekend alone! With a larger store to provide a more comfortable environment for the animals, volunteers and shoppers, the adoptions can almost certainly be increased even beyond this!

The reTails store in the Washington Square Mall has embraced creative, common-sense approaches, and has placed many animals that are traditionally considered "unadoptable" -- geriatric dogs and cats, pets with medical conditions and quirky behaviors. Not all pets are suitable for the store environment, and we continue to do adoptions through Petfinder as well, but for the majority of pets, the store works fine!

Despite our modest success, another 10,000+ cats and dogs are expected to die in Indianapolis shelters this year. reTails has far to go before we can achieve our goal of ending the killing of the 90%+ of those animals that are healthy, or can be readily treated. We won't be content with our success until we save these animals and fulfill our mission!

But in this season of celebration, we are so thankful for the support from our amazing volunteers and donors, Tommy Holmes and all the Washington Square Mall team, and all the folks who have enriched their lives with a newly-adopted rescued pet in 2010.

reTails has opened Indianapolis' first mall pet adoption center in Washington Square Mall and the results are fantastic and getting better! While we're still putting on some finishing touches, the store is quite functional and already doing great adoptions as well as educating and answering pet questions -- just what reTails was created to do!

The store is operated completely by volunteers, so the hours are limited to weekends, but the mall patrons love it and we are confirming daily that the public genuinely is excited to help make a difference in saving these animals and that there really are an ample number of great homes available for pets!

The first weekend saw 11 adoptions, and with the growing interest level and public awareness, we expect this number to easily grow.

We have volunteer opportunities for adults and teens 14 or older! If you're interested in volunteering, please contact us!

Store Facts:

Hours:

Friday  6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday  Noon to 5 p.m.

Location:

South end of the mall, near Target

Adoption Price:

Puppies -- $75 (6 mos. or less)
Dogs --     $60
Kittens --   $60 (6 mos. or less)
Cats --      $30

Adoption Includes:

• Spay or Neuter
• Current vaccination
• Heartworm (dogs) or FIV/FeLV (cats) testing

Specials:

Seniors for Seniors

Cats and dogs over 6 years of age are eligible for adoption by seniors (65 and over) with a waived adoption fee!

Check for in-store specials!

Wish List:

• Foster parents for dogs and cats!
• Paper towels
• Clay (non-clumping) litter
• Dog and cat treats
• Dog and cat beds
• Dog and cat toys
• Dog and cat food
• Copy paper

Feel free to drop off donations at the store during our normal store hours (above).

Please share our printable flyer with your friends and co-workers!

It was often times a very hectic scene at today's adoption event at Clay Terrace. Many times it was standing room only in the quirky "retired" mobile phone store. The on-site adoption count is 14 as of this evening (7 dogs, 7 cats), but as is often the case, there is interest in many animals that will yield adoptions a few days down the road. I've uploaded a few photos from the event to our Picasa photo album. Just click the image to the right, or here (http://picasaweb.google.com/108762789948914287361/20100821ClayTerrace) to see more. If you have any images you'd like to have included, please send them to me!

As always, many thanks to our awesome volunteers and our amazing and devoted rescue partners. It's nothing short of a miracle that all comes together in such a short time with such great results! Of course, we are very grateful to Cathy Fisher and Simon Property Group for allowing us the use of a great space, and the support of their on-site staff!!

Yesterday was the Rescues & Runways event. It was a combination of fundraiser, adoption event, fashion show and party. It was held at Hamilton Town Center in Noblesville, and what a great day and a great location for this event! The event was organized by Leeca Smith of Maurices in conjunction with Simon Property Group. A silent auction was also held to benefit reTails and Humane Society for Hamilton County.

We had several adoptions during the event, and quite a number of applications that were taken for adoptions, so within a few days we should have a tally of the total number of adoptions. But aside from the adoptions, it was a fun time for lots of visitors and volunteers!  Our friend the reTails Big Red Dog was enchanting the crowd as well and had quite a following, both young and old!

I've uploaded a few photos I snapped to a gallery on our Picasa account which you can see here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/108762789948914287361/August72010RescueRunwaysAtHamiltonTownCenter#

If anyone else took pictures and would like to share them on our album, please send them to me, or let me know!

A huge thanks to Leeca for the huge amount of time, energy and passion for making this event happen, to Tiffany and Vince from Simon Property Group for providing the great venue, the stage and staff to make it all run so smoothly, to Terri Stacey from WIBC for being the emcee, to Papi's Papparazzi Productions for the great tunes and sound system, to Pet Supplies "Plus", Three Dog Bakery and the merchants of Hamilton Town Center for their generous support!

Of course, my deepest gratitude for all the reTails volunteers and rescue partners -- none of this would be possible without you!!

UPDATE: A total of 11 pets went to new homes thanks to this adoption event!!