2024 Open Arms Challenge

Animal Welfare Should Tear Down Walls to Pet Ownership via Best Friends

Recently, a nonprofit rescue organization I work with asked me to update its adoption application, and as I reviewed the questions, I wondered why we even asked certain things. Why did we need to know where someone worked? What was the point of asking if the cat would have full access to the house when the family was at work, or if she would be allowed to share the person's bed? How did such things help us achieve our fundamental goal of making happy matches between pets and people? 

As we've noted in recent editorials and this week's town hall and vlog, we are still an industry where applications are used to eliminate people from the pool of potential adopters. Beyond that, we have established systemic constructs like punitive, costly return-to-owner fees designed to limit who deserves to have a pet—all while about 347,000 dogs and cats are dying in our shelters every year. 

It is hard enough to battle social issues influencing pet ownership like prohibitive pet deposits and limits on dog breed for renters and homeowners. Sure, we are working on those problems, but closer to home, we need to get out of our own way, stop applying arbitrary definitions of who is "a good owner" and empower people to keep their pets even if they need help to do so.