Animal Welfare Professionals

We are always caught between a rock and a hard place when someone wants to return a cat they adopted from us a few years after they adopt.  We are a very small foster based rescue so it is hard for us to take back an adult who was adopted as a kitten.  But we feel that if we say no they will just abandon the cat outside or worse.  How do you handle this?  

#Rehoming

------------------------------
Jill Olejniczak
President
Wells Valley Cat Rescue
CT
------------------------------

Our shelter is a non profit with a city contract in which animal control operates out of our facility and we are required to take in any stray animal that comes our way. Similar to how you have to balance the resources capacity you have with your foster network, we also have to take into consideration our capacity and resources when people want to surrender. We've been able to take the time to develop a waitlist for potential surrendered animals so that we can try to manage intake and schedule in surrenders when we can. Along with this we also provide a list of local rescues who do not have to deal with the mess that is our stray intake, rehoming resources (which can also be found on our website), we have some programs for vet care if that is the reason for surrendering, and we have a behavior help hotline where they can contact our behavior team (which includes cats!) for advice on what they can do in the home to help with behaviors. I've even given away supplies when I can if that's what they need, like trying out different types of litter and litterboxes for litter box issues in the home. And at the end of the day, if you've tried everything you can think of to keep the animal out of the shelter and the owner has tried everything they can think of to fix the issues or rehome on their own, sometimes you just have to take it in for the benefit of everyone.

For your purposes I would suggest a little smaller scale of what our shelter does. Maybe create a waitlist where people can email or submit in person applications for surrendering and when they do that immediately provide some local resources for rehoming or nearby rescues. From there you can review their case and get back with them with either advice or scheduling a time that they can bring in the cat. This would give you more time to prepare and search your foster network for people willing and available if you do end up taking it in, and can make the transition a lot easier since it wouldn't all be last minute. Doing this would also ease the mind of the owner a little, knowing that they aren't immediately being turned away. I'm not sure if this varies but animal abandonment is illegal where I am so if they threaten or you're worried about that, you can always remind them of that fact.

------------------------------
Laurel Wilton
Feline Welfare Supervisor
Nebraska Humane Society
------------------------------

We're in a different boat, we're a brick-and-mortar private shelter with municipal contracts. We have a "lifetime guarantee" for our animals. We take them back regardless of how much time has passed or the reason they're coming back to us, although we do schedule appointments for people to bring pets back so that we can make sure we have space. 

The foster-based rescue and the brick-and-mortar rescue I worked with also had this policy and they, too, would schedule appointments so they could get something arranged. The president of the foster-based rescue did have a single bank of cages in her house as a fall-back, as well, which helped when a pet needed to come back urgently but they were still trying to find a foster.

------------------------------
Sam Maurice
Humane Society of Jefferson County
Jefferson WI
https://hsjc-wis.com
------------------------------

We always take back our cats.  but we might have a wait until there is space.  Meanwhile we work with owner to do Rehome on Adoptapet.com

We have them send photo with write up so we can show potential adopters  prior to intake.

------------------------------
Sue Webb
Stray Pets In Need of Mass.
Natick MA
------------------------------

Returns are so hard, especially when they have been in a home for a while. We frequently have it happen and have a policy to always take back our adopted cats. I feel bad for the animals as often times they are adopted as kittens and returned several years later. I find these cats don't do well in a rescue because they are so used to a home environment and shut down pretty quickly when returned. We would rather get the animals back than have them end up on the streets or another rescue.

------------------------------
Stefanie Schmidt
Animal Welfare Specialist
Hearts Alive Village
NV
------------------------------