What about adopting from pet stores?

Our Petsmart does adoptions as well. I support that.
 
Sickly animals, can be found in about any AC facility out there. ANYTIME animals are housed together...brought in from unknown sources in unknown health...problems can result. Neither shelters or private rescue usually have money or facilities to completely isolate every single animal that comes in for 14 days.
 
Things like body weight and medical attention are what's important. Is the animal being properly fed and vetted NOW.
 
Adopting out a sickly animal is not always unethical...many worm ridden, emaciated, or HW positive dogs NEED quiet stable places to recoup their health. Provided the new home is TOLD of the conditions...chronic or transient....provided medication...and a name of a vet that's seen the animal...provides vet references themselves and understand what they are taking on...IMO sickly condition is not always a "no adopt" issue. If the animal HAS seen a vet and assessed as healthy enough...with care to be adopted...IMO that's not unethical. Sometimes the sickliest are the most in need of placement.
 
NOW if the rescue is NOT attending to their needs when they come in...not feeding properly, vetting, treating, NOT using donations properly...and most importantly TELLING people the animal has such and such condition...well then that's grounds to contact the body responsible for animal control...not really anything to do with the business that is in essence...giving them a booth to operate out of and nothing more.If authorities then say this rescue is in trouble for whatever reason...or you have documentation to prove that...then that is when you let the manager of the store know and they can act or not act...and you can escalate or not based on that.

I used to be a fan of pet store adoptions, but I've recently changed my mind. With the immediate availability of the animals and the low fees as compared to pet store purchases, they lead to too many impulse buys. And, in my experience, the rescue volunteers are usually overrun with lookers and they don't have the time or attention to spare for properly interviewing adopters.

ETA: This refers to bringing in dogs on the weekends.

I really don't have a problem with using their spaces for cats that are left there all the time, but I wonder how thoroughly the adoption process is followed if it is done by a store employee instead of a rescue volunteer.

My petco and Petsmart do that. But beware of other pet stores, sometimes they take puppymill dogs and they just say they're "rescue"

BUT...these "impulse buys" are backed with "must return" contracts, microchipping, and the animals are spayed and neutered. IMO that's plenty good and not a lot bad.
 
The weekend events, are only as good as the rescue behind them...and really that would be the same whether you are in a one on one during the week meeting or a busy weekend at Petsmart. If the rescue just wants the dogs placed and they don't much care who with...does it really make a difference when and where the adoption takes place? I personally don't think so.

Our local Pet-Co does local adoptions. I'm pretty sure they're the same animals would be found at Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings and at the shelter itself. The Farmers' Market often has  "lab rescue" dogs there also.
 
Joyce

The last time I was at Petco a boxer rescue group was there.  I would have loved to bring one home, but they weren't just giving the dogs away that afternoon.  They were solicating donations and handing out information and applications.  The dog that I feel in love with had some health problems that were spelled out to potential adopters in his profile. 
 
I think they were doing a great service.  Many of the stores customers didn't even know that breed rescue groups existed. 
 
Also, my dog had health issues when I got her and I was able to help her get to a proper weight and build muscle tone.  she also had chronic UTIs, but with the increase in outside time she doesn't have to hold it as long and that problem cleared up.

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

BUT...these "impulse buys" are backed with "must return" contracts, microchipping, and the animals are spayed and neutered. IMO that's plenty good and not a lot bad.
 
The weekend events, are only as good as the rescue behind them...and really that would be the same whether you are in a one on one during the week meeting or a busy weekend at Petsmart. If the rescue just wants the dogs placed and they don't much care who with...does it really make a difference when and where the adoption takes place? I personally don't think so.

I don't have enough faith in people to think that they'll always return the dog to the rescue if they're having problems. I'd hope that most people would, but...

Bringing the dogs in for a meet-and-greet is great, and if someone shows interest they could have some process for 'holding' the dog, but I don't think they should do immediate adoptions. A committed person can go to the rescue the next day and complete the process.

JMO, from being on both sides of the pet store adoption process. It really can be overwhelming for the volunteers.

I don't have enough faith in people to think that they'll always return the dog to the rescue if they're having problems

 
I hear you here...that's why Microchipping is a wonderful tool, registered to the rescue...there's always a link "home" for the dog.
 
I also think that if a rescue makes it not a penalty, but an open door policy, mentioning the dog is chipped and they can always find it that way...people will likely return the dog before dumping it. If the potential adopter, gets a look down the nose when they ask "what if it doesn't work out?"....then that volunteer needs some more training haha!

Is microchipping really that common in rescue? The two big ones here that I'm really familiar with don't microchip.

my mom recently adopted 2 kittens that were being fostered at a vets office. when she got them home she discovered they had tapeworms. now you would think being at a vets office you could expect near perfect health......sickly pets are adopted out at our local shelter as well. it is always made to be known what is wrong with them, and sadly it is true that sometimes the shelter doesn't even bother to treat the conditions themselves because they dont have enough resources and/or don't feel the animal will be adopted. i think overall reform is necesarry, not just pertaining to certain institutions.

My rescue groups participates in dog showings at Petco/Petsmart.  We never adopt off the floor.  There is a process that includes home visit, meeting all members of the family, interviews, and vet references.  Upon adoption, the adopters are given instruction on how to change the Home Designation.  In the contract there is a time limit on a refund for the fee but there is also a provision that states if for some reason the adopters want to relinguish the dog, the rescue is contacted first.
 
Cats are different, they are adopted off the floor based answering questions in an application and an interview.

I'd say yes it's common here....Operation Kindness is our big one here....they do it. Just about all purebred rescues here do it. Our city shelter does it (it's part of the adoption fee)...as does the SPACA of Texas.
 
Usually it's simply part of the adoption fee...it might not be done til the dog is adopted tho so they can actually have the funds to do it.

any belgian who goes through rescue is typically microchipped.

Even the dogs I adopted from a bare-bones municiple pound were chipped. I've never encountered a shelter that doesn't chip prior to adoption, either registered to the shelter (with paperwork on how you can change the registration) or they will pre-register it to you.

The shelters that adopt out of PetCo and PetSmart are only as good as, well, themselves. There are crappy shelters and rescues out there and there are good ones, and all it takes to have an adoption event at one of those stores is to call the manager and say, "Hey, can we do adoptions here on whatever day?" The store manager doesn't grill you on whether your shelter is a good one or not. All kinds of rescues and shelters adopt out from the pet stores on the weekends here, from small breed rescues (there's a dobie rescue and a greyhound rescue that I see out a lot) to larger shelters. The shelter I volunteered with has cats at a couple PetCos and they are well cared for by a dedicated group of volunteers. Every weekend they go with a big x-pen and let the cats out for play time and to attract attention for adoptions.

Whether or not you can go home with the animal that day depends on both the rescue's policies and the store. PetSmarts often have kennel liscences because of their veterinary clinics and boarding facilities, and you have to have a kennel liscence to adopt animals out on-site. Most PetCos don't have kennel liscences (though some do) so you can't adopt straight from there, you have to go back to the shelter and fill out the paperwork and complete the adoption there.

I've actually found as a volunteer doing these events that they are really crappy places to do adoptions. People that go to these stores already have pets and aren't looking for more. Everyone knows that these stores don't sell puppies and no one goes to them looking to get a dog. People just go to pick up their 40 lb. bag of dog food for the three dogs they already have. I get a lot of "Oh wow your dogs are so cute, I wish we could adopt one but we already have 2 dogs and 5 cats." I've never actually witnessed one of our dogs being adopted at one of these events. Way better places to go are more "unexpected" locations where all kinds of people, not just people who already have pets, go. We had a really successful event at the food co-op I'm involved with. We couldn't adopt out from there, but several people drove down to the shelter (it's only a couple miles away from the co-op) to look at dogs and inquire about the ones we had at the event.