Animal Shelter Advice |
Question And Answer Category: Cat Care |
Question: |
| Dear BlankHelp Team, I want to adopt a cat from an animal shelter. I have a couple around me, SPCA and Human Society. Also many tiny rescue places. Can you provide some tips in checking out animal shelters? Thank you, Mary-Lou |
Our Advice and Answer: |
| Hello Mary-Lou, The two animal shelters you mentioned are typically the big animal shelters everyone might be familiar with. I am glad you have looked around enough to noticed that many smaller animal rescue shelters do exist. They too are doing good work saving animals, and usually under the pressure of less funding, and public knowledge. As for choosing a shelter, if we can assume you don't care what type of cat you want. Since depending on the time, not all shelters have 100% of the breeds you might want, and then you have to go where the cat is, regardless of your shelter preference. 1. Reputation. Find out others that have adopted, find out their shelter experiences, and if they would adopt from there again. Given a choice. 2. Check with your vet. Many vets have a professional working experience with local shelter, and have customers that have also adopted. You want to find out if a particular shelter has 'history' of above average illnesses in newly adopted shelters. 3. Visit your shelters. a. Look over how clean they are. Now shelters are typically undersized for the amount of animals they have, but their intentions are to house the animals for only a short time till adoption. So some 'waste' smells are stronger at an animal shelter than a normal home. b. Look over the animals conditions. Many animals come to a shelter 'sick', so presence of a sick animal isn't bad, but watch how the sick animal is isolated from the healthy animals. Are the healthy animals bright eyed, and clear of mucus? Don't want to adopt from a shelter who only offers sick animals. They need to be cared for before adoption. c. Look at the staff. Since animal shelters have use volunteers, understand that they use who volunteers. So if you see just young people, it's not their hiring practice, but who wants to help. So don't frown on age, sex, or class of people you see. However, talk with those who seem to be 'in-charge', evaluate their knowledge of animal care, and ask to talk to the vet who over sees the shelter. These are generic animal shelter tips, that should work for any animal shelter. Remember, don't look to adopt before eliminating all all doubt from your mind. One complaint we had with adopting from one of the large shelters here, was the agreement one of our animal adopters had to enter. There was a clause about that shelter can do a spot check on the animal forever, and seize the animal at any time. Now we know the idea is to protect the animal, but some of use don't like giving up our right to privacy, and give the ability to seize our property without a fight. Also, it seemed only one of the large animal shelters required this Gestapo agreement, so it is not the norm. Check with the adoption agreements if you don't like the idea of entering a contract that might have some weird clause. Good luck with your cat adoption, and remember animal shelters can be heart breaking, because so many of those pets want to go home with you. Be Strong. The BlankHelp Team |
Cat Care Help and Advice Notice: |
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