For being fed up that some charities make it it impossible to adopt despite insisting that they are ‘inundated’ with dogs?

All my ( many, over the years) cats have been Battersea or Celia Hammond cats.
I have to say, never had a problem with either, and I live near a fairly busy road, work out of the house 4 days a week and have a very escapable garden.

It seems absolute madness that these shelters are literally forcing people into the arms of unregulated breeders and puppy farms.

I was thinking of getting a rescue whippet, but can see now that it would be an uphill struggle at best!

Me too and all the rehoming rules and sky high adoption costs are to justify the fact that they keep most of the animals! And of course the charitable donations pay for their pets.
of course there should be rules and not all rescues are like this but there are definitely some eccentric animal hoarders out there

I can't actually say what I think about this post as I would get banned from mumsnet. And probably fired from my job.

Shit. I wrote a big reply which I've lost but the summary is that there's been a big shift in thinking about feline welfare, needs and behaviours because of research in the past 10-15 years.

The type of cats you are describing would now be considered semi-feral and not for adoption in family homes as pets. They would go to 'working homes' ie farms, stables etc. because of the expectation of adopters who adopt a cat to be a 'pet' and part of the family.

Cats are not my area though. The cat rescue world is totally it's own corner of the animal welfare space.

We fell in love with a cat... she had been listed for adoption for EIGHT YEARS. We applied and went to see her, the 'charity' was a woman's house, very clean but bursting with animals.

She introduced us to the cat, then dropped a previously unmentioned bombshell that we had to take her kittens too. Her kittens where adult half maine coons but there was only 2 so we agreed. She then said she actually was planning to give the cat we had gone to see to her friend but we should look around the others 🤔.

We did and they had a beautiful 'just rescued' cat that instantly took to us and was all over us. I recognized her skin condition because I had previously had a dog with the exact same one. I seemed to surprise them by knowing the name and treatment regiment. They told us she was 'unadoptable' due to her skin needing 'specialist treatment' (even though they knew I had experience, I'm also an ex-vet assistant).

They then rushed us out because someone else was looking to adopt the original cat and apparently on his way and she would 'let us know' (although it was very clear she was not going to adopt out any of these cats, she was acting like they where all her 'pets').

We tried chasing it for WEEKS but they just kept putting excuse after excuse as to why we couldn't have any of them. We ended up giving up and getting 2 cats that where being re-homed on Gumtree.

FIVE YEARS later they text out of the blue asking if we still wanted the original cat who was now 14 and still unadopted.

We got turned down after enquiring about a rescue pug because she needed an experienced pug owner. We already have a pug. Maybe we don’t have enough pugs 🤷🏻‍♀️

Name them @thebellagio ! That’s so unethical to keep the money but not the dog!

I’ve been told by Eastern European friends that it’s hare to rescue there because there’s more money to be had sending the rescued dogs to the UK!

Im convinced most dog rescues are a scam.

I genuinely think a lot of them are just animal hoarders flying under the “this person needs help” radar by calling themselves a rescue.

@noSecrets

I can sort of understand this dilemma with dogs because there is a safeguarding element to fostering a dog (although I do think this is overdone in a lot of cases).

But a cat?

When I was a child my mum took in strays and we had at various points dozens of cats coming in and out of our house. They were more or less totally independent aside from having a couple of feeds a day. They came and went as they pleased. They were harmless and most of them kept out of our way. Essentially all we had to do was feed them.

I really struggle to see how anyone with an ounce of decency and intelligence can fuck up taking in an adult cat. You provide food, clean water and a litter tray, take it to the vet if needed, leave it alone and treat it with kindness and respect. Get a catflap and maybe worm it a couple of times a year. What more to it is there? Why does it need to be such a huge psychodrama, involving people re-landscaping their gardens and giving up their jobs etc.

There are huge numbers of stray and abandoned/dumped pets in the UAE. Bubbles Pet Rescue on Instagram will rehome overseas.

My issue I have with a local rescue centre is a family member died and in his will he requested that this charity took in his dog, and he left them £40k. They refused to take the dog, saying she was elderly and no one would want her so we would be better “taking her to the vet”

kept the money though. Fuckers.

they claimed no one would want an older dog, especially one unknown with children. But the same charity is notorious for rejecting applicants with children anyway so that was a moot point.

I ended up putting an appeal on social media and had 400+ people contact me saying they would be happy to have her. In the end we rehomed her with a friend of a friend But the dog charity absolutely refused to get involved whatsoever

Oh fuck it. Here it goes. I work for one of the better known rescues in the U.K.

The number of dogs that we are getting are unsuitable for a home with any children is HUGE.

The majority of our dogs are 2/3/4 year old dogs that are essentially pandemic puppies with HUGE behaviour issues. OR they end up with us through the councils stray dog programme and then we have no history so can't in good conscious re home to a family with kids and cats. Oh and many of the stray dogs coming in, have foreign chips, clearly brought in by rescues who then adopt too easily and when it breaks down they don't usually support the family. Not saying this is all rescues who bring in dogs from Romania, Spain or Greece but it's so many that its not a case of 1 bad apple.

On the cats: It's a catch 22, because it's unethical (for the cats!) to cat test a dog but then we can't rehome to someone with cats. What if something happened? How could we live with that? Same applies for children.

It's mad but also sensible when you see the state/behaviour of the dogs when they get to us. Clearly having had no socialisation.

The breed specific rescues are their own mad world. No comment there.

For anyone looking for a respectable and good rescue I highly recommend looking at the Association of Dogs and Cats Home to vet a shelter / rescue.

@Lamelie

Sorry if someone has already suggested this, but is there a specific mastiff charity that could help? A reactive dog of that size is going to need someone experienced.

@Thepeopleversuswork we live in rural Dorset so goodness knows what area is good enough for this particular homechecker, I guess I could have asked for a different one but I didn't think that would leave a great impression with the rescue. There is another home checker but she's equally bonkers she has 3 out of control dogs who you can hear coming as the yapping is unbelievable, she let's them run off lead harassing all the other dogs and owners in the local woods so not exactly a good advert, yet you have to prove to someone like that you can be a responsible owner

This is 'institutional hoarding' which is actually a really big problem with breed specific rescues. Essentially a person ends up 'hoarding' animals. It's usually has pretty bad endings.

@Tara336

I don't like the area they live in

Absolutely bonkers. It's good enough for children, presumably (whose parents can't afford to live anywhere else) but not for a dog or cat.

I couldn't believe this woman at the charity when she said I couldn't foster because I live in London. There must be literally millions of cats and dogs in London. They can't all be abused or neglected.

I do appreciate that people need to take rehoming of animals seriously but a lot of this is just self-important puritanism and judgement. Some of these charities honestly deserve to go bust.

Whats annoys me most is I'm happy to adopt the cats that are really hard to home - older cats, ones with medical conditions, ones that don't look 'cute'. Once I adopted a 13-year-old black cat and happily paid over £5,000 in vet bills before he passed away. And still these places ignored me and I ended up with a fluffball kitten that a thousand people would have happily paid for.

A friend of a friend is a home checker for a few well known rescues, I've come across her a few times whilst walking our dogs. She said one morning she was doing a home check later that day for a local rescue but she was going to fail them! I asked why and she said I can just tell they won't be suitable but wouldn't say why, I said but the charity must do or you'd not be ask to check in the first place or your waisting everyone's time, her reply was what I say goes and I don't like the area they live in. I was absolutely stunned.

When I lost my dog recently I was going to rescue then realised this woman who failed someone she had never met and a home she had never seen would be my homechecker, so I bought a puppy instead.

I see so many posts begging for adoption for cats local to me, I’ve been turned down so
many times. On top of which they beg for donations and fund raisers to help home the cats at the centre.

Ended to buying 2 cats instead. Completely illogical that I wouldn’t be a good fit to adopt but could go and buy as many as my finances allow. It makes me angry.

This is one of my pet hates (pun not intended). People are so absurdly stringent about this and also at the same time so guilt-trippy and preachy. They have to make their minds up: if they want people to adopt pets they have to be more pragmatic.

I have a good old friend who volunteers for a cat charity and is constantly bombarding me with offers for various moggies who need fostering. On two separate occasions I've made contact with this organisation and been turned down, the first on the grounds that I live in London (WTF) "I couldn't in all conscience give an animal way to someone who lives in London," the woman in charge of the fostering decision said on the phone after several interviews, as if I'd said I'd served time in Wormwood Scrubs for murder.

The second time I was turned down on the grounds that I work in an office for two days of the week. And still my friend constantly contacts me with pictures of these lovable cats and says "maybe this is the one?" Well, no, thanks very much, if I haven't met your ridiculous screening criteria twice because I'm a normal person with a job I'm hardly going to put myself through it again.

I'm at home five days out of seven, I'm solvent and have a garden, I live in a quiet street and have one child who is old enough to look after cats. I even went to the bother of having a cat flap put in before the second one as I'd been assured it was a done deal.

I don't know how these charities expect people to live up to these criteria. You basically have to be a retired late middle-aged women (definitely no jobs allowed, God forbid that anyone should have to support themself) who lives in an enormous suburban houses (but not in or anywhere near London) whose kids have grown up and moved out and with exactly the right garden and all this nonsense.

It's hardly surprising that people buy dogs and cats because getting cleared for fostering is harder than applying to Harvard.