I was just filling out an adoption application for a pug...

[YellowRubberDuckie]

And why do people do this? They wanted references, to visit my house and to know questions one might ask if I were applying to adopt their children. It's ridiculous. I want a dog, and I realize they are a huge responsibility. I'm not going to abuse the little thing or anything. I just think it's ridiculous to do this over an animal. I know few people agree with this, but I'm worn out. This thing took me an hour to fill out. What the crap?!
Duckie

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. You have to do that because of the assholes that do abuse animals.

Yeah, it sucks, but I agree with making someone do it.

[LeftyMom]

2. Because they take the responsibility of homing that animal as seriously as they would a child

They love the dog. They probably try not to get too atattched and find that they do anyhow. They want to see the little guy happy. They don't want to see him fall in love with you and your family and then get returned, taken to the pound, tied up in the yard for hours or days at a time or euthanized when you decide he's not the dog for you. You know you'd never do these things, but people do every day and it's the rescue's responsibility to make sure you're not one of them before they place a dog with you.

This is a good sign though. He's a loved and cared for dog.

[Lyric]

3. There are some people who adopt animals

in order to do research on them (Bill Frist anyone?) or sell them to research labs. By making the adoption process purposely inconvenient, you tend to weed out the ones who are looking for fast, easy, cheap animals for nefarious purposes. The more effort someone is willing to put forth to adopt your animal, the more likely it is that they'll be taking good care of it later.

I admit, I require insanely annoying applications and contracts for the few pets I've adopted out too. It's not like I'm forcing people to adopt my animal--if they find the process too irritating, they're welcome to move along. The ones who think my pet is worth going through some aggravation and annoyance are the ones I'd want as potential adopters anyway.

[skygazer]

4. Why is it ridiculous?

Shelters put a lot of money and effort into getting the animals they have ready for adoption. It makes no sense to adopt them out to just anyone only to have them come back in when they're abandoned or abused. Which is exactly what would happen because people so often decide they want a pet with absolutely no thought to what it really means in terms of time and commitment. Then they get disenchanted and give the dog up or leave it somewhere. Happens all the time.

If a person can't take the time and patience to fill out the form to adopt a dog, maybe they don't have the time and patience to keep one.

[LeftyMom]

6. It also helps to decide if the personality of the breed in specific and the dog in general are good

matches for what the person wants. If the person says they have three boys under ten and one of them has ADD, you have to find a playful and patient dog. If the dog will be home alone all day while they're at work you need one that will handle that well, and you need to make sure there is a dog-safe place. If they intend to have the dog outside unsupervised (which some rescues simply won't permit in an adopting household) you need to make sure their fence is sturdy and that the dog you adopt out to them doesn't have houdini tendencies.

Too many people pick a dog just because they like how it looks, and it works out about as well as picking a human housemate on the same basis.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

8. We live on the 11th floor of an apartment building.

We will take the dog on lots of walks around the neighborhood. We don't have a yard. It really seems like we're going to get discriminated against because we don't have a giant place to live and a yard, and that's not fair. And we have to work. We've planned for the dog to be safe during the day. The application is written so that you get the idea that if you work, they won't adopt to you. It's really sad, actually. We'd make great pug parents.
Duckie

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. It's not a shelter...

It's a group of people who do rescues for pugs. And i have to admit I've fallen in love with one of their dogs. It's not that I'm lazy, The questions are just invasive and there's not enough room to answer all the questions properly. You'd think meeting the people and seeing how they interact with the dog, like at the actual animal shelter, would be enough.
And we've had working animals on the farm my entire life. Yes, we babied them and treated them nicely, but they were dogs and they earned their keep. I will baby the pug, love it, and take care of it.
And one more thing, people have to work. Why is that grounds to deny me a pet?
Duckie

[KatyaR]

27. I live in an apartment, and I got Maggie through BT Rescue here in OKC.

I know it seems like a hassle, but they are just looking out for the best interests of the dog. Maggie came from Texas, and she passed through one household and two Rescue workers and a vet before she came to me. These volunteers put a lot of time, effort, and their own bucks behind taking care of these animals, and they just want to make sure that their babies find a good home.

Hang in there and don't be intimidated. Just show them that you will love and care for your pet, and you should be fine.

Good luck!

[Midlodemocrat]

5. They want to make sure that you will take good care of the dog.

I wish more agencies would do this, actually.

Good luck with your new family member!

[Gormy Cuss]

9. You have a choice ,you know.

You can tell them what you've written here, and say thanks but no thanks. The shelter is setting the rules, like it or not. I'd find it too invasive as well and that's one of the reasons that I'll never adopt an animal from such a shelter. Their hearts are in the right place, it just feels over the top when you're the person trying to adopt. If you really want that pug, you'll forget all about these inconveniences in a few months and be happy to have that new family member.

;-)

[LostinVA]

10. Rescued animals have already been abused or terrorized once

I think this is a terrific idea... we had to do this when we adopted a kitty from a local no-kill shelter. This included a criminal background check to see if we had ever been cited for crimes against animals.

[trof]

16. A criminal background check.

Jeez.

[Lisa0825]

18. It's as simple as subscribing to publicdata.com

It takes us all of 5 minutes to run.

[trof]

11. Several years ago we went to the shelter for a kitty.

Pretty simple, right?
Our little girl wanted a kitty and we were OK with it.
Go to the pound and find one we liked.

The woman there had a QUESTIONAIRE for us to fill out.
Did we own our home, or rent?
Evidently, renters are less responsible (or deserving?).
Was I married to the mother of our child?
Hunh?

"I don't think this is any of your business. No...strike that...it IS NOT any of your business."
"We just want to be sure that our animals are going to a stable, responsible home."
"Good luck. You folks are a little overboard. We'll look elsewhere."

My daughter was heartbroken that we didn't come home with the promised kitty that day.
A week or so later a friend called and told us her neighbor had some kittens "Free to a good home".
At least we didn't have to undergo the third degree.

[LeftyMom]

12. The rental question makes sense

If you rent, they want to confirm you're allowed to have an animal in your rental. A lot of animals get snuck in and then aren't socialized and exercised properly or are later abandoned when the landlord gets wind of their presence.

[trof]

15. Sorry. I still think we're over the top on "qualifying".

And you're right, if we had been renters they wanted a copy of our lease.
No. Way.

Having done absolutely NO substantive research, my best guess and gut feeling is that most folks who care enough to even WANT to get a cat or dog will love them and take good care of them.

There will always be a few who fail miserably.
But they can also be otherwise upstanding pillars of the community.
Homeowners with well fenced huge yards who just don't understand pets anyway.

I would submit that unreasonable (IMHO) requests for personal financial information are turning off a lot of potential adopters. It sure did for me.

Our last German Shepherd was 'adopted' when she was 2 from a military family who could not take her to their new station. She died in her sleep at 14 from old age.

[Lisa0825]

17. "most folks who care enough " is not the problem....

It's the people who want to train fighting dogs, want $10 from a research facility, etc that are the problems.

If you can't understand why we want to make sure the people wanting to adopt our charges are safe, then that's your problem. We'll just keep taking good care of them until the next applicant who doesn't mind the bother comes along. :shrug:

[IdaBriggs]

21. ROFLMAO!!! Boy, you really *don't* know the stats -- you look at

yourself, see "responsible pet owner" and imagine "most people" are just like you! Unfortunately, that is pretty naive. "Most people" think only of themselves and what they want, with what the animal needs being in "second place."

One of my dear friends just gave up her THREE elderly cats because her apartment complex (which allowed pets, but required a "pet deposit") caught her. One got taken to a shelter (where it was undoubtedly put down), another was taken to a vet to be euthanized, and the third went to another friend. Whose fault was it -- the innocent animals who had been living with an irresponsible twit, or my friend? While the answer might seem obvious to those with more than half a brain, it was the cats who paid the price.

Don't even get me started on those folks who like to "live together," get pets to "practice having a family," then dump their pets when the relationships go south. Grrr....

:cry:

[buddhamama]

28. good point.

also, a lot of animals are abandoned when someone, for whatever reason, need to move. people find it is more convenient to abandon the animal than to find a suitable place that accepts pets.

[haf216]

23. It's not that renters are less responsible,

it's just there are more rules. My recuse group asks that same question, because we have had many animals returned to us because the adopters had the pets illegally. If the answer that they are renting we can fallow up on that question and make sure that they are aloud to have pets.

I do agree that the marriage question is a little out of bounds, though.

[mike_c]

13. I rescue cats...

...so I'm really cognizant of the number of people who take pets home from shelters or get them from others and later abandon them. Every cat I've helped was an abandoned pet. One of my current cats has a pellet in her abdomen from where someone shot her. I put one down last year who was diabetic and could not be managed, who had obviously been living rough for some time, but who eventually overcame his fear and slept in my house, let me bath him, and craved attention. It drives me nuts to think that ANYONE would accept responsibility for an animal like that, socialize him, and then abandon him or drive him off. But the reality is that many many people do it-- there are millions of abandoned cats alone in this country.

That's why responsible shelters ask those kinds of questions. If they give a pet to someone who just perpetuates the chain of abuse or abandonment, they have failed the animal they tried to save. I could not live with myself if I did that.

[Lisa0825]

14. I volunteer with a no-kill shelter...

Our application is pretty detailed, and we do check references and do home visits. As mentioned already, it is because places that give animals away too freely end up turing them over to bad situations too often. We have taken the pets' lives into our hands by bringing them in, and so their lives are dependant upon the decisions we make on their behalf.

We do not discriminate against renters, but if someone rents, we want proof from the landlord that they have permission. Also, some breeds need more space than an apartment provides.

Here is a clip I wrote for our website, which explains some of the "adopters" we are trying to avoid by being careful:

http://www.whiskerville.org/free.php

Free Isn't Really Free

News papers, website mailing lists, and folks on the side of the road with a big cardboard box... you've surely seen numerous ads that say something like "Free to Good Home." There are many reasons why they are not such a good deal, both for the pets and for the prospective owners.

First, from the pets point of view... Before you decide to give away your pets to any stranger, consider some of the people who are known to answer these ads:

People who train fighting, hunting, and guard dogs
People who sell animals to research laboratories
People with large exotic pets to feed, such as snakes
Unscrupulous breeders
People involved in cults

These innocent creatures' lives are in your hands. As responsible citizens of the planet, it is our duty to take care of nature's most vulnerable. If you choose to take the easy way out by giving away animals for free, you very well could be sentencing that beautiful kitty or puppy to a terrible life, a terrible death... or both.

[YDogg]

19. We adopted an abused / abandoned dog from a breed-specific rescue operation ...

... and had a home visit and that sort of thing. It wasn't that big of a deal. They didn't ask questions that we considered too personal, but we recognized that they had a great deal invested in this pup, and they wanted to be certain we were likely to be responsible folks. Thimgs worked out well; he is a darling fellow and we would do the same thing again.

[IdaBriggs]

20. No sympathy here. After four years of working in rescue, let me give you

the SHORT ANSWER:

BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT THE DOG BACK IN THE SYSTEM.

The LONGER ANSWER is a little more complicated.

You would NOT believe the idiots we deal with -- the folks who want a "cute puppy" but then get upset because "it barks." The ones who don't understand that having a dog is just as much of a responsibility as a child in that you can't leave them unsupervised for days at a time. The ones who think their animals should "understand English." The ones who can't afford to pay the adoption fee, which means they can't afford basic veterinary care, but will assure you "they will love it so much!" (until they get bored, and want you to take it back).

We fostered approximately 88 puppies over a four year period; I am a Puppy Queen! My husband and I specialize(d) in orphaned, abandoned, abused and neglected puppies, with a special emphasis on bottle feeders. (My proudest accomplishment were the eight German Shepherd mix puppies that we got at three days old, all of whom made it! They were the "Prayer Puppies" because it was extremely unlikely that they were all going to make it -- and they did! They were: Adam, Caleb, Gideon, Hannah, Leah, Rachel and Ester.)

As foster parents who spent a great deal of time raising and rehabilitating puppies who were "damaged" in some way, we were regularly "cruel" and rejected people as potential owners despite their assurances they knew what they were doing when we made a judgment call that they didn't. Of course our puppies were cute, but if we "picked wrong" then they were back in the system, taking resources away from other dogs who needed a "second chance" -- and that didn't include the trauma of bonding with a new family for the dog!

One of my favorite reject stories was the MORAN who informed me that a) I didn't need to meet his wife, because her opinion didn't matter anyway; b) he wasn't going to housebreak the dog until spring (this was December, and the puppy was a Lab mix) because he was going to teach it to go in the basement; and c) what was my problem with this being a Christmas present for his toddler?

:banghead:

The only reason he got through the initial screening was because we had a new volunteer on the phone who hadn't made the important transition that we WEREN'T IN IT FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF THE PEOPLE, but for the DOGS.

Yes, we've had people get through our rigorous screening process before -- my favorite story is the man who convinced me his wife was BEGGING for a dog, and that this was a present she'd been PLEADING FOR. I fell for it, partly because he brought his kids, and partly because he obviously knew his way around dogs. He had a large property, fenced in, and his kids were well mannered as he made it a point to educate them in front of me on how to handle the puppies we were fostering. Anyway, you can imagine my shock when I heard from his wife about a month and a half later, because a) she was terrified of dogs, b) her husband had suddenly been pulled out of town for extended periods leaving her alone with this "scary puppy", and c) she was concerned that the four month old labrador mix puppy was "vicious" because it kept "attacking" her children, and then it would "crouch down and make scary noises." The story had a happy ending as she brought the puppy over, and we had an emergency "education session" on dog body language, and her responsibilities as the "boss dog of the house." (The "vicious puppy" demonstrated its scary behavior for me, too: with butt up in the air, tail wagging, it would "crouch" with tongue hanging out and then play "pounce" with the children!)

One local rescue group made it a policy never to adopt to a family with children under age five because three dogs in a row were "let out the front door" by three different families with small children, with the dogs "escaping" and then getting run over/killed. We soon made it a policy not to adopt to families without fenced in yards because we live in Michigan, and while "standing outside in the rain/snow/sleet" while a puppy takes its time to find just the right place to do its business at six in the morning may not sound like that big of a deal, in reality, most people (especially those who have to choose between supervising small children and puppies) really don't want to do it. Later we added the "must own your own home" rule when we had two families who were "renting" try to return their (poorly trained dogs) because "their living situations had changed and they couldn't have pets at the new place."

Most people are decent, and I would say the majority have good intentions, but very few have realistic expectations of just how much effort is involved in raising a well mannered pet. Let me assure you the amount of work involved with a new family member is going to make an hour of paperwork look like NOTHING. You are talking a ten to fifteen year commitment when you adopt, with a minimum of about $500+ in annual expenses associated with your pet (if you only do the minimum shots and buy cheap food). Also plan on about two hours a day of "new responsibilities" when it comes to feeding, defecating, exercising, grooming, training, and socializing once everyone "adjusts", unless you have a puppy, in which case you are looking at 24x7 work for months -- new puppies CANNOT be left unsupervised, anymore than you would leave a toddler unsupervised (which is why I am strong advocate of "crate training!").

I have beaten my adoptive families over the head with this simple truth: "A well mannered dog is a joy, while a poorly mannered dog is a nightmare. Whichever one you get is A REFLECTION ON YOU, not the dog!"

To be blunt, "LOVE" is not enough. You are getting your first taste of what having a new dog in your life is going to be all about -- PUTTING THE DOG'S NEEDS FIRST.

If you can't cut it through the interview process, displaying patience, understanding, compassion and wisdom about the stakes involved not just for you and your potential new pet, but also for the volunteers who have been doing whatever it takes to help get your new family member into an "adoption ready place," its really better for everyone if you get "screened out" now. Most groups would rather wait another week or two for the right fit, versus having to undo more (usually unintentionally inflicted) damage on a good animal.

Good luck.

[Lisa0825]

22. BRAVO, IdaBriggs!!!

FABULOUS post!!!

:applause: :yourock: :applause:

[flvegan]

24. To help you better undestand...foster one.

Offer to take one in. Your breed of choice is the Pug. Excellent. Now, offer to the rescue to take one into your home to be rehabbed and adopted out. Let's say this pug is a she. She's been bred numerous times and has health issues because of it. Oh, and because she spent most of her time outside, uncared for, she has heartworm. BTW, she has breathing problems and the typical eye problems.

Spend your time bringing her back. Rip your fucking heart out each time she pukes up blood and tissue from her heartworm treatment. Now that her cherry eye is fixed, enjoy the eye drops 3 times a day. Housetraining is fun, isn't it? Oh, btw...she's 9, so she's starting to get a little older. She's a special case and you treat her like royalty. She knows it, and responds justly. She thrives in SPITE of her past.

Now...tell me again how fucking rediculous this is to do over an animal? That app took you an hour. Big fucking deal.

And, for the record, in case you didn't know, I RUN a fucking rescue, and I pour over EVERY application that comes in. I rehab EVERY dog that comes through here. You want worn out, well here are my fucking shoes...walk a mile in them.

[LeftyMom]

26. I was hoping you'd see this thread.

Off topic: Call me, damn it.

[Skittles]

25. sorry, I have to disagree

I think people who are in the business of placing animals need to do what they can to ensure the critter goes to a loving, caring home

[China_cat]

29. I've only ever had reservations about 1 rescue group's

requirements and that was recently. We considered a Neapolitan Mastiff who was a beautiful, sweet, wonderful dog. Unfortunately, he needed cruciate ligament repair on both legs AND had hip displaysia. We can't handle the approx. $15,000 to help this dog have a decent quality of life.

The problems came when this particular rescue head was reading off to us some of her requirements for adoption; NO use of flea control products of any kind. We would have to hand pick off any fleas; NO vaccinations except for the legally required rabies; feeding would have to be done with either her brand of food or BARF. Lots more in this vein, alternate, new age (rhymes with sewage) crap.

Maybe I could have even understood her points, or at least her belief in her points, if she hadn't been reeking of cigarette smoke at the time.

I don't know if I want to adopt a dog from a group who wasn't really picky about who the dog goes to. It would mean that maybe they hadn't put enough time and effort into the evaluation of the animal and knowing what home it would best fit into.