According to Craigslist:
*Partial list of items for sale and services the advertisement of which is not permitted on craigslist:
Household pets of any kind including but not limited to dogs, cats, primates, cage birds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, fish. Re-homing with small adoption fee OK *
With ambiguous language in these situations, you get a lot of problems. I adopted my dog from a person on craigslist for $100 (as they were in a major car accident and no longer able to take care of it and were going to surrender it to the pound if needed). I thought that was a fair small adoption fee for a dog.
I’ve seen however, people attempting to recoup all money they paid for a dog or cat. If they bought it and now don’t want it, they want to “rehome” it for the price they paid + whatever food/kennel/toys/whatever. These are the ads which are usually reposted many times for being flagged.
Free for both. If you get stuck w/ bills for an animal you can’t afford maybe you’ll make better choices next time.
Want to run your own rescue? Become a charity. But simply b/c you ‘didn’t realize’ how expensive an animal was going to be is no excuse.
I said $50 to $150, not to recoup costs, but just to weed out folks who haven’t thought through the financial aspects of pet ownership. “Can I get a dog Mom? It’s free. . .”
I thought the purpose of the rehoming fee was also to weed out people who would just turn around and sell the dog to medical researchers. I voted $1 - $50 for dogs. I voted free for cats, I think there’s lots of them available already.
This is what my ex did when she had a dog that we could no longer keep. The woman who got the dog was very upset that she wanted to get rid of the dog and that she wanted money for the dog. She had a Bedlington Terrier and she only wanted money to make sure the person who got the dog knew what they were getting into.
$50 for dogs is ideal. It’s low enough to not be a barrier to people who will care for the dog, but high enough to be a barrier to folks who are getting it on a whim and/or have no idea what sort of costs come with a dog. $100 might even be better.
I would not pay a dime to take in someone’s pet. I’m doing them a favor by providing a good home for the animal. If I just wanted an animal, I have no doubt that I could have one by leaving food out in my backyard.
I would, and have, paid an adoption fee when I got a kitten from a reputable, no-kill shelter years ago.
And PETA is a group of whacked out nutjobs. I won’t have anything to do with them.
When I was looking for a dog on craigslist, the higher fees “to prove that I knew owning dog was expensive” really rubbed me the wrong way, especially since the fees weren’t going to the care of the dog.
Paying for already incurred vet bills or microchipping or food made sense. A few places wanted vouchers from a local vet showing that I’d prepaid for vet care. Those were fine. If someone had said they wanted to see a voucher for specialized pet food from one of the gourmet/organic pet food stores around town, I wouldn’t have minded. But I still don’t see why handing some guy $400 makes me a better pet owner. If anything, it now means I have $400 less to spend on the health and feeding of the dog.
I think that requiring about $50-100 for both dogs and cats is reasonable, IF the animals have been given at least one set of shots. More if the animal has been chipped.
I say this mainly to weed out people who are not going to take care of a free animal, and to weed out the people who will sell the animals to medical labs. Yes, I do agree with animal testing, in some circumstances, but random source animals are not the best subjects for most legitimate tests.
We got our fourth cat because my husband’s nephew and his family went off on a week long cruise, leaving an 8 month old kitten outside to fend for herself. No food, no water, no shelter, nobody to look after her. We hadn’t planned on getting a fourth cat…
That is my feeling, too. There have been a few animal torturers in my city (the real kind, not the urban legends) and I was told by a shelter employee that many just troll for free animals only, promising a happy life on a farm in exchange. Apparently just $20-$50 is too much of a bother for them. Same for people who get animals for free and sell them to labs or new owners.
I like amarinth’s example of prepaying for vet care. I’m going to recommend that to some people I know who work in animal rescue.
We rehomed our dog on Craigslist this last year. We did it with no fee, because we genuinely only wanted him to have a good home - we didn’t care about the money. However, in retrospect, I do wish we had included a small fee, because we had a LOT of responses, and the vast majority turned out to be flakes. A fee would have helped weed them out. I would have even been fine charging a fee, then refunding it after, say, six months if everything was still working out OK.
A nice compromise I’ve seen: The advertiser asks for 100 or so, but that money goes to a vet of the new owners choice as a balance on account or gift certificate, to pay for the next vet visit or meds/etc.
I have informally rescued animals for over 20 years. I always ask a fee, but usually that’s just to weed out the flakes. In reality, I have always been willing to give the animal away once I have met the person and decided they are the appropriate person for the animal.
I picked $50-100 for dogs and $1-50 for cats because I have always had at least that much into the animal (usually including spay/neuter) before it leaves my home. If I have not had the animal altered, I require a prepaid vet certificate for that.
I have yet to make money back on any animal that I have rescued and it’s not about getting my money back anyway. It’s always about making sure the animal has a good home that I am comfortable having it go to.
What’s all this about selling animals to research labs? Research specimens usually have a known providence, including genetic history, and are bred specially for the purpose. Does anyone have a cite? Sounds like urban legend to me… the predatory eeevil vivisectionist posing as a pet adopter and collecting Craigslist animals…
I definitely think there should be a fairly substantial re-homing fee (around $100). As another poster said, not to recoup costs, but to make sure the person is serious about the pet.