Canine Health Survey Tips

How can we have a successful survey?

• Keep it short.  If your club has never done a health survey before, don’t overwhelm your membership.  Make your survey easy to respond to – a pre-addressed envelope helps, too.
• Allow for anonymity – you’ll get a better response.  Find a graduate student who needs a project, or trade analysis with another club of similar size.
• Investigate the possibility of having an online survey.
• Talk it up!  Make your membership aware that they will be receiving a survey soon that will help to advance the health of the breed.  If they know it’s coming, they’ll be looking for it and your response rate will be better.  Your club newsletter editor can be very helpful
• Plan for follow-up.  People need reminders.  Plan to send a postcard reminder or even another copy of the survey to those who do not respond 
• Publish your results.  As soon as your survey is compiled, get the results out to the membership.  Your next survey should get an even better response when people see how useful the information can be.