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With millions of animals needing a home, why can it be so hard to adopt one?
Rebekah and Nathan Patin began looking for a dog to add to their household in 2015 as a companion to their pup, Violet. The couple, who live in an apartment in a Washington suburb, had previously bought dogs from breeders. This time, they wanted to adopt.
The Patins were looking for an adult dog that didn’t have any special needs, such as separation anxiety. Because they don’t have kids, they were fine with a dog that wasn’t great with little ones.
They first approached a rescue group specializing in French bulldogs, Rebekah Patin said. The group had three dogs that seemed like a good fit. The Patins put in an adoption application — and promptly got turned down.
They were given two reasons. One was that they have no yard. “Also, ideal candidates worked from home,” Patin, 30, said she was told. “The most length of time we aren’t home is six hours. It was frustrating.”
At any given time, U.S. animal shelters and rescue groups house millions of homeless animals, and hundreds of thousands are euthanized each year. So tough adoption processes can come as a shock to potential adopters. Typical reasons include those given to Patin — unfenced yards or long working hours — as well as having children or other pets.
Proponents of this high-bar approach say it’s in the animals’ best interest. Donna Darrell, founder of the New
York City-based nonprofit organization Pound Hounds ResQ, said her group has a long and difficult adoption process by design. The seven-page application even begins with the warning that “not every person who desires to adopt a dog should do so.”
But that view is increasingly being challenged by groups including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — whose own president and chief executive, Matthew Bershadker, says he was turned down when he and his family looked for a dog about a year and a half ago. In fact, he was rejected twice.
Bershadker and his family wanted an adult dog that was good with kids and other animals. An ASPCA staff member in Texas finally found “a perfect match,” he recalled — but even then, Bershadker had to travel to Texas to interview with the group before adopting Tarzan, a Labrador mix, in 2016.
It was an eye-opening experience, he said. If the process is this hard for the leader of one of the nation’s largest animal charities, “it’s clearly overly restrictive,” Bershadker said. “We have 1.5 million animals dying in shelters in our country, and these groups are putting barriers in between homes and their animals.”
The ASPCA is one of the major animal protection groups now urging rescue groups and shelters to practice what they call “open adoptions.” Bershadker said the philosophy stems from the belief that “most people are good people, particularly people who are walking into a shelter or a rescue group to save a life.”
Organizations practicing open adoptions generally do not do home visits or phone landlords to make sure pets are allowed. Groups say they focus on what they often call “good matches” between human and animal.
Bershadker points to another reason for open adoptions: the estimated 1.5 million cats and dogs that die in U.S. shelters every year.
“We want to make sure it’s the right placement … but we want to get these animals into homes,” he said.
Darrell said she’s familiar with those arguments. But she’s still not convinced she should loosen Pound Hounds ResQ’s procedures. Her primary concern isn’t shelter pets that face euthanasia, she said. It’s the 200 or so dogs her rescue cares for each year.
An estimated 14,000 animal shelters and pet rescue groups operate in the United States, and they do so essentially autonomously — free to use whatever adoption procedures they deem best.
The diverse approaches mean that if people looking for pets are rejected by one organization, others might well think they’re great.
That’s what happened with the Patins. After striking out with the Frenchies, they and Violet paid a visit to the Washington Animal Rescue League.
They adopted Whiskey, a little Chihuahua, that day. Two and a half years later, Patin said she is still grateful to the shelter for placing such a wonderful pet with her family.
“They knew,” she said, “we had a good home to offer to a homeless animal.”