To love an animal is to want THE BEST for him… with or without you.
Internet in general and Facebook in particular has completely changed animal welfare is conducted.
By now most associations and non-profits have realized the immense power of Facebook as outreach and advocacy building tool. Those rescues that haven’t built a Facebook platform should do that, quickly!
But how to use Facebook for something as risky and delicate as finding a forever home to an animal?, in most cases being that home overseas or in another location, thus making a home visit nearly impossible. Today you are going to understand what the entire thought process is behind every single adoption case in Let’s Adopt!. Our system may or may not be to everyone’s liking, but they work wonders for our animals.
1. Our Adoption Rules:
Those are the first selection hurdle.. they are designed to identify what we consider optimum homes. The rules are there with only the interest of the animal in mind, and are designed to simplify to the maximum the task of guessing if someone is going to be a good owner for our rescues or not.
a) Adoptant MUST have an animal right now. Because we are virtual based and most of our adoptions are international we need to minimize the chances of return. The best way to see if someone is a good animal owner is by looking, not at his past track record or animal experience, but at his PRESENT animals. It usually takes just a glimpse into someone’s Facebook profile and the albums of his animals to see the kind of life those animals have. If the animals are happy and well kept chances are our animal buy ambien over the counter will have the same life.
2) Animal must live inside the home, with the family… no yard dogs, no garden animals, no security jobs, no service dogs. All our animals will have a family life. No exceptions.
3) Animal must be fed a RAW diet. We covered this issue HERE.
4) Our rescues go only to Non-Smoking families. We gave the entire rationale for this rule here.
2. The bedroom test..
Have you ever been in someone’s bedroom or office when the person is not there? Usually with a quick look around the house you can tell a lot about a person’s character without the need to engage in lengthy conversations. We use Facebook in a similar way… By looking at someone’s profile we can see if the person has a social life or if he is a lone introvert, we can appreciate his education level, we can see if he has a good family life, we can gauge his tastes, his commitments to certain causes, his views on a wide range of issues, music, food, health, we can see someone’s priorities and asses if our animal is going to be one of them… Basically, used correctly, Facebook provides us a deep insight into people’s personality.
After that we just ask ourselves a question: Do we Like what we see? If we do, we approve the adoption. If we don’t.. we pass…
The decision we take now will affect the next 10 or 15 years of the life of our animals. Ours are not decisions looking at the short but at the long term.
It’s our obligation to get it right… We owe it to them.
Definitely shared! We certainly want to make sure our best friend have the best home they can find…
Good article Viktor. My friend, who has the huskey, gave me a great recipe for making natural dog food, they love it! You are such a great person!!!!!
I can understand your concerns for a prospective adoptee to already have a pet so you can see what kind of pet parent they are, but, and this is a pretty big BUT, I have seen many, many, many animals turned in– in pairs or more for many reasons. One of pet parents died, or finances got tight and they could not afford one much less two or many other reasons. How can you be sure the adoptee will keep the pet under any circumstances and not turn them out or return to to pound to die. So Iike I said , I do understand your logic, but are you sure you are not making it harder on the parent down the road and maybe the animal? Just expressing my opinion on the things that i have seen animals and people go through lately !
Thank you ,
Sharron
Sharron.. of course it’s a possibility.. you never know what life has in store for us.
It’s a way to minimize risk though… the best we have found.
I totally agree with most of the rules,exept the smoking part could cause some arguments with people,allthough i admit that indoor dogs should not be exposed to smoke at all. Unfortunately i smoke myself,and i have adopted dogs and cats. I make sure there is plenty of ventilation,allways…I am smoking for many years now,so you can imagine how difficult that is :-(((
Good thing in my case is that my dogs will be inside the house mostly 3 months,because here in Greece the winter is very short,so let’s say from april they will be much more outside in the garden or veranda,offcourse with the option to come in if they like…
Thanks Richard… I know is difficult and believe me, noone is judging you here.
The smoking rule is designed to make sure that all our rescues enjoy pure air, not to put down smokers..
Glad to have you with us..
Could you please email this to me, I could really use the information, and I don’t know how to save it on my Facebook. Thank You!
Thank you for everything you do to facilitate the Rescue of Animals!
Catherine
I am sharing…thank you & all @ Let’s Adopt Global, for your tireless work. I hope that I will be able to see many more positive changes, occuring everywhere on this earth, regarding animals.
I HAVE A 5 AND HALF YEAR OLD BLACK PURE BLOOD PUG, SHE IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE I WAS THINKING OF FINDING HER A MATE, =) SHE IS A ALFA SO I NEED A MALE FOR HER, SHE IS GETTING SPAYED THIS NEXT WEEK
Ok… it makes sense … but you will never know a person entirely unless you have also talked one-on-one ….
those who don’t use FB correctly, you will also not catch… it’s just the illusion…
Especially to back up this blog, it would have been a good example to chose another FB user: 1 adoptant who you never met before, suggested by another person you have never met before….. just saying….
No service dogs? I’ve rehomed my foster dogs as service dogs, and you couldn’t ask for a better life for them! They’re with their human 24/7, and develop a deep bond with each other.
One thing I ask for, though, before adopting a dog is good references: vet (if they don’t have one or the vet doesn’t know their present dogs, watch out!), personal (will their friends vouch for them and be willing to help them out if needed?), and family (does the entire family agree about adopting a dog?). I also require a home visit… and can usually find someone to perform it in the local area if I ask the rescues in that area to do it for me. Nothing better than looking into their actual bedroom, home, and yard (fenced and secure?). A check to be sure that they are not in a Do-Not-Adopt list is good too… rescuers share with each other who the flakes are. The last thing I require is a follow-up. The new adopter needs to contact me daily to let me know how the dog is fitting in, at least for the first week. Then I check in again at one month, and then at one year.
Hi… by service dogs I meant police dogs, dogs sniffing drugs and bombs and commercial centers, etc…
why? the moment those dogs stop doing their job correctly they are discarded… there may be some exceptions but it’s very common for us to rescue police dogs that simply stop being useful.. and you wouldn’t believe the issues we have with those animals behavior afterwards..
Great post! With your permision we will translate it into Bulgarian and post to our community. 🙂
Mariya
Sorry I missed this post!!! Good one Viktor……shared xx
I’m confused about why someone MUST have an animal at the moment in order to adopt. Does that mean that somebody who was a great owner and lost his dog or cat can’t adopt another one maybe after 3 months?
Ozgur… what we do in those cases is we asked from the people to foster an animal from us. After a while, if we see it is we working we authorize the adoption.
We can also direct them in the way of their nearest animal shelter.