Animal Welfare Professionals

Curious how you all handle adoption hold fees?  While we try to do same day adoptions, we sometimes have people who can't complete the process that day (bring in other dog, other family members, etc).  How long do you hold the animal and do you charge a fee for that?  Does it go towards the adoption fee, or additional?

Thanks!

Kerry

For dog & child meetings, we do a 24 hour hold and it is $25 to do the hold. The hold fee is non-refundable, but it does go towards the adoption. If they choose not to adopt that particular animal, the fee can go towards another adoption. 

We do an adoption hold fee. It is valid until the close of the next adoption day and is $15. It comes off of the adoption fee if they come back in that time period and finalize the adoption. If they don't come back or choose a different pet, then it is non-refundable and considered a donation to our shelter.

We have struggled with this in the past. You have what you think is an amazing adopter, they want the dog so badly and they are supposed to be at your event first thing. You pass up other adopters, and then they never show up and you don't hear from them again or they say they adopted another dog. So, what we do, is we allow someone to put a $150 non-refundable deposit to hold the dog. If they adopt from us it goes towards the adoption donation, if they don't show up or decide not to adopt, then we keep the $150 as a deposit. We are up front about that and have them sign something that says they understand. We have a few people who do that, but a lot less than when we charged nothing.

Are dog and family member meetings required at your shelter or is this only if the people want to do the intros?  I'd move away from having required meet and greets, a la Adopters Welcome https://www.animalsheltering.org/sites/default/files/content/Adopters-Welcome-Implement-Policies-That-Remove-Barriers-And-Increase-Options.pdf

We hold the animals for free for two days after the application is approved. If we don't hear back from the applicants we assume they're not interested and we contact the next interested applicant (if there is one). We're a relatively small shelter, so it's uncommon for us to have more than one application on most animals, unless they're kittens or purebred/purebred looking dogs and cats.

We offer a $25 hold until the close of business the following day. It does not go toward the adoption fee because it's an added service for the adopter's convenience--to give them more time to make a decision or to get their home set up. If we are requiring the hold, such a for a medical hold, there's no charge. We'll allow up to two holds per animal. 

Our hold fee is $35, it doesn't apply to the adoption fee and is good until closing the next business day. No exception. Our goal is to get animals into homes quickly.