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?

Totally agree op. We did the same after we were refused due to having children. So we went on Gumtree, and have had a very happy cat as part of our family for 8 years. The charities are equally useless at catching / neutering strays; we have one that's terrorising the neighbourhood but Cats Protection insisted we buy the cage to catch, we find a vet that will neuter him, we proof that he is a stray by providing photographic evidence etc. I refuse to support these charities now; never give them any money or donations for their shops.

I haven’t called anyone an idiot. I’ve been perfect pleasant and tried to explain the issues from the side of rescues.

As I’ve explained, some less than ideal time at a rescue is worth it to find a good forever home.

You seem quite aggressive and think you know better than people who work with animals all day every day, maybe that was something rescues picked up on.

Have a nice day.

@GraveyardWhistling People are not 'idiots' for not wanting to jump through hoops for proving their suitability to own an animal beyond the basics. At the same time, it's understandable that rescues have resource constraints.

Neither party is 'responsible' for anything, are they? Rescues are charities. They're not legally obliged to meet any service standards towards future adopters. Or to hand over pets. They can have any criteria they want.

At the same time, owners aren't legally obliged to adopt. It would be better, yes, and they shouldn't buy from illegal breeders. But if someone wants a pet, and is responsible but being denied one. What do you expect them to do? Just not own?

Especially as the experience is so inconsistent even between different locations of the same charity. Like PP I've voted with my wallet and stopped donating to these big charities, when they rang me up I told them exactly why. I support independent rescues with common sense instead, including where we got our lovely girl from.

If someone was out all day the charity I worked for would suggest adopting two cats/kittens so they could keep each other company. That was win-win - the person was happy with their kittens, and the shelter freed up space for two new ones.

There is more home-working now, but 20 years ago (when I was working with them) you would have been fishing in a very small pool if you didn't allow adoptions into homes where people were out working.

I think that is ridiculous. People who don’t work or who work part time surely aren’t sitting at home all day! I spend more time with my cat than many people I know - some of whom are part time, full time. Stay at home parents etc

I think it such a shame for animal welfare that zealots allow cats to stay in shelters rather than go to living homes because of this kind of silliness.

these are animals not children! Yes we need to keep them safe, warm, well fed and happy. But people who work full time can be perfectly good cat owners!

Yes, the charities do have a responsibility to the animals.

If you’re an animal lover, you certainly wouldn’t buy from most breeders. Yes, just don’t own one, put the animals first.

We’ve just adopted a kitten from Blue Cross. I was expecting a battle due to the reasons discuss and as we have a reception aged child. They didnt ask anything about our location unless they searched us from the postcode? They did ask to see a photo of the kittens “set up” ie. Bed and litter tray etc They didn’t even question us if we could afford to maintain a cat, we can, but just assumed in current climate it’s a questions they ask

I agree 100%. That is all. No wonder they are always full.

With all due respect, you sound ridiculous and if you work for a larger rescue, justifies my decision to not donate anymore!
People who have owned happy animals for years, as their vets, family etc can attest to, are being denied pets to adopt. Similarly, many who bought and now have happy, healthy animals, proving their ability as owners, were also denied.

You have too much faith in the competence of rescues. I wasn't talking about their responsibilities to animals (which, by the way, I doubt they're fulfilling by keeping them in cramped conditions and denying a loving home). I was talking about their responsibilities to owners, independent oversight of the criteria by which they use to determine suitable ownership.

It's the right of a responsible owner to want a pet. And to buy from a responsible breeder. It's fair of you to say that people should not buy from illegal breeders. However, this is a different argument to saying that they should ONLY adopt. And if not, just 'not' have a pet. In short, you are saying that responsible people should only mop up others' mistakes.

'Most' breeders being bad according to you means there are still reputable ones. And people can buy from these., As to the others well what else do we fund law enforcement for?

the volunteers who work for these charities are often animal hoarders who have no intention of re homing the cats.

half the charities never even got back to me. My worst experience was with Celia Hammond. The re homer told me that she had 19 cats at home and was planning to get more.

she had no intention of re homing any cats…

i eventually adopted from RSPCA. But it took about three trees of trying.g

I noticed a local animal shelter had so many notices that that said particular dogs couldn't live with other dogs, even an 11 month old puppy. I would have thought that experienced owners could give it a try. So many restrictions does seem short sighted.

I have heard many other stories like this that rescuer shouldn't be working with animals! She should be banned.
But certain PP won't believe any of this.

i work for a cat charity small indie on in Yorkshire, i used to be at the centre and did show rounds to potential adopters, we always asked people lifestyle ages of children etc, what they were looking for wether adult kitten male or female and then would only show cats to them that we knew were suitable not all of the cats at the centre,

two examples of why criteria has to be met we adopted a lovely cat to a young couple who lived in an apartment after they adopted him they found out the lease conditions on their block was a total ban on pets being there so sadly he came back to us a week later

the people saying about children we dont have a blanket ban on children we spend extra time seeing how the children react to the cat or kitten, we had a lovely lady come to the centre found a cat that was possibly suitable and when we got to the pens the child ran into the pen screaming at the top of his voice and frightened the poor cat half to death , he had got over excited at the thought of a cat, his poor mom was so embarrassed i just said maybe wait till hes a bit older

What rubbish! I worked for an animal rescue charity for many years & we were desperate to rehome the dogs & cats. Most other rescues I know (& that's a lot) are the same. Maybe a teeny % are animal hoarders but it's the absolute exception not the rule. For us & others like us it was important to keep the animals in shelters or temporary foster for the shortest amount of time. The push was always to get them to their forever homes ASAP. Yes we did homechecks, but we wanted potential adopters to have the animals unless there were big red flags. I think we had a pragmatic approach & I'm sorry PPs haven't had the same treatment from other rescue organisations.

OP - I hope you & Gumtree cat have many happy years together.

The charities are equally useless at catching / neutering strays;

Not necessarily. The one I support regularly has collaborative efforts where they work together over a period of weeks to trap an entire feral colony and neuter them all - at their expense, they fundraise to cover it. Mine recently worked with half a dozen other charities in my patch to rescue over 70! cats who were living in a hoarder's house - they were not neutered, vaccinated or in any way cared for. The lady who runs my rescue has taken 7; one of them is likely to be long term and will need a farm placement because he is very traumatised and aggressive with people. She will take as long as it takes to get them all the right homes, most are for experienced cat owners only.

One of my current cats has come from a similar trapping effort, only in that case all the cats were rehomed.

Hm, nah. Not always.

We tried to a adopt a dog years ago. We got turned down by a couple of charities - one of which was notably rude - because we had young DC, including pre-schoolers. That the DC were used to dogs and good around them, and that DH and I had both grown up with dogs, were apparently 100% irrelevant. I suppose they might have thought we were lying, but we'd been upfront about having kids, so.... I was at home all day. We had a garden, and easy access to miles of footpaths. But nope, not suitable for any dog ever.

We got a puppy. I wouldn't say she was well-trained, but she was on a par with 80% of the dogs you see out and about. The DC adored her and she was brilliant with them - she had 15 really good years with us, plenty of exercise, lots of love and a fire to laze in front of.

I do think a lot of rescues are inflexible. It's put me off them tbh.

They can, but rescues aren’t privy to people’s comings and goings and people who work part time or don’t work will generally be at home more than those that work full time. It’s not a perfect science. Rescues are usually dealing with huge numbers of applicants per animal in comparison to the resources they have to get through them all. It would be great if they could get to know applicants really well but they don’t have the resources. Volunteering is the best way to improve things.

This also makes no sense unless litter mates. Cats are not pack animals. Yes, they can live together and love each other, but equally they can detest one another and get stressed in a multi cat environment. What if you only want one? Our local rescue wouldn't split kittens, so if they had five, you had to have two or three! Despite many cats living very happy lives alone, and in fact, ngaf who's in or out, as they spend their entire time asleep somewhere unless it's dinner time!

It has become more stringent. My parents were turned down because their garden wasn't fully enclosed.

They live five miles from the nearest village and have zero passing traffic as they're the dead end of the road.

I got them some kittens via a friend, and was pretty glad to in the end because my friend doesn't spay their cats, and doubtless the girls would have ended up having litters of their own if my parents hadn't taken them.

I don’t think young children and dogs mix. I think people should wait till their kids are older. Even the best behaved young children can be unpredictable and parents of young kids often don’t have time to be a good parent and dog owner.

The person who said rescue dont make an effort to trap and neuter stray cats dosent realise how much resources are stretched in smaller rescues our vet bill for the cats we currently care for come to £13000 a year so if we did trap neuter release or even just neuter cats that arent in our care the bill would be double that and animal charities dont get the sort of funding human charities get no money from lottery is usually grants for specific projects not day to day running

we have had hoarder cat situations come in , cats that need hundreds of pounds of vet bills, ferals that have taken months to rehab to homeable cats because we have a no kill policy and if a cat has a chance we will do everything we can to give that cat the best chance it can have

online fundraising is our best way of getting our charity in the public eye

the best way of finding out if a charity is legit is look them up on the charity commision page legit charities have a charity number , there are some good tiny recues that dont have the number but that is because they dont reach the criteria for a registered charity but one lady near me almost breaks her heart with the cats she takes in and pays for out of her own pocket and very local fundraising

I’d agree. We ended up buying a puppy as no rescues would entertain a normal family with children, cats and chickens.

Lots of nice things to recommend us we live rurally with plenty of space. Away from the main road. Someone’s home all the time. Experienced dog owners but no.

The dog we got is fab (nearly four now) but you absolutely need to research your breeder.

The two homed together would be kitten siblings, there was no shortage of those. They would not home two random cats together. And they never refused to split a litter, which I agree is being difficult for the sake of it.

Insisting on homing two together if someone was out all day was a far better solution than just saying no. Charities want to rehome as many animals as possible - or at least they should!

We waited till youngest was five and off to school so there would be time for a puppy/ dog. Rescues were like no under 14s which seems like a long time to wait.

I had to fill out a reasonable form and had a chat with someone on the phone (no home visit) for the shelter we adopted our girls from, they also had some cats that they thought would be better as indoor cats only.

We live near a main road, but have a catio.