How Available Is Your Rescue Group?

I presume that most of us involved in rescue are in it for the love of the specific animals we rescue, right?

(This is where all of us shake our heads "Yes.")

And we've all had our share of experiences where we deny an animal to a very insistent adopter. In fact, let's pretend we're in charge of adoption placements for Teensy Tiney Toy Dog Rescue (no dig at small dogs; I actually happen to like them and feel they've gotten a bad rap), and we're dealing with a Paris Hilton wannabe whose insistent on a Chihuahua despite having three kids under the age of five.

Now Chihuahuas are not recommended for families with young children. So your organization's policy is to deny adoptions to families with children under the age of seven. This way, ideally, one less Chihuahua will wind up in the local shelter for snapping at 'lil Jimmie.

So what happens when our little Paris wannabe simply buys one from a "breeder" listed in the newspaper? Well, wouldn't you know it, Pancho starts snapping at 'lil Jimmie. And naturally, instead of calling up your organization to learn about proper Chihuahua training, she drops Pancho off at the local shelter.

Does it have to be this way?

The sad reality is that thanks to pet stores and unscrupulous breeders pets can be pretty easy to come by. So even when we deny adopters for a good reason, they can still find what they want, animal-wise. And, unfortunately, the pet stores and bad breeders won't be there to help them for the inevitable problems arising from poorly bred and trained dogs.

This is where we can come in. I know of one rescue organization that supplies general information about the breeds it adopts to all potential adopters. This way even if they are denied and acquire the animal somewhere else they have basic information about caring for that particular pet.

To me this makes a lot of sense. Another option would be to give your contact information to a denied adopter. Going back to our theoretical situation with the Paris wannabe, by giving her our contact information she could come to us for advice about how to train her children and Pancho on living harmoniously together. Or if things are really bad, we could step in and rescue Pancho.

Now this doesn't have to apply for every adopter. If it's an adopter with a history of animal abuse or becomes verbally abusive after being denied a pet, no rescue should ever feel obligated to reach out as I described above.

It's just that sometimes it's not our animals that are our biggest problems, it's working with the human species where we run into the most trouble...