brookcove
Posted : 7/3/2006 10:28:59 PM
REscue centers and organizations that put some effort into matching the right home with the right dog will spend some quality time putting an adoption together. Their goal is to make sure your expectations are met, and that the dog will be happy in his or her new home and NOT come back to them! [
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The process at the shelter is simple. It's kinda like Walmart. You go browse the selection, handle the product, you might ask the clerk some advice (the clerk may or may not actually have expertise, but they'll try their best to be helpful). Maybe you do a bit of research online before or after, but then you just make your selection and check out. It is highly unlikely that anyone will say, "What size living room do you have? Are you sure your new widescreen TV will fit through the door?" Similiarly, it's up to you to make sure your new pet fits in your home and family.
Rescue orgs are usually more like child adoption organizations. They don't want to make any mistakes that will cause suffering (not that the shelter does, but they aren't really set up to prevent mismatch problems). Their process is like climbing the rungs of a ladder, or getting admitted into a private club one step at a time. First you submit the application, and someone (who has a full time job that is NOT rescue work, and probably a family and pets of their own, also, plus is probably doing rescue almost full time) has to review your application and that of many others. They are interested in whether you'd be a good home in general - there may be red flags to investigate, and there may be something that would make you a particularly good home for some special dog in the program.
At this point, someone will decide (in my group it was handled by democratic vote) whether to respond with a polite rejection, or a phone call to glean more information. After the phone call, the group has to be consulted again - the foster home of the dog or dogs that fit the applicant best, are contacted, and they may call the applicant back. Or they may set up a home interview at this time. Or both. All this back and forth stuff takes time, as you've found out. People have lives. They take vacations. No one is getting paid for this - quite the contrary - many of us have husbands saying, "$250 for another heartworm treatment? What about the electric bill?"
By the time the home interview happens, the interviewer and the applicant(s) usually have a pretty good idea of what foster dogs they are talking about. We weren't supposed to make any promises, but sometimes talking about that specific dog made it easy to help the applicant express needs and expectations that help us make the right decision.
Sometimes, pretty rarely, we'd actually reject an applicant after the home interview. It had to be something pretty awful - one time we discovered evidence of abuse, another time negligence so bad it was almost funny - antifreeze in the shed where the dogs slept and alligators in the pond where they got their water ("Them 'gators only got a goat once since we lived here.").
Most of the time, if the application didn't proceed in a straightforward way to the adoption of the dog the applicant was interested in, or that we thought might work in the home, it was because we felt the need to re-direct the applicant to another dog - one less high spirited (or more so), a male rather than a female, one better with active kids, etc.
Sometimes we'd advise waiting until the next dog of that time came in - a family might wait up to a onth for the perfect dog but they were always tickled to death - and a month is a very short time to wait for a dog that you'll spend a decade or more with. Please note, that getting on these waiting lists means that those dogs that never make it on web sites or to adoption fairs, will be available immediately to YOU.
Trust me, there are many WAY COOL dogs that never make it onto the web sites. Those were the Border collies that already were housetrained, good with kids, played ball and frisbee and were completely obedience trained. Oh, yeah, I think those dogs had a turnover rate of about four or five hours on average if they came in with all their vet work up to date.
My point is that you've got to jump through all the hoops and then be patient! I tried to push applicants through as fast as I could when I was doing full-time rescue but it's like herding cats sometimes - and don't forget it's a holiday too. Rescues run on about half the number of volunteers and double the work, throughout the summer but especially around the three holiday weekends.
Patience!
Good luck!