If you read what I wrote, I said that I can't speak for every single shelter or rescue everywhere. I know the ones I've worked with have long interviews in conjunction to questions, clearly it's not the case everywhere- but just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it never happens. Have you contacted every rescue ever? Have you called or tried to contacting someone and see what the process is like before proceeding to see if they do interviews?
I can't, and I'm not going to speak, for the rescues you've worked with because I honestly don't know them and have never heard of them- I live across the country and it's not a breed I follow so I can't answer why they specifically are so hard.
Maybe they have to weed through a lot of morons and you fell through the crack- they are just as human as you are, and mistakes happen. But if THEY mess up by giving an animal to the wrong person, that dog could end up dead or worse. I'm sure that's the motivating reason, or one of them. And again- I'm not trying to excuse them. I think some of them do go overboard in trying to assure a good home and people do fall through the cracks. I know the people who I work with in rescue have heard so many horror stories that it's hard to not to become jaded and think the worst of people. I do hope it ends up well for you and that you find your dream pooch.
And this will sound trite, but keep your eyes open. I've seen people come with their hearts set on a specific age, breed, gender, eye color, whatever and SO SURE that's what they want and then suddenly they see 'the one' and it's totally not what they had been expecting or wanting. It's good to have an idea, but don't limit yourself- there are lots of wonderful animals out there who need homes.
And how long is it, exactly, that people should keep trying when they have run into what appears to be an overabundance of these types of situations? Being turned down from an adoption, especially for asinine reasons, is heart breaking and a person can only take so much crap scenarios like it before they throw their hands up and move on to another method.
No, perfection will never exists when human error is a chance, but it does not really excuse perfectly good individuals "falling through the cracks" when it comes to trying to adopt a dog. I should never have been turned down in adopting a dog. Period. I do not care how arrogant or self-serving that sounds. There is nothing I do or have done that would warrant not being able to get the animal I want from the rescue I choose to attempt to work with. I should not have to move on to the next one when the dog I want resides with another. I should not have to change what I want and what I have my heart set on because some stupid minute, idiotic reason has disqualified me.
I said before that some questions make sense. Some, however, do not. What cracks me up the most is a lot these rescues that will throw a fit about what your dog eats are feeding theirs off of donations and I guarantee that most of those donations are the 40lb 20.00 Pedigree Dog Food Bag. And I get that, I do, because they work with what they get, but that does not mean you get to sit there and turn someone down because they are not going to go to higher quality beyond that. If that was the case, then they should be feeding the same.
But these questions are just guidelines and I could lie on every single answer if I wanted to. I could say I own my house, have no affiliation with the military and have no intention of moving within the next ten years. I could tell them I will give the dog rainbows and butterflies and stars. I could say anything I wanted.
That's great that you have volunteered for places that take the time to actually get to know their potential adopters, but many places are not like that. I have dealt with easily over 30 rescues in the past six years for various reasons and a dozen or so shelters. Most of them are overwhelmed, overburdened, do not have enough space, do not have enough foster homes and have unrealistic expectations for their adopters that cause the dogs to remain in kennels and in foster homes (the shelters are not really this picky as euthanasia is an ever present reality and the desperation is more evident). Hell, I went to a kennel rescue to look at dogs with a friend once and was really irritated by the way their volunteers hovered over us to do anything. Just standing there, staring at us while we interacted with the dogs.
Yeah, they have heard horror stories, but what about the horror stories of rescues and shelters? The abuse and the neglect you will hear about at times? About the people who fail the dogs in one way or another in their misguided quest to save them and protect them? Are those to be ignored because of all the success stories? Are those to be forgotten because their are less of those stories and more of abuse from "regular" individuals? No, not really.
Fact of the matter is, I have become greatly disillusioned by how the majority (and yeah, I will go ahead and use "majority" because stories like mine and others in this thread are becoming very common) of so called rescues and humane societies run their adoption processes. I have become disillusioned with how hard it is to get the dog I am looking for and want. I am sorry that I am not willing to adopt just any dog with a sad story, I have breed preferences, for very specific reasons. If this makes me a less than ideal owner, than so be it.
Yes, I have had mutts, yes I currently own a mutt, but this dog found me and no humane society or rescue would help me with her. No humane society or rescue would take her because she had heartworms, even with me offering to pay for half of the treatment. Rescues and humane societies take in HW positive dogs all the time, why was this dog any different? You want to know why? Because the rescues would not accept my story at face value and believed I was the owner of this dog (by FL's laws I was, because I had to be to surrender her to a no-kill shelter) and was just dumping my problem on them.
They are the ones who are jaded, not me. Lucky for Ginger, I actually care enough about her to put up with the inconvenience that is her heartworms. Lucky for her, I did not just throw her in a kill shelter when every humane society I contacted from Southern Florida to Louisiana told me "No", we cannot take in that completely trained, house broken, submissive, sweet little dog with heartworms.
If I attempt to adopt again from a rescue, it'll be a long time from now and it will be after I have gone to every no-kill shelter within my distance radius since the dogs in rescue and humane societies are not looking at a cold, lonely death as a real possibility. My next dog will actually come from a certified breeder, however. This is frowned upon, but again, disillusionment. The type of dog I want is hard to come across younger than six months in rescues or shelters. And while I adore my rescues, I have endured a great deal of stress and heartache in the past few years from adopting dogs that are permanently scarred from their ordeals and I need a break from it.
I thank you for your contributions to dogs that need homes, but the system is largely broken and it needs to be fixed. Adopting a dog should not be as complicated as adopting a human.
