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?

I've found Celia Hammond to be the very most difficult of the rehoming charities I've contacted over the years.

This happened to me when we lived in a quiet residential area but both had full time jobs. We were turned down by lots of shelters because we wouldn’t be at home all day?!

But this is nuts - just ascribing human behaviour to animals. All cats I ever had or known really dgaf if someone spends extended time with them, they are not pack animals. As long as the food is there.

Totally agree OP

A friend adopted a couple of podencos and a cat from “Dog & Cat Rescue - Almeria to UK” (it’s their Facebook page). They get a lot of animals which have been treated cruelly (the podencos were dumped after hunting season ended).

This is very cynical of me but I think a lot of smaller “rescues” actually really run as a charity to allow the owners to afford to keep several cats. There are some near me with a ridiculous list of criteria.

There are also many legitimate rescues who are realistic and keen to rehome to cats in their care.

Agree OP.

I'm sure it happens but welcome animal charities being strict.

I absolutely agree with you. We lived on the New Forest but were refused by the RSPCA because their home checker driving around in a 4 x4 with three overweight Labradors in the back decided our garden was too small.
Went to Dogs Trust instead.
p.s overweight is relevant because they looked like they could do with a run over the forest.

I can't, of course, speak for all overseas adoption charities (have no idea about this one), but I've seen how this business works from the "other side", i.e. the overseas side, in one particular case. I don't doubt that the British side is genuine, btw, but the other side is... let's say, I just wish that some brave journalist did an undercover reporting of where those dogs actually came from.

Newsflash: if you adopted a young purebred dog from the "street" in a third world country, it was likely either stolen, or a leftover from a breeder there.

When you are looking for an animal yourself you can’t see outside of how much you want one but it’s only after you get one you see their sense. Two of our cats were knocked down and killed. I have known of people who have brought dogs or cats back because the dog/cat attacked them/their kids. People laugh about charities asking how high their walls are etc but we’ve all seen dogs wandering in traffic, heard of dogs killing sheep etc. And sorry but it is unfair in some cases animals living in apartments without a garden, or dogs being left for too long while the owner is at work with no other animal. The charity people know at some stage they could have that cat or dog brought right back to them but now with extra issues because it didn’t work out.

I used a small local rescue
My first boy came from cats protection, i rang his old fosterer to tell her he had passed
She said she had set up her own rescue and weirdly she had been thinking about him that day as she had another cuddly, daft black male cat come in but of course it was way too soon...
I adopted him
Basically after having my first boy it turns out she had said to the rehoming woman "give her any cat she wants because they will be living in luxury"

Yes totally agree. It took us 3 years and 4 different cat rescues before we could adopt our rescue moggies.

Some of the reasons were ridiculous. One organisation turned us down because my DH hadn't ever had a pet in his life (I'd grown up with cats,dogs and hamsters)

How would you ever get your first pet with that sort of rule?

Ugh.

Our cats now live a life of luxury: private health care, private door, 4 staff at their beck and call etc

There’s being strict and being over the top which many of the charities are. What’s better, being stuck in a pen or in a home that may not have a spare room but can provide love?

We are registered to foster/ adopt a dog and have got a match.
We both work FT and the first thing asked was do you both work in offices or at home. Luckily I wfh but one rescue charity said they do not rehome to working away from the home FT as its not fair on the dog and I do agree tbh. She explained around half of all dogs surrendered are due to FTs saying they have no time for the animal.

@stayathomer, I've been turned down because I won't remove the cat proofing as I want the cat to be safe. According to Battersea (and others) cats need to roam.

I do worry about this for next time we want a cat - thus far I have managed never to have to adopt because fate seems to have sent us a cat (once a family friend moving who couldn't take their cat with, current cat a friend found abandoned as a kitten but couldn't take her herself). So I worry a bit a shelter will decide we're too near a main road - despite the fact neither cat we've lived with has gone anywhere near it, probably because it's too noisy and too many people.

PinkSparklyPussyCat
There are cases of you can’t win sometimes! We have one indoor, one outdoor, if we forced either into the other situation we literally would not escape with our lives😂

We adopted from Battersea and had two meetings and sent pictures of our garden but that was it. We both worked out of the home at the time and I don't recall that even coming up. Very odd

I’ve now been turned down for three rescue dogs in the last couple of months. No reason given but I can only assume it’s because I live in a flat without a private garden. But I lived here quite happily with my spaniel for several years with no issues.

I work from home permanently, live alone so no children to take into account and have miles of lovely walks across the road. My flat is also in a block of just two with our own private entrance, the communal garden is literally 10 steps away.

I do find a bit irritating when I get the ‘thanks but no thanks’ email followed almost immediately by one asking for donations.

Some rescues are very strict and do a disservice to their brand. They then wonder why they are over run and “no one wants to adopt anymore”

They need to be flexible and take applications one by one instead of discounting immediately

Friends were turned down by Celia Hammond – one of them was almost always working from home during the day and they have a rear garden, but were turned down because they didn't want to put a catflap in their conservatory door.

Obviously it's up to Celia Hammond what their policies are and it didn't drive my friends to a breeder (they just didn't bother getting a pet at all). But it did make me wonder who they deemed to be acceptable!

@Offcom Yes, Celia Hammond said the same to us as well about a cat flap. I work from home and my husband is retired. In the summer, the doors to the garden are often open anyway but we weren't prepared to put a cat flap in our conservatory doors either because it was totally unnecessary.

I do agree that rescues have got to be careful about who they allow to adopt their animals but some of them go much too far.

Maybe I have just been particularly unlucky then and I’m sure they are not all as absurdly stringent.

But it does seem that they apply very irrational and sometimes contradictory criteria. For example the first charity I applied to told me that keeping cats indoors all the time was cruel, the second said I would have to commit to having a cat on an indoor only basis which I said wouldn’t work for me and that was the end of that. They all seem to take as read that animals shouldn’t ever be homed in cities which is ridiculous as there are literally millions of cats living happily in London. It’s all so ridiculously precious.

As a PP said it feels like quite a lot of the motivation is not to rehome the animals but to raise more money for that charity.

I’m not putting myself through it again because life is too short so I will be going via breeders, regrettably. I do understand the need for thorough due diligence but if they carry on like this a lot of people will quite reasonably just stop bothering trying to adopt.

Looking at the websites is just depressing, yes I already have a cat but we have enough space that a second cat could cope, it seems to be lots of blanket bans. We've lost three cats to the road over the last sixteen years. But frankly that's been their choice to roam in that direction! We back onto half a square mile of park and gardens. But I worry about not being allowed another should our current puss die. He has zero interest in the road!