We saw this post online in which a woman complains that she wanted to adopt a dog and the process was so difficult and costly that it killed her desire to do so: http://blogs.kansascity.com/unfettered_letters/2011/10/costly-pet-adoptions.html.
This letter discusses something we find largely true in our experience with shelters: that the service is generally awful. You often will wait over a week for a call back and because a lot of them are run by volunteers with busy lives the availability of meeting the pets is difficult to say the least. Moreover, as we have written about on this site, the information about the dogs and cats is sparse and there is often only one picture. This is not the way to do it. As most internet companies and organizations have learned, the more information you give people the less work you will have to do on the backend. If you put more information, better pics, a video, and frequent updates online, you would be able to find a faster, better match with fewer questions to answer.
The adoption fee issue is also a problem because when people are adopting a dog or cat, they often cannot understand why there is the fee. They think they are doing something good for the world by adopting animals and agreeing to take care of them in the future. The adoption fee is a difficult issue. On the one hand, if someone wants a dog a $200 feeshould not discourage them, and psychologically speaking having someone commit money will make them tend to value the pet more. On the other hand, adopters have a difficult time understanding why they are being “charged” for doing something good.
We don’t have the answer, we just think animal rescues and organizations would do better with more effort on the front end. We have had experiences where we have tried to walk dogs or do other work for various groups and not received calls back or had emails returned. Rescuers have big hearts, but they are not always commercial so a handbook to rescuers would be a good idea.
With regard to this letter/post, I think many do not understand that a lot of rescue groups are simply volunteers doing this on the side and spending a lot of money, time, and energy to help these animals. They do not have infinite time and resources so adopters should cut them some slack.