At 10:30pm on June 4th I really began to panic. Our whole team of staff and volunteers had been setting up all day for our Mega Adoption Event “Midnight Woofness”. The event was scheduled to kick-off at Midnight on Friday night and go around the clock until Sunday evening. The goal was to adopt 300 animals in under 48 hours.

PetSmart Charities had funded the event and the pressure was high to hit our goal. It occurred to me on Friday night that maybe a midnight kick-off was crazy and who in their right mind would come out to adopt a pet in the middle of the night?!

I walked out in the parking lot to have a look at 11:00pm and to my surprise there were approximately 100 people in line. Victory!!! By Midnight there were several hundred people in line and we knew we had a hit on our hands. At kick-off time adopters flooded into the event and collectively the partner groups performed 100 adoptions in the first 2 hours!

The entire event was such an incredible experience with total adoptions of 388 by Sunday evening! The event was filled with wonderful families that made the right choice in adopting a shelter pet. “Midnight Woofness” is yet another example of how the Oklahoma City community is embracing our mission to end needless euthanasia in our City.

“Midnight Woofness” set a national PetSmart Charities 48-hour adoption event record. People are now excited to adopt a shelter pet and it is up to us as the animal welfare community to continue giving them great venues to do so. Maintaining the momentum that adoption is the better option is our job.

So, you had better look out because we have an even BIGGER adoption event scheduled for October!

Christy Counts
President / Executive Director
Central Oklahoma Humane Society