Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
www.houltonanimalshelter.com
    I would like to talk to you this week about the animal adoption process and how it works. There seems to be some misunderstanding sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, about why we have you complete a pre-adoption application, why we charge what we charge for animals, etc, so let’s go through this together and see if we can answer all your questions.
    If you come in to adopt an animal, we ask that you complete an application. All shelters do this. The purpose of the application is not to label you a good or bad person, the purpose of the application is to match you with the right pet, or, if you want to look at it from the other direction, make sure we don’t adopt the wrong pet to you.  
    If, for instance, you want to adopt a female puppy and you live in an apartment, we will check to make sure your landlord will allow dogs. It would not be in the best interest of our animal if you were to take it home for a month or two, then your landlord finds out you have it and they make you get rid of it. These animals need to go into homes where they will live comfortably for the rest of their lives; they don’t need to be shuttled from home to home.
    So for those of you who think our pre-adopt form is “stupid,” it may be to you, but to us, it does give us enough information that it will help us place just the right animal with you.
    Do not assume that a rejection is a personal insult – it’s not personal, it’s about the animals, not about you. I was once rejected for an adoption, many years ago I was visiting an out-of-state relative, I stopped by a local animal shelter and fell in love with a dog, filled out an application and they turned me down because I would be removing the dog from the state and they would not be able to follow up to make sure I was taking care of the dog. I wasn’t insulted, I wasn’t mad, and I wasn’t rude to the staff about it, I understood they have rules.  
    Also, if you are denied adoption, don’t assume that screaming at the staff will improve your chances to have an animal placed with you. While having a bad attitude isn’t on the adoption application, assuming you have some kind of legal right to a shelter dog and flinging four letter words at an 18-year-old kennel assistant will move your name to the top of the do-not-adopt list, I can guarantee that. And for those of you who would never in a million years do such a thing, I can tell you that this is the most common source of stress at the Shelter, you would be amazed how often this happens.
    Our goal is to place animals, not to deny adoptions, but our ultimate goal is to place them in the right home with the right family where the animal and the family “fit” together like they were always meant to be. For instance, I would not adopt a puppy to me. I would turn me down. Why? Because I work all day, and even though my dad is home during the day, he is 83 and should not be expected to housebreak a puppy. A puppy needs a lot of attention, a puppy needs training, a puppy chews, and a puppy needs to go to a home with the time and patience to work with it to make it a part of the family.
    Another comment we have heard recently is “no wonder you have so many cats, you charge $60 for them.” Yes, yes we do. For most of these animals we have over $100 invested in them for spay/neuter surgery, wormer, distemper shots and rabies shots. We lose money with every single adoption. We must try to recover some of our costs. We are a non-profit, we don’t have $100 to put into an animal and then just give it away.
    If you go get a kitten from a “free to a good home” ad, and then take that kitten to the vet for all its shots, have it spayed, etc., you will pay a whole lot more than $60. Dogs cost more than cats because it costs more to have dogs spayed and neutered than it costs to have cats spayed and neutered. It’s simple math.  
    We want to encourage you to adopt, we just want you to understand that there is a process, there is a cost, and there are rules. Every rule is meant to protect the animals who depend on us, every rule is to ensure that they are placed in good homes where they will be loved and cared for and where they will “fit in” perfectly.  There is no better pet than a Shelter pet, let us find the perfect shelter pet for you.