When, where and why did the the phrase “forever home” cross over from bricks and mortar to be used in the context of finding new homes for rescued animals? Which marketing guru conjured up this gem of an extremely successful marketing and fund-raising tool. Surely though its use has run its course and the word overkill comes to mind. To make matters worse the term has recently begun to evolve or mutate into further cringe worthy words such as “furever” and “pawever” to name just two. Not only that, but I recently noticed that Battersea Dogs Home has now transformed its use into promoting their caring scheme for cats whose owners have died – under the banner “Forever loved“.
I spent some ten years as a manager of animal rescue centres until the mid 90’s but have no memory of its usage and then suddenly it became part of our daily vocabulary and in all animal charity fund-raising literature. Now it has spread all over the world. I was recently in Australia, the USA and in Portugal and yes they use it there. Every interview with a member of staff at an animal rescue home is interspersed with it and I await with bated breath for someone to utter it.
Whenever I watch an animal rescue TV documentary and see the sight of a dog that has spent months in kennels finally walking side by side with its new owners out of the entrance to the suitable accompaniment of background music, I am moved like most other people. That is until I hear that dratted phrase again.
Disingenuous term
Realistically it is a disingenuous term as I know very well that you can never guarantee that the person taking the animal will keep it for the rest of its lifespan and staff often have their fingers crossed as the new owners disappear into their car. I know I often had my fingers crossed behind my back. Its a sad fact that too many owners are looking for the perfect match and often return them.
Too many fickle owners for homes to be forever.
There are too many fickle owners these days which is why we have so many unwanted animals languishing forlornly in rescues in the first place. I realise that “forever homes” is a wonderful fund-raising term and a very successful one but enough already. With everyone now using the term it has kind of lost its impact so is there any chance we could please move onto some other phrase or perhaps return to the good old days where we blandly referred to it as just finding new home or a suitable home, loving home or even just a nice home.
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Related articles:
- Downfall of the Alternate Animal Sanctuary
- Can we please dispense with the term “Forever Home”.
- Top animal charities spend £500 million a year saving unwanted animals.
- Top 5 fund-raising tactics of animal charities.
- Veterinary charities promote irresponsible pet ownership.
