To think animal shelter charities push potential pet adopters towards breeders with their absurdly stringent adoption criteria?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

OK so I’m probably being grumpy about this because I have had bad experiences and maybe unfair.

But I have just been turned down for a third time in five years trying the adopt a cat, apparently (as far as I can tell) because I have a job and live in a city.

I’m a middle aged woman living in a quiet street on the outskirts of SE London with my own home and a teenager and partner. I have sufficient income to support a cat. I have a large back garden. I am an animal lover who has had cats before.

The last two charities I have applied to had ridiculously detailed diligence procedures including several home visits and a dodgy quasi isometric test. Another agency which imports stray cats from overseas required me to send videos of the traffic on every street within a half mile radius and character references.

After weeks of consideration I was told in each case that I couldn’t adopt due to traffic risk.

I get that the volunteers at these places become very attached to their animals and of course it’s only right that people are vetted before taking an animal, especially one that has been mistreated. But the rigmarole in the application process is ludicrously over the top and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they basically don’t want you to adopt a cat unless you live in a huge rural stately home and don’t have a job. As soon as they hear the word “London“ or any indication that you work outside the home they basically rule you out in my experience.

I’ve now gone down the route of getting a cat via Gumtree but it makes me sad and it seems so self defeating; these charities are putting well meaning and committed animal lovers off applying and making it far easier for unscrupulous people to breed and sell animals.

Can anyone who works for one of these charities try to explain why it’s so difficult?

This thread is primarily about cats, (rtft)

This shows inexperience and lack of knowledge from you.
Patronising and totally incorrect putdown. No need for you to be rude, I've made every effort to engage politely on this thread.

I don’t agree if those other options should be homing with someone without experience and to a home that doesn’t meet their needs entirely.

We have a couple of long term residents af the rescue I work at. They have both been returned at least twice, they will not be homed to anyone take who doesn’t match their very specific requirements. We have 24/7 staff and these dogs have 3 staff members that are like their family. They have different ‘rights’ inside the rescue than other animals have as the rescue is potentially their forever home. They are happy and it will take some very specific people to be their owners.

It also doesn't help when shelters are trying to re-home dogs that just aren't suitable for anyone instead of putting them to sleep.

You even get ones that don't like traffic, dogs, children, visitors or being left alone. The likelihood of finding a recluce without pets who lives in the countryside that never sees anybody or goes out is highly unlikely to non existent.

How do I say it more politely? It does show inexperience and lack of knowledge.

You mentioned kennels so I assumed dog’s. We don’t call them kennels for cats at any rescue I’ve worked at.

It depends. I do agree that some dogs should be pts if they can’t engage with humans after a period of time. However, our long term dogs are more like office dogs. They have their person on shift, they get more freedom, they even go home with their person/people a lot of the time. The rescue will always be trying to rehome but know it’s unlikely.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kennel

We disagree. That doesn't make me inexperienced or having a lack of knowledge.

Another issue, and this only applies to the big rescues, is the lack of help with vet care. I mentioned up thread that Battersea did offer me one cat but it had a life shortening illness and would need regular vet visits and medication for the rest of his life. I asked about help and was told no, I would be responsible. I would have most likely adopted him but there's no way I can afford to take on a cat that I know is uninsurable and already needing medication. Battersea have their own vet and millions in donations each year so why can't they offer either discounted fees or free care for the cat?

Saying that a less than perfect home should be tried for a dog that has been there for 6 months does show a lack of knowledge. The likelihood for a dog with issues, which it will have if it’s been in for 6 months, being returned, is quite high anyway even with a perfect home. When it’s less than perfect, the chances of the adoption working are very slim.

To keep costs down presumably. Their vet costs will be through the roof. If they offer this service, they may have to employ more vets. Some rescues do pay for vet bills.

We have adopted 3 uninsurable cats over the years so there are people that can and do.

I didn't say 'dog'. I said 'animal'.

And you've said that you have two dogs returned at least twice so your policies clearly don't work very well anyway.

Perhaps your charity should consider getting some more experienced and knowledgeable staff?

They have changed their policy because it wasn’t working, which proves my point. Rescues need to be strict.

I think some posters on this thread show why it's so difficult to adopt an animal.

Cat, dog, animal, makes no difference if it has specific requirements.

Yes. I was refused a cat by cats Protection due to the fact I didn't have a cat flap. This is despite working from home and being at home most of the time so I would be happy to let the cat in and out etc.

Now I have a very happy cat via a recently deceased relative.

More show that they have zero knowledge/care of rescues and the consequences for the animal and rescue if they aren’t strict. You may know that you are committed even if you don’t fully meet criteria, but the rescues don’t and you want them to take a chance on you and increase the risk to the animal.

I do understand people being frustrated and sad if they can’t adopt. If a rescue had time to get to know individuals it might be different. They don’t have that luxury unfortunately.

You may know that you are committed even if you don’t fully meet criteria, but the rescues don’t and you want them to take a chance on you and increase the risk to the animal.

If the criteria I don't meet actually made any sense I would understand.

You may know that you are committed even if you don’t fully meet criteria, but the rescues don’t and you want them to take a chance on you and increase the risk to the animal.

There's a few things which trouble me about this view:

Firstly, this would be understandable if the criteria weren't so utterly contradictory from one shelter to another. For example the indoor vs outdoor cat thing. Some shelters will insist that you can only accept a cat if it is confined to the house, others will demand that it is allowed out. It's patently obvious that they don't all observe the same standards or rules and you only have to try a couple of shelters to work this out. It's pretty much dictated by the whims of whoever is running the shelter, not a forensic or clearly thought through process.

Secondly, its very hard to understand the logic that a cat will always automatically be better kept in confinement for the rest of its natural life than spending its life in a home setting, even though there is a theoretical risk of harm in the home. The rescue logic seems to be that if there's even a tiny risk of neglect/abuse/non optimal life, they can't do it. When in reality a proper risk/reward assessment would take a proper assessment of the variables.

I completely understand that it's a difficult decision. But you can't completely eliminate the risk of harm to an animal. It just seems the bar is so high as to be completely unworkable.

Our cats regularly disappear for hours ar a time - sometimes they're gone more 12-18 hours. I'd be we'll pissed off if I had to make sure I wasn't out for more than 4 hours in case they needed company.
Honestly, they treat the place like a hotel 😂

I did all the right things - I was cat less for 5 years because I was waiting until the DC were senior school age. I was willing to fit a cat flap (even though the cats we've had in the past were all happy without one). We don't live on a busy road. Apart from the one shelter that wanted no children of any age we weren't rejected by any of the half dozen places we contacted (from large national well known to small local) but in 6 months of trying we weren't offer a pair of kittens by anyone. Despite the frantic Facebook posts about how over run with kittens they were.
I felt we were being played - we obviously weren't unsuitable as we were offered cats but only adult ones. It felt like all the begging for people to take kittens was a front to off load older cats. We had been through the stress of elderly, ill cats and of loss we wanted time with young healthy cats before we faced that again. We wanted the DC to have the experience of the full life cycle as they weren't born when the previous cats were kittens.
The one of our new pair that came from a 'small ad' wasn't kitten farmed - we saw him with his mum and siblings, several times.

It just seems the bar is so high as to be completely unworkable.

Its not unworkable if the animals are being placed in homes, and people on the thread who work in rescues have said that is happening. They have stated that they aren’t short on suitable people to adopt, its more of an issue of going through the applications with limited staff takes time from what has been said.

Posters saying that they have been unsuccessful in adopting seem to think this means animals are not being adopted, but that doesn’t seem to be what the rescue workers on here are saying. The animals are being adopted. One of the pp said that the advertising was to make sure they always had applicants which makes sense.

Costs can run into many thousands with an uninsurable animal
Only a wealthy person would willingly take on an animal with lifetime medical needs from outset.
Some rescues do pay for pre existing illnesses

We had a dog who had kennel cough which developed into pneumonia- They treated her for free with tetracycline and also for tapeworm she had as a found puppy ( Traveller’s site )
They didn’t routinely treat for tapeworm back then in young pups.

“ Unless symptoms were seen” 🤢

Thankfully after tape and pneumonia treatments were completed she was fine.

Honestly? Would it not be kinder to put a dog / cat in this situation to sleep, rather than keep it in the rescue? Dogs don’t live all that long. Six months in a rescue is a huge chunk of their lives.