How to ethically get a 'pet' if a rescue turnes you down

moggymutt

Firstly it has to be said that rescues have very good grounds for turning some people down.

There are some people getting turned down for reasons that are not justifiable though.

Please if this has happened to you, dont go out buy an animal because you are frustrated and upset (and no one would blame you for being both), but consider the following options.

Local concil pounds have dogs, and often cats on'death row' ie they are going to be put down if not claimed. Only some pounds have links to rescues that will take animals that have not been claimed. WARNING, just as from a private home, these animals will probably not have been vet checked. Get animals from these places IMMEDIATELY vet checked. You dont want to save one animals life by putting any other animals you may have in danger.

Ring your vets, he may know of clients who have died, go into nursing homes etc, or had people bring in animals that they have found dumped. Social services/home helps are often looking to try and help people under their supervision who cant cope with their pets any longer, or have let their animals have a litter, and social services etc are trying to get things sorted (with the mother being neutered).

Look at the free to good home ads- some of these are very genuine reasons, and not just idiots who are continuing to let their cats/dogs breed. Genuine people in dire circumsatnces may want to home their animals direct to new homes, and not want them to go into kennels. Also rescue centres are very often full.

Following looking at a free too good home ad, if you turn up to a house to look at kittens and realise mum is still not spayed, do anything you can to help get mum spayed. It may be just helping with transport. See what charities in the area can help with neutering. Put any feelings of annoyance for the owners of the mum aside and help prevent them producing other kittens. If you were prepared to give a rescue a donation for having a kitten, offer instead to get a mother cat spayed. It may sound daft, but you'll have a kitten that you can give a good home to, and you have stop many other litters of unwanted kittens.

A friend of mine, totally superb home, went to a rescue full of kittens and got unbelievably turned down even though it was obvious the rescue was overcrowded. Luckily for her, a car pulled up with a lady who had just found some dumped kittens. My friend took 2 of them before the lady then asked the rescue to take the rest.

None of us are perfect judges of character, and so sometimes rescues get it wrong. There's still ways you can have an animal though and do your bit to be helping reduce the number of unwanted animals.

Tiglath

Very well said, especially the neutering point. We've acquired cats from friends who've moved, from elderly people who've died, grabbed a couple of ferals living under a house, acquired an elderly cat from a vet's waiting room while there with another of our cats for treatment ... she was literally going to be put to sleep within hours because the poor owner was forced to move and couldn't take her, and it was just synchronicity that we happened to be there. Cats seem to find us really - I suspect there's a cat equivalent of a sign on our house saying 'Free bed and board - all welcome.'

moggymutt

Thanks Tiglath, that's really nice to hear, and your elderly cat was certainly lucky that you were there.

[Deleted User]

I can understand this, we were refused from the main charities because we were not home owners even though we had permission (in writing) from our landlord!

We went to a local independent pet shelter in the end and have two beautiful, well loved, well cared for moggies who we wait on hand and foot!

gettingready

Pacific - sorry but you are just simply soooooooooooooooooooooo wrong generelising this way.

You are new here so do not know many of our stories on this board.

I was turned down by quite a few rescues (for both dog and cats) and believe me... both my dog and 4 cats are really well looked after at every level.

So would be any creature (cat or dog) if it came from a rescue to me.

Rescues policies may be valid but it all seems like a box ticking exercise rather than looking at people's INDIVIDUAL circumstances/abilities/suitability.

As long as it stays this way - all rescues will be full as they are and a lot of animals will be put down as ther are not enough "suitable" homes for them.

Pollycat

pacific4130 wrote: »

I think that if someone is turned away from multiple rehoming sources, i.e. RSPCA, breed specific welfare associations, local charities organisations, they really need to honestly appraise their suitability for pet ownership. That's not being harsh - that's just being sensible and honest. These people are desperate to re-home animals, hence they usually need a pretty good reason to say no.

I posted on the other thread that I guess prompted moggymutt to start this thread.

I posted this:

Pollycat wrote: »

After an incredibly distressing rejection by a very rude and abrubt representative of a cat rehoming centre and a more polite option from the RSPCA which we didn't want to take, we ended up getting a kitten from a farm.

The centre my OH rang stated that 'under no circumstances would she consider letting us have a kitten as we were both out at work'.

The situation was that we both worked flexi hours, my OH worked less than 2 miles from our home.
I would leave for work early & come home early, he would leave late and come home late, popping home at lunchtimes.

That didn't make any difference - we were unsuitable as adopters in her opinion, even though I'd had cats (from kittens) for 20 years and had always worked full time.

RSPCA wanted us to take 2 kittens which we didn't want to do.

Our kitten from the farm was very poorly from Day 2, he had cat flu and pneumonia. In 5 days we'd spent £100 in vets fees.
He survived and had a great life, much-loved and well looked after.
Out when he wanted to be out, in when he wanted to be in.
Vaccinated regularly, put in a cattery when we went on holiday - he wouldn't have anything to do with anyone but us but at least we knew he was safe and the guys running the cattery loved him.

So, yes, maybe someone who was at home all day would have given him company but would he have had a better life?

Do you think I should appraise my suitability for pet ownership?
Do you think the rehoming centre had good reason to say 'no' to us, given that at the time they had lots of kittens needing homes?

valk_scot

All of our big local cat rescues turned me down for a cat because it wouldn't be able to go outside. Our two previous cats had been killed when quite young (18 months) on the road outside our house so we'd decided to have house cats in the future. I'm a SAHM, the house is big with an attic for hunting spiders, there's always a lot going on with my kids and their friends going in and out and as we already had one kitten (my neighbours cat had an unexpected teen pregnancy!) any rescue cat would have catty company. None of this was good enough apparently, their cats had to have the best of homes and that included outside access. I asked about older cats that were used to inside living? Nope, I was "unsuitable".

Finally I found a small independant cat rescue that had less stringent rules and who were delighted to make some compromises if everything else about the home was suitable. They were overflowing with cats and they weren't about to turn down any offers of good, safe and loving homes, there were cats being dumped on the streets because the rescues couldn't take them. Me taking one of their cats meant space for them to rescue another. Which one would I like? I ended up with one of life's Lazy Git cats btw who wouldn't thank me if he was put outside, he likes his sleep too much. And five years later when we decided to get a third cat we went straight to that same rescue so they got two homes out of us.

so my advice is to investigate any of the smaller independant rescues, there are plenty out there as well as the big national ones. Smaller rescues are often more flexible as to their requirements as to rehoming, though obviously even they won't just hand an animal out without some questions. But as the lady at my local rescue said, she could tell I was a Cat Person as soon as I opened my mouth, lol.

Person_one

I would say try a number of rescues before resorting to free ads and so on. I was turned down by a few, but now have two very happy rescue dogs snoozing on my couch after their long walk this morning!

Also, don't expect them to be mind readers or to understand automatically that you will be a good owner. Explain, state your case well, be convincing! They've never met you, they can't just assume you're lovely and would do right by the animal.

I do think Paradise has a point though. The sad fact is that not everybody's circumstances are right for a cat or dog no matter how much they want one and it would be wrong to selfishly get one anyway with no regard for their needs, only your wants.

I have several friends who would love to have dogs, but they understand that as they work long hours 5 days a week it just wouldn't be fair on the animal so they don't have one. I waited years for my circumstances to be suited to dog ownership.

notakid

Great post OP!

I have always had rescues, the first time we decided to get a cat my son was a little boy, we went to a local rescue and chose a cat. We visited the cat several times so it would get used to us and then I rang up to collect when advised to do so. I think the women on the other end of the phone got the hump about the time I rang but then refused us the cat saying we lived on a busy road. We don't! And worse, she lived on the same road and had pets!

We went to the Cats Protection and after a visit we had tibs for 15 years. I also had my dog Buddy from the Dogs Trust for 6 lovely years until he died at 14. (he was 8 when we got him) I've now a lab from gumtree, his owners had two small children and worked full time and two wonderful persian cats from a very small local charity.

I could have been put off my a spiteful small minded power crazed volunteer in my first outing in being a pet owner. Its true, some people who work with animals really don't like people.:p

krlyr

Also, I'd say the very first step - try other rescues! Just because one or two turn you down, doesn't mean no rescue will home to you. There is no governing body for rescues so no set guidelines that they have to follow, and no one set of rehoming policies.
Often the larger rescues like Battersea can have a bit less leeway, usually because the rehoming policies are set by head office and the branches have to follow them. But even different RSPCA branches may have different rules because they're like franchises.
Then there are hundreds and hundreds of smaller rescues who will all make up their own rules. Many may be happy to let a "no fulltime workers" rule slide if you show that you can afford a dog walker, for example.
Don't let a few "nos" discourage you - ask for feedback, or suggestions for local rescues that will home to you, or even consider dogs you had ruled out if the rescue say X dog couldn't be left for 4 hours home alone, but they have Y dog who would.

Dollardog

pacific4130 wrote: »

I think that if someone is turned away from multiple rehoming sources, i.e. RSPCA, breed specific welfare associations, local charities organisations, they really need to honestly appraise their suitability for pet ownership. That's not being harsh - that's just being sensible and honest. These people are desperate to re-home animals, hence they usually need a pretty good reason to say no.

Your whole post basically suggest that someone wanting a pet should just head down a sliding scale towards less and less stringent checks. Basically, if the re-homing centre doesn't give you a pet, screw it, get one of the internet from someone who couldn't give a damn or just pick up a stray. That's very unsound advice and certainly not ethical.

Your post is just total rubbish, there are rescues that turn down very suitable homes and some have very different criteria for doing so.

I for one, have always had dogs in my life, the only time I haven't had one is when I've been 'between' dogs, yet I know for a fact that I would be turned down by the average rescue because I work, I love big dogs and I only have a small terrace house with hardly any garden, the gate and wall on one side of that small garden is only about 4 foot, albeit going into a locked entry and numerous other reasons.

Yet I have had a rescue, one with a lot of problems who had had five previous homes before me which I managed to turn around, I was able to get that from the breed rescue because I have had previous dogs from a well respected member of the breed club who I have had 3 dogs from, which were some of his older ex show dogs and who knows me well and knows that I am very capable of making arrangements for my animals if they have to be left and knows how much I care about them and the love and attention that they get fom me and knows how well I look after them.

So to imply that people who get turned down are unsuitable to home an animal is rubbish!!

Moggymutt's post is a good one, especially the bit about persuading, or even paying for a mother cat to be neutured if taking one of the kittens from somewhere where they probably wouldn't think or couldn't afford to do it.
Vets often know of animals needing rehoming and if you have taken your pets there, often know the sort of owner you would be.
Good of the person too who rehomed the elderly cat from the waiting room, I bet their owner was so relieved.

Rescues don't always get it right about the animals they have in their care either. Some friends of mine wanted to rehome a cat from the RSPCA, they weren't turned down as they were a very suitable home having had cats before, being retired and living in a village close to open countryside. They picked out a female cat which they liked, only to be told that it wasn't going to be rehomed, it was going to be put down as it was pregnant and they hadn't room for a mother and kittens. My friends pleaded to be allowed to home it as they would keep a kitten themselves and had family who would rehome the rest but the RSPCA were adament that it had to be put down. My friends said that if they couldn't have that one, they didn't want any and had got to the car before the shelter had a change of hert and agreed to let it go to them as long as it had the op as soon as possible after having the kittens. They agreed as they wouldn't have wanted a further litter anyway. They took the cat to the vets for a check up a few days having got it and it turned out the cat wasn't pregnant at all, just fat!! If they han't have taken it, it would have been put down unnecessarily.
Lucy went on to make a lovely pet and died at a very old age.