This?
Or this?
From a WA animal shelter’s ‘Adoption Adviser’;
The great offence that these potential adopters committed? To need some support in working to getting landlord approval to have a pet.
When people willing to open their hearts and families to a rescue pet feel the only option they have is to lie to us, then we’ve failed to give them the information they need to have a successful pet ownership experience. There are dozens of resources we can provide to people having landlord issues; with some coaching, a clever pet resume and a reference from the shelter to offer to take the pet back should the adoption not work out, maybe this landlord could be swayed to allowing this pet. Simply denying and scorning people who clearly wanted to adopt badly is petty and unhelpful. Not to mention the likelihood that these potential adopters will now go to a pet shop, the one place we beg people not to go to!
If you allow festering attitudes of ‘us against them’ to live in your shelter, then you will have a team not working to make adoptions happen, but to relish in the chance to refuse them.
More info:
Not being able to find a home that allows pets is one of the most common reason for people surrendering animals; which makes it even more important that we’re proactive at working with landlords to help people adopt (and keep!) their animals.
If we simply refuse an adoption, we send people to pet shops and we’ll almost certainly see their pet in care at a later date. By contrast, a landlord we help convert to allowing pets is one more home for our animals.
The reference documents to help people trying to get landlord approval are here:
Dog – http://www.rspca-act.org.au/pages/images/dogs%20in%20apartments.pdf
Cat – http://www.rspca-act.org.au/pages/images/CatsInApartments.pdf
Details on putting together a pet resume can be found here:
http://www.petfriendlyrentals.com.au/resources/pet-resume/
There’s also some good resources here:
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/resources/tips/renting_with_pets.html
