Animal Welfare Professionals

If a person fills out our adoption screening form and have an unfixed cat or dog, we have routinely denied the adoption until their personal pet is fixed. Recently, we are revisiting this because there are instances when the vet has instructed them not to fix the animal until it's a certain age (i.e. 15 months for large dogs, six months for kittens.)  We do pediatric spay/neuters (2 lb. and up. We've received some pushback on this and are considering an addendum for when their pet is not old enough to be fixed, but to enable them to schedule their pet and take home one of our cats or kittens. We would appreciate some guidance on this, as well as verbiage. Thank you.

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms

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Candy Sullivan
Managing Director
Candy's Cats, Inc.
FL
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Hi Candy, 

We do not necessarily deny someone for adoption if their pet is unaltered. It just limits what they would be allowed to adopt. For example, we would never send a female to a home with an unaltered male. We do ask the potential adopters why their pet is unaltered.  A lot of the time it is because it is a large breed dog and their vet won't do it until they are a certain age. We talk to them about the importance of spay/neuter and try to get them signed up for our low cost clinic. If the people seem shady or just haven't done it because they don't want to, then we may deny them. If the people mention breeding or wanting their female to have a litter first, we would deny that. But if the people are nice, cooperative, and have a reason or are willing to come to our clinic, we don't deny the adoption. 

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Erin Robinson
Foster Coordinator
Licking County Humane Society
OH
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I think this can be a complex question depending on who you are asking. In my experience there is a lot of questioning and discussion that goes into the decision if we should or should not adopt to this individual. The first thing I want to do is ask why the personal animal is not altered because I have seen medical situations where the vet recommends waiting until a specific time frame or avoiding surgery at all. They may not want to put the animal under anesthesia due to complications with certain values within the animals blood work or chronic respiratory. I experienced a situation where a cat had severe chronic respiratory problems and there was concern regarding the cats ability to breathe. If they provide an answer that falls within these guidelines then I would follow up with their vet to confirm the situation. If the vet confirmed then I would be willing to adopt to them. I would not adopt any unaltered animal to them though. If an individual does not have their pet spayed/neutered I would also have a discussion on the health and behavior benefits and would ask if that is something they are willing to do. If they would be willing to have their animal altered and would like to adopt after, I would be more than happy. (There are still a lot of people who do not know the benefit of spay/neuter and it is not because they are bad owners just that they have not gotten the necessary information). If the individual who wanted to adopt did not fall into these categories and just did not think it was important or something they wanted to spend their money on, then I would decline the adoption. I feel like there is a lot of information that goes into making the decision and it just varies case to case on the situation. 

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Kendall hotmer
Founder
Appalachian Feline Foster Network
OH
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We do not adopt into families with cats or dogs that have not been spayed/neutered either.  All of our dogs are spayed first thing when we pick them up from the shelter (even the puppies) and the cats/kittens also don't go home until they are spayed/neutered (they get an age appropriate "spa day") Historically, even if you hold money for adopters to spay the animal later, many don't follow up and we don't have the volunteers to track all of that.  I know this is controversial for dogs but I think the benefits of making sure there are no more pregnancies far outweigh the possible down side.  Additionally, the cost of getting one animal spayed in our area (NJ) has become astronomical for most people.

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Peggy Schipper
All Fur One
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