How strict is your animal shelter when it comes to interviewing and adopting out pets to new homes? Are a lot of people turned away?
The shelter I volunteer at is extremely strict, and it's been frustrating me quite a bit lately. We want the best for our dogs and cats, and that's very understandable, but I'm wondering if we're doing more harm than good by being too strict. I would estimate that 95% of the people who come in with the intention of adopting a dog end up leaving without one, and the vast majority of those people end up going to breeders, pet stores or newspapers to find a dog.
As an example, the policy that frustrates me the most at our shelter is that any dog that comes in as a stray is not allowed to be adopted out to a family with kids under 8 years old. The only dogs we will adopt out to families with children are dogs that we know lived with kids in their previous home. Oh and if they're a young couple who we think might want to have kids in the future, they're treated the same way. The other frustrating policy to me is is that nearly every dog we have requires a fenced in yard, even the dogs that can jump fences. We come out to your property and do a fence check. Finally everyone that applies for a dog is put through a pretty strict interview process, a three page application and an interview with two staff members, and there are a lot of things that will end up getting them turned down.
The only exception to these policies are dogs in foster homes, because the foster guardians are able to decide their own requirements for their dogs.
So, I know a lot of you have experience with shelter in your area and I'm curious how other shelters out there compare in their leniency to adopt to people.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but the thing that got me talking about was the "No More Homeless Pets" email listserve which happens to be discussing this topic this week. Read it at: http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs...l.aspx?bp=2520
The shelter I volunteer at is extremely strict, and it's been frustrating me quite a bit lately. We want the best for our dogs and cats, and that's very understandable, but I'm wondering if we're doing more harm than good by being too strict. I would estimate that 95% of the people who come in with the intention of adopting a dog end up leaving without one, and the vast majority of those people end up going to breeders, pet stores or newspapers to find a dog.
As an example, the policy that frustrates me the most at our shelter is that any dog that comes in as a stray is not allowed to be adopted out to a family with kids under 8 years old. The only dogs we will adopt out to families with children are dogs that we know lived with kids in their previous home. Oh and if they're a young couple who we think might want to have kids in the future, they're treated the same way. The other frustrating policy to me is is that nearly every dog we have requires a fenced in yard, even the dogs that can jump fences. We come out to your property and do a fence check. Finally everyone that applies for a dog is put through a pretty strict interview process, a three page application and an interview with two staff members, and there are a lot of things that will end up getting them turned down.
The only exception to these policies are dogs in foster homes, because the foster guardians are able to decide their own requirements for their dogs.
So, I know a lot of you have experience with shelter in your area and I'm curious how other shelters out there compare in their leniency to adopt to people.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but the thing that got me talking about was the "No More Homeless Pets" email listserve which happens to be discussing this topic this week. Read it at: http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs...l.aspx?bp=2520