The Face of Animal Adoption
If I was ever on My Strange Addiction it would easily be because I’m kind of addicted to adopting animals. I love animals, I love finding them homes, but because I’m responsible I don’t just bring hundreds of animals into my house (that and my mom would probably kill me). Both my dogs and my cat are adopted, Riley from an animal organization known as Fur Friends In Need and Ella and Katie from a shelter. I literally want every animal that goes through a shelter to get adopted, because I know that even the most problematic of pets with the right love and encouragement can be your best friend.
Today I was going to make an entire post about the Adopt, Don’t Shop movement, but I feel like there are enough posts about why you should adopt rather than shop for your pet at a pet shop. I will link some valuable posts on the topic that talk about the movement from different animal organizations so you all can browse through them on your own time. Instead I decided to talk about my various experiences adopting each animal, because each time was different, and things you may expect in adopting animals.
I’d like to begin by saying, every organization and every single shelter you go to will do things differently. They have different background processes, different forms to fill out, different adoption fees etc. Honestly, you may get a different experience from the same place just depending on how long the animal has been there, what procedures the animal has undergone.Ella and Katie came from the same place. (If you’re confused about who Katie is, she is my cat whose name I really do rarely use because Kitty and Katie sound so alike.) The main difference was we got my cat the day we came into the shelter and picked her out, no questions, small adoption fee, that was it. On the other hand, with Ella we had to wait a week in order for the shelter to make sure she was spayed and had the necessary vaccinations before we could get her. Mind you, these instances were 15 years apart, however it shows that there are factors that can influence the adoption process.
So for my cat, as I said, it was very much an in and out procedure. She was two months when we adopted her, and at the time of the adoption she was already spayed and had her vaccines, and because she was a kitten there wasn’t a lot of background for the shelter to go through with us. In all honesty, I was about six when we adopted her so the actual process I don’t remember. Funny story with her is that there were two kittens in her cage, and I thought we were adopting the other one, so for the hour they were at a shelter finalizing paperwork I was cuddling up to this other cat and was all “aw look she loves me this is so nice” then turns out that was not my cat. Basically, I am positive from that day forth I was her least favorite member of the family. Luckily, we were able to mend that mishap and I’m pretty sure she’s loved me ever since.
With Riley, the process was a bit more in depth. So as I said we adopted him from an organization called Fur Friends in Need, which rescues a lot of dogs and cats and fosters/adopts them out. The process with them was a little more complicated. When I was around 16, I wanted a dog so bad and I would spend my days on petfinder showing my mom different pictures of dogs with no luck. One day though, I knew we had to go pick up some stuff for my cat so I was like “oh we should go to this Petco” knowing they were doing an adoption that day. We get there and she immediately falls in love with this little baby with a scratch on his nose and a sweater that says “Adopt Me!” that was too big on him, and immediately I put in an application.
A few days later, we got a call from the foster parent who told us that before we could get approved they had to do a check of our house, make sure that we aren’t lying on the application of the space, who’s living there etc. She came over, checked out the house, basically did an at home interview with us, and within a week we got Riley. From my understanding, an at home check is pretty typical of rescue organizations (which is amazing honestly) because they are specializing in rescuing animals they want to make sure the animals are going into good homes that will do their best to give the pet a good life.
As I already mentioned, we got Ella from the same shelter that we got kitty from. The only difference is, Ella was definitely an undesirable pet (see “We’re Not Unadoptable”). So unlike kitty, Ella did not have her vaccines or any procedures done because typically a shelter will not spend their money on animal they expect to euthanize due to lack of space and lack of funds. The process of picking her out was the same, we were in a room of dogs and I saw her and it was love at first sight (which I feel on a weekly basis with dogs). Paperwork was filled out, adoption fees were paid, but this time we couldn’t immediately go home with her. Due to shelter policy, you can’t adopt an animal that is not spayed or neutered, so before we could take her home they had to schedule her spay appointment and perform the procedure. Luckily, they were having the doctor come in the next day to do a round of procedures, and four days later we brought her home.
In terms of paperwork, every paper we signed basically had us agreeing that we would never abandon the animal, that we weren’t planning on using them in fights all of that jazz. With Riley, there was also a component that asked of your financial status, and in filling out other adoption forms from other rescue organizations I find that many of them do inquire about your financial status. Much of this is because animals can be expensive, and they don’t want to put you or the animal in a situation where the animal can’t be properly cared for. All of the questions seemed very necessary. When I was helping a friend adopt a cat, they actual rescue contacted their landlord to make sure that they could keep a cat at their property, so depending on where you go they may take extra precaution in adopting out.
If you are looking to adopt an animal (and please do adopt, almost 3 million adoptable animals are killed annually because shelters can’t possibly sustain their overpopulation anymore), I hope this helps in somewhat outlining the process or things you may expect when looking for an animal. With that said, help feed my addiction and let me help you.Feel free to slide into my DMs and I will help in helping you narrow down breed choices that are best for your lifestyle, and get you a best friend for life!
I hope you all enjoyed this post! Don’t forget to follow me on social media and I’ll see you all soon!
Adopt Don’t Shop Links
https://www.caninejournal.com/adopt-dont-shop/
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/adopt/tips/top_reasons_adopt.html
