Where I’m from, you can just go to a shelter, pick a pet you like, pay a pretty small amount and take it home usually the same day. You can also walk a dog or spend time with a shelter animal you’re interested in prior to adoption.
In UK it seems like the process is much longer and more complicated. Just wondering what to expect after the forms are filled, pics are taken and everything’s sent. I know you can’t see any pets in person until you get “matched” with one.
Is kitten season a thing here, by the way? I know in summer shelters are usually overflowing with kittens but since shelters near us don’t list animals under 6 months old on their website, it’s hard to tell.
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Dog? You might get a home inspection. You may indeed have some trial meetings with the desired dog.
*The Dog House* is a reality TV show that is pretty true to life.
Either cat or dog you will be quizzed on your lifestyle.
Smaller places have more informal ways of doing things.
Yes, I’d say kitten season is a thing.
When I adopted a kitten with the Blue Cross, it was straightforward. Filled out a form with our details, who lives in the house, details of the house (like whether we have a cat flap, garden access, if there are main roads nearby). Also details about what kind of cat we were looking for, age etc. The first cat they offered us was actually being fostered but the woman ended up wanting to keep it.
The second time they offered a kitten, we went to see it in the shelter and loved her, reserved her and then came back a few days later with all the kit to take her home. We gave them the carry cage and whilst they got her in, we spent about 15 minutes doing the admin like registering our name to the microchip, giving our details for the complimentary 1 month pet insurance, talking through medical records. We paid £70.
Hardly the most difficult process but at the same time, there was a bit of admin, you can’t just walk in and out the same day with a cat.
Kitten season is a natural thing. Cats don’t tend to have kittens in winter, so you tend to get them born from around April to maybe October. Almost no cat will have kittens in the middle of winter.
Pet adoption is pretty bureaucratic here, yes. I have to say that when I wanted more pets, because I wanted kittens (existing adult cat didn’t get on with another adult cat we tried to adopt, but kittens seems a better bet), I trawled Gumtree until I found someone who was selling kittens for a not-stupid price.
(Senior cat gets on fine with the kittens – they know who is in charge)
It depends on the rescue centre. Some follow the procedure you describe and that’s put us off them in the past.
We tried to adopt a collie a decade or so ago, it would have been our third dog and second collie (not together). The collie was on their website as wanting a home, but the rescue staff apparently knew better and decided a staffie was what we really wanted. Even when we told the no, we don’t want a staffie and we really like the look of the collie, they refused to let us see her, telling us it was the staffie we had matched with and the collie was totally unsuitable for us. They wouldn’t explain their criteria or reasoning, they knew best.
So we went back to the rescue centre we’d used before and met a fantastic Labrador there, got to walk him, play with him at the centre and a few days later he came home with us.
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