No Pet for You!

Want to adopt a dog or cat? Prepare for an inquisition at the animal rescue.

Fed up with her attempts to adopt, the author decided to buy a puppy instead
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“Groups like these have high standards for who gets to adopt. Applicants are sometimes subjected to an interrogation that would befit Michael Vick. After receiving this hostile treatment, several would-be pet owners told me, they got offended and gave up.”

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No Pet For You

Slate Magazine

EXCERPT: People who rescue animals can be reluctant to believe anyone deserves the furry creatures. Some rescue groups think potential owners shouldn’t have full-time jobs. Others reject families with children. Some rescuers think apartment dwelling is OK for humans but not for dogs, or object to a cat’s litter box being placed in a basement. Some say no to people who would let a dog run around the fenced backyard “unsupervised,” or allow a cat outside, ever.

It used to be that people who wanted to get an abandoned or abused animal went to the local pound, saw one they liked, paid a small fee, and drove home with a new pet. Since the 1990s, however, the movement to reduce animal euthanasia and the arrival of the Internet have given rise to a new breed of rescuer. These are private groups, or even individuals, who create networks of volunteers to care for needy animals.

Before this, enormous numbers of animals who went into shelters never came out. More than 40 years ago, an average of 20 million dogs and cats were euthanized annually…Humane organizations started a campaign to spay and neuter pets, especially those coming through shelters, and today fewer than four million dogs and cats are euthanized yearly—still terrible, but a vast improvement. In addition to pet sterilization, an effort also began to find accommodations for homeless animals outside the municipal and private shelter systems, which have limited room and often short deadlines for keeping animals before moving them to death row. The new organizations take potentially adoptable pets out of the shelters and foster them, usually in private homes, until the right owner comes along. They control the fate of an increasing number of animals…

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Photograph courtesy Emily Yoffe