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

Totally agree with you, OP. It's such a disservice to dogs who would otherwise be in a better situation than they currently are.

How many dogs do we import a year?
Are there any charities in Romania and Greece doing neutering?

That sounds like they need to employ someone specifically to match animals to homes.

Others I find charging £150 per animal to be too much. Yes I can afford the animal and its monthly insurance and food, but I can't then afford £150 on top of that, but I won't buy.

I'm seeking a kitten.

I was turned down because I have a career even though I fully work from home and set my own hours (I'm a professional novelist) on the grounds that I have to have a meeting with my publisher maybe once a year.

Madness.

*needed a home!

I think the rehoming centres get too attached to the dogs/cats and only want them to go to absolutely perfect homes otherwise - in their minds - the animals are “better” staying with the rescue centre. How that’s better for the animals escapes me, it’s a bit of “saviour” complex I suspect.

A sibling wanted to rehome a dog and, despite having years of experience of the particular breed, a huge secure garden, access to huge areas for off-road exercise, they were turned down for having children, even though the children had grown up with dogs of the same breed, would never be left alone with them and so on. They ended up getting a dog from an overseas rehoming group who - rightly - insisted on stringent checks but recognised this as a good home for a dog that needed a me.

Other people I know have ended up buying from breeders out of desperation, because the rehomers won’t touch them for spurious reasons (like living near a road), or else just don’t bother responding to expressions of interest.

As I say, these groups seem to like to be seen to be doing “saving” without actually doing much good.

We had a similar experience. Not allowed to rescue because we had a cat and at that time our youngest soon was 11, too young apparently.

Ended up rehoming a dog from Cyprus, had her 6 years and she's brilliant.

@GreekDogRescue I have no problem with older people rehoming dogs at all. My parents had took on several dogs in their late 60’s early 70’s but I do question the suitability of the breed and age of the dog for someone whose mobility is severely limited. He is 78 and the pup is only 8 months old, I worry that the dog will need to be rehomed again at some point in the future.

I think a lot of the time a snap judgment is made almost the moment you get in contact, and then reasons are found to support that judgment (e.g too young, too old, daffodils in garden, home too nice etc). The animal rescue world does contain a lot of people who have the attitude that nobody else could possibly care for an animal like they could and believe that they have the ability to instantly intuit who is worthy of a pet or not.

If a no kill shelter is refusing it it sounds like putting it down is the best option.

I am having the same issue but when looking to foster or adopt cats. It's very frustrating that you know you could give a lovely cat or dog a great home if only the rescues let you. 😑

Similar experience here. We desperately wanted to rehome a dog, but we had a cat and chickens. Oh and a DS who was 9, very sensible and had been brought up around numerous pets. Fully fenced garden and several lovely walking places within a 10 minute drive as well as a lake and woods across the road. Think there would have been about 2 hours a day when the dog would have been alone.

Could we get one? No we bloody couldn’t, ended up buying a puppy who is now nearly 13 and snoring beside me on the sofa. He’s had a great life but no, the rescue centres would rather have a dog in kennels indefinitely than rehome to anyone less than 100% perfect.

Yet a friend’s parent has just rehomed a German shepherd puppy from the RSPCA - the man is late seventies, riddled with arthritis and uses a mobility scooter!

Rescues near me are mental. If you work you don't have time, if you don't work you can't afford, if you don't have a huge garden you don't have space, the home inspection person told us our home was too nice and we wouldn't cope with distruction well, our garden contains plants that are poisonous (daffodils) we gave up in the end and bought a puppy from a breeder and a year later added a second who are never left alone despite me having a full time job, eats better than I do, has two 3 mile walks a day, have never destroyed anything in the house, and doesn't eat the daffodils lays in them from time to time but doesn't eat them

Yes we applied for about 12 different dogs over the course of a year from 4 different charities and never heard a thing from any of them. No children in the household, both work from home, secure garden, home backs on to open fields.

A 5th charity said that we couldn’t adopt from them because we’d never owned a dog as adults and said it didn’t matter that I’d grown up in a household with dogs and routinely cared for my parents difficult rescue dog.

Ended up buying a puppy in the end, I’ll try again when we’re ready for a 2nd.

We ended up buying a dog because we could not adopt. I'm home all day, DH works but home at 5.00, four DC in and out. All into keeping fit and walking. Older dog, Labrador who just likes snoozing in the sun and going for short walks twice a day. No young children. Acre and a half of closed garden. Reason we were turned down........two cats adopted us four years ago, they never come into the house, they are outdoor slightly feral. We fed them. We did catch them and get them neutered. They come and go as they please. We don't own them....BUT we have cats

This is so true!

We’ve rehomed rescue dogs from a rescue in Nottinghamshire and then adopted directly from a rescue in Spain. Both centres were brilliant.

And cats!

This is absolute craziness! I feel so bad for all the dogs needlessly stuck in rescue centres.
It makes me wonder if some of the rescue staff really want what's best for the dogs, or if at the end of the day it's all down to funding and being able to spin a good sob story.
I see no reason why so many people are turned down.

There’s a dachshund rescue I support who rescue dogs from kill shelters in South Korea. They’re on FB.

My daughter has just adopted a beautiful boy from them. She got him today.

personally I have given up with dog rescues here after not hearing anything when I’ve applied to adopt.

I was turned down for a cat because we didn't want an outdoor cat as we live on a road with buses (although not a huge main road). We thought there might be a previously indoor cat that would be ok with us, especially as we have an outdoor fenced area for a cat (catio!) And surely it was better for a quieter cat to be indoors than in a pen without proper human company? Nope, we were told it was totally unacceptable, there were no cats that would benefit from this except very old ones (which I only didn't want as we'd had a recent terrible bereavement and I didn't want to nurse a very old ill cat which was the only one offered, I love that people take these but that didn't suit us). In the end, I went to a breeder and by coincidence they needed to rehome a cat that wasn't suitable for showing (due to personality) and so we got our fantastic cat.

It was all quite horrid and we felt somehow like we'd done something wrong on our visits round rescues by even asking, they weren't friendly, or open, or really explained things, just saw us as some type of defective potential owners that should be kept away from their cats, despite the fact many were in cages.

YANBU, I've been saying this for years that some are ridiculously restrictive.

I can think of at least 2 people who have always had rescues, who ended up buying puppies after months and months of trying.