Are rescue shelters making it too hard to adopt a pet?

Has anyone else had difficulty adopting a pet from a rescue
shelter?

We've been trying to adopt a 2nd dog for a few months now
but have been turned down by 2 different rescue shelters.

We already have one dog who we found wandering the streets
a couple of years ago. Although we tried for months to find her
owner nobody came forward to claim her so she's been with
us ever since.

So far the rescue volunteers have come to our home met our
dog and taken references from our vet which we were told
were excellent. The problem they have is we both work full
time and this was the sole reason we are not being considered
as worthy adopters.

While we do both work full time we both work locally and our
current dog is never left for longer than 3-4 hours. Our dog is
exercised every morning for at least an hour and gets a quick
walk during the day followed by a long session playing in the
park in the evenings and goes everywhere with us at weekends.

It seems crazy that there are healthy dogs either going nuts
in kennels or worse still being put to sleep while rescues wait
for a perfect home which might never be. While I understand
they want good homes for the dogs surely they can accept
that plenty of people who work still manage to provide a happy
loving home for a pet.

I would love to hear others experiences of adopting a rescue
pet and if you encountered any problems like we have.

I think that using the fact that you both work full-time is absurd. I worked at our local Humane Society for a number of years and you sound like the kind of pet owner that we look for. The only other thing we would have asked of you is to bring your dog to the shelter to meet the new family member you were interested in taking home.

I understand the shelter's concern about ensuring the dogs end up in great, loving homes. What you described, though, is a flawed and inefficient system. The requisites to adapt a dog should certainly be relaxed if this is actively contributing to the high numbers of animals left to wait in a kennel forever. A bit of common sense would suffice, in this case, to realize that a dog will be happier with loving owners than he is in a kennel. When the dogs are put to sleep, then, it becomes even worse. It becomes a grave moral shortcoming, and I'd hope that would make the shelters rethink their policies.

But we already know that when a deeply flawed system is already in place it is very hard to replace it. Working full time has never been a problem for millions of dog owners. In the case of dogs they are rightfully concerned because they are very social animal, and it's easy for them to feel depressed and lost when their owner is away. But it should be enough to show them that you are willing to make small sacrifices to be with your pet, that you really intend to tend to his/her needs.

I have never adopted because in my area there aren't that many shelters, most of Italy's rural areas don't even actively try to bring strays to a shelter. So when you want to adopt a dog or a cat, you just choose among the sociable strays, perhaps looking for those more in need. Italy also prohibits kill shelters, which I think is wonderful, although it obviously puts a strain on the shelters and societies taking care of pets. My sister's foster home is always full to the brim!

In my opinion, they don't. I'm from the Philippines, and I used to volunteer for two animal shelters here. They have a very strict criteria for adoption which involves visits, interviews, and mandatory vet check-ups.

I don't think that animal shelters are making it too hard in a sense that they are curtailing people's rights to own pets. They just want to assure that the animals will live good lives. It is important to note that rescued animals are often abandoned or abused. Not checking the background of their new family might make the animals' lives harder.

Anyway, don't get discouraged. Continue visiting local animal shelters for you might find your perfect companion there!

Thamks for your replies!

I guess I'm just struggling to understand why each case can't be taken on it's own merits rather
than we've made a criteria checklist and if you don't tick every box there's no room for consideration
of your actual circumstances. We even suggested a few meets and walks together to ensure the
dogs got to know each other before we brought the new dog home. The sad thing is I could easily
lie and say I don't work which I'm sure plenty of people would but I don't want to go down that
route.

I realize that shelters want the best for animals and there have to be rules I do think it's unfair
if they can't look at every case individually. I'm more than happy for home checks, vet checks and
follow up visits to ensure the dog is happy and looked after. Even our vet was surprised when I told
him we'd been turned down as he gave us a fantastic reference and was expecting us to turn up
with our new dog for its registration check up at the clinic.

I actually love the idea you have in rural Italy of just adopting sociable strays, both my cat and my
dog were strays. The cat just kept turning up every day until he decided he was moving in and I
found our dog roaming around on it's own looking rather skinny and scared so I ended up taking
her home and was secretly glad her owner never came forward to claim her.

We're going to try ringing round some of the other shelters and explain the situation we are in
and see if any would be willing to consider us. I really don't want to end up buying a puppy
from a breeder when there are so many dogs in shelters in need of a loving home.

Treatz, I can't tell from your post whether you live here in the US or not; but it sounds like you do. One way that you might be able to get a dog is to look on your local craigslist, or even in the newspaper, or the free little weekly papers that come out everywhere.
Many times, I have seen ads where a stray dog has come to someone's house, and they rescued the dog, hoping to re-unite it with the proper owner. Sometimes, the owner is never found, and then the person may have to put the dog up for adoption, and it is usually either free, or just a re-imbursement of whatever money they have spent on the dog.
It seems to me like a rescue shelter would have let you adopt a dog, especially since you have a good recommendation from your veterinarian, as well as other good references. I think that sometimes the shelters do make it hard to adopt a pet; but then will just go ahead and kill the animal instead if they are short on room.
Some pet rescues are now charging several hundred dollars to adopt a pet, so that also makes it impossible for someone who doesn't have a lot of money (but would provide an excellent home) to adopt a shelter dog.
It makes no sense to me that the shelters cry for people to adopt these pets, and then refuse to do it when a person wants to adopt one.

Wow !!! After reading your post it is nearly impossible to get a dog in your town!!! That's ridiculous. Why would they make it so hard when there are so many animals without homes. The shelters are so overcrowded. I can understand doing a check and making sure the people adopting are a good fit and they can afford to have a pet but that's a bit much.

Danyel