Screening Potential Adopters
It is up to you to decide how carefully you want to screen any potential new homes for your pet. Depending on the time you have available, you may wish to be very careful to ensure your pet is going to the best home possible. Just remember that not everyone is honest about their intentions when they inquire about your pet. And even honest and well-intentioned people may not be a good match for your pet. To eliminate the largest risks associated with rehoming a pet, we suggest you do the following at a minimum:- Do not give your pet away for free. Charge at least a small rehoming fee, somewhere around $35-$50. Free pets are sometimes sold for medical experiments or other unsavory uses.
- Spay or Neuter your pet before adoption. This will help prevent pet overpopulation and keep your pet from being used for breeding. Emancipet and Animal Trustees of Austin provide low cost basic medical care including sterilization.
- Ask questions. Here's what you want to know:
- What kind of life will your pet have with its new owners?
- Will they view it as a member of the family, or just a dog/cat?
- What will they do if it gets sick, or tears up their house, or doesn't get along with their other pets?
- Will it have daily exercise, quality food, regular vet care?
- Do they have experience with your pet's breed or specific issues your pet has?
- How do they plan to discipline your pet or train it?
- How much time will it spend in a crate or in the yard alone?
- Ask open-ended questions and really listen to the answers. Be non-judgmental and you will get more honest answers.
- If they have cats or kids or dogs, does your pet get along with those?
- How does their activity level fit with your pet's?
- Consider your personal safety when arranging to meet strangers who express interest in your pet. Use common sense.
Best Friends Animal Society has adoption packages for dogs and cats that go into great detail about how to screen an adopter and include sample applications and contracts. PitBull Rescue Central also has screening guidelines and a contract you can use. Don't give your pet to just anyone. Ask questions and don't relinquish your pet if you don't feel comfortable with the answers. When to Post Your Pet
Start looking for a new home as soon as possible. The more time you have, the better the chance that you will find a home before any deadline you might have.
Where to Post Your Pet
Craigslist
https://post.craigslist.org/aus/C/pet/none/x
More and more people turn to craigslist first when they are looking for a new pet. If you screen respondents, you can find really good homes through craigslist. You may wish to create an account with craigslist. This will let you easily re-post your ad if you need to. Plan to re-post at least once a week. People sometimes flag ads for removal, so check that your ad has not been removed.
http://www.petfinder.com/classifieds/prepost.html
Individuals as well as shelters can post pets on Petfinder. If you qualify for our assisted rehoming program, your pets will also be posted to PetFinder by us.
Oodle
http://austin.oodle.com/sale/pet/
Oodle is an online classifieds service that also aggregates classifieds from other sources such as local newspapers and even Petfinder. It reaches a large audience around the nation. Posting ads is free.
APA!'s No Kill Handbill
Austin Pets Alive! publishes a daily email newsletter dedicated to saving pets who are in Town Lake Animal Center or to keeping pets out of the Center. The Handbill also publishes articles regarding other shelters that affect the Austin area and area rescuers and animal-related events. Any interested person may submit articles for publication in the No-Kill Handbill.
If you would like to submit an article, please send it to nokillhandbill@austinpetsalive.org. Your article must begin with a title. Do not make the title all capital letters. This can cause the No-Kill Handbill to be marked as spam by some spam filters. Instead, capitalize only the first letter of each word of the title. The text of the article must contain complete sentences and reasonable grammar. The article must be signed with a first and a last name, as well as an email address. Articles that are missing this information will not be published.
Provide a url to a photo of your pet, or offer in the article to e-mail it to those interested. There are many free sites that offer online photo storage, including Flickr, Webshots, and Photobucket. Please do not e-mail photos to the handbill.
The No-Kill Handbill will only publish contact information if given direct permission to do so. In other words, no contact information can be posted about one person on behalf of another person. This is done to protect your privacy.
Pitbull Central ("pitbulls" or mixes only)
http://www.pbrc.net/adoption/searching.html
Future Pet
http://futurepet.com/dogclass.htm
Dog Services USA
http://www.dogservicesusa.com/?gclid=CNCjuIHMuJUCFQE0xgodmXWgQw
ARRF_TEXAS Yahoo Group
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ARRF_TEXAS
A list for animal related news in Texas, people often post pets at shelters that need rescue.
Herding Dog Rescue Yahoo Group
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/herdingdogrescue/
Please only post your dog to this group if it is one of the herding breeds.
Contact Other Rescue Groups
This is only a partial listing. Please do an internet search if you cannot find a group that can help you in this list. There are many rescue-related Yahoo groups, for example.
What to Do if you Must Surrender Your Pet to a Shelter
Town Lake Animal Center
Town Lake Animal Center will hold stray animals for the legally required 3 days (not counting the first day), but owner-surrendered animals may be given 24 hours or less. Animals that are extremely ill or injured may be euthanized immediately. Overall, 50%-60% of the animals entering the shelter for each of the last 10 years have died there. This is approximately 12,000 animals a year. But this distribution is not equal. Feral cats, kittens, and puppies under 6 weeks of age are more likely to die. Very old or ill animals, and those with noticeable hair loss, are more likely to die. The shelter has a policy that it will not adopt out aggressive animals. Animals that are very frightened at the shelter are more likely to die. Healthy, young, friendly animals, especially purebreds, have the best chance of either being placed in the adoption program or being taken in by a placement partner (what we call rescue groups). But even these animals are at risk if the shelter is already over-full when they arrive.Even if you surrender your pet to a shelter, don't stop looking for a home. Re-post your ads, especially to Craig's List, including the information that the pet is at a shelter, the shelter's id number, and the information that it has a limited time remaining. Often people will wait hoping someone else will take the pet, and will respond when the situation is urgent. This is no guarantee, so only surrender your pet as a last resort. You can call the shelter to check on the status of your pet. Pets are also visible on the TLAC website or on Petharbor.com until they leave the shelter.
If this is a found animal, you may want to take it to the shelter to give its owner the best chance of finding it. You can put in a backup application specifying that you will take the animal if no one claims it. View our Lost and Found Pets page for more guidance on dealing with a found pet.Alternatives to Rehoming Your Pet
Find Pet Friendly Housing
View a list at www.austinspetdirectory.comTemporarily Board Your Pet
(or solve destruction problems with doggy daycare)
Taurus Dog Training
http://www.taurusdogtraining.com/
Also visit this page that has tips on what to do if you can't afford medical care.
Solve your Behavior Problems
See our list of training resources on this wiki.
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