My cousin went to get a second cat yesterday. The shelter asked for her vet’s phone number. That seems like a good idea, making sure that she’s taking care of the first cat before giving her a second cat. However, they also asked for her social security number and permission to run a credit check. They won’t give her the cat until they get the credit report. She gave in, because she has already fallen in love with the cat.
It makes me so angry that a shelter might turn away someone who doesn’t make “enough,” has filed bankruptcy in the last seven years, or simply doesn’t have a credit history at all. Do they really think that people with a lot of money will automatically be good pet owners? Some of the most financially secure people I know have the worst tempers and least respect for other creatures. What does everyone else think?
They’re probably just looking for some idea of her background. Not so much you can’t have the cat unless you make $300,000/year but more of a how responsible are you in general kind of thing. The shelter also wants to know how serious you really are as a pet owner. At the shelter I volunteered at they also asked for a letter from your landlord or proof of home ownership since so many animals came back as “Landlord won’t let me keep him.”
When you work in a shelter and have to euthanize thousands of animals each year simply because people are irresponsible you get pretty jaded when someone off the street says “yeah I can handle a cat/dog/ferret/whatever … you just have to trust me”
When I was doing shelter work there were a few people who brought in cats because “they meow” (Now I know that is not anything you’d find from a credit check but can you blame the shelter for using every means it can to not have an animal returned in two weeks?)
Oh, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Doing a credit check can determine to some degree to responsibility, integrity, and priority. I don’t think they would turn you down if you weren’t a multi-millionaire, that’s not the point. But when people are out buying pets when having to go get food stamps the next day, that’s nuts. They just want to make sure there is nothing too dubious in your past that may prove you to be very irresponsible. These poor animals came from bad homes, or were abandoned/abused… and I’m sure they take all measures to make sure they are going to a home where they feel confident they will be taken care of in all aspects.
Another reason some humane shelters are picky is to be sure the person is not a front for some animal research lab or known for animal abuse. I agree, though, that SS number and credit check is a little much. Here in NJ there are TONS of animal rescue organizations. One I like a lot has the rather a-bit-too-cute name of Animal Rescue Force (ARF), but there are more.
There is a group around here that asks for the info but doesn’t actually DO anything with it - they just kind of play “chicken” with you. I guess the thinking is that if you are willing to let them look into your background, then they can assume that you are on the up and up.
Also, I have heard tell of ways (although I cannot prove that they exist) that certain organizations can find info about your criminal history from your SS# and other background info. If this is an animal rescue group, they most likely want to make sure that you have not been charged with animal cruelty in the past.
(If you have ever seen “Animal Precinct” on Animal Planet, then you know that there are “collectors” out there who keep having their pets removed from them, and yet they keep getting more because not everyone checks into this stuff.)
Because smackfu sometimes the people taking the animals abuse them horribly before you get them back. Is kitty spending 6 weeks being poked with a cattle prod before you get it back really better off?
I didn’t think to ask whether it was city run or private, probably private, if they can afford to be that picky. If the person lives in an apartment, I can see the idea of asking for a lease or a letter from the landlord to make sure the pet is allowed in the apartment. However, I don’t think financial responsibility is tied to taking responsibility for an animal. One is related to concern for yourself, the other one is about concern for other creatures. Some people can be awful about remembering to pay bills on-time, and still be kind considerate people Although, of course, people who are having trouble feeding themselves shouldn’t adopt pets, but do they very often? I do think the idea of calling the vet is good though, and that the vet’s opinion should probably be enough.
Can a non-government organization really look up someone’s criminal record? Checking for animal cruelty convictions is a good idea, though.
MLS, I wonder if the lab animals thing is an urban legend? It seems to me that lab animals would all have to have had a uniform upbringing to be of any use in experiments. I’m not a scientist though.
I can’t seem to edit my post. I wanted to add that even if I think checking for animal cruelty convictions is a good idea, I don’t think I’d give my SS# even for that (and I have no record, not even traffic tickets). It just gives me the creeps, though not as much as the credit report. I’ve always gotten my pets from “Free Puppy” type signs in the neighborhood though, and probably always will. I’m just suprised that shelters (and she is in a very upscale town, so it might just be there) would turn away people when so many animals need homes.
Well, hell, half the jobs I applied for when I was looking required okaying a credit check, even the ones with absolutely zero responsibility and no contact with money. (How you’re supposed to maintain your credit with no bloody job is a whole other issue.)
In this case the check is almost certainly just a way to make sure she can afford to feed the animal and take care of it properly, as well as getting a feel for how responsible she is. And, of course, it may be just them playing chicken with her to see if she backs down.
Most humane society workers have a “better off dead” attitude about their charges. Many would rather euthanize an animal right off the bat than take the risk that if a puppy or kitten is adopted it might be allowed to run free, and then be eventually killed because it was hit by a car or (God forbid) eaten by a snake. It never made much sense to me, but that is how it is handled in many shelters. The pets have two options - and ideal existence of excellent veterinary care, fenced in back yard /or never allowed outdoors, etc. etc. etc. or death.
If I were a cat, I might think living claw to mouth in a barn is preferrable to being killed, but most shelter workers don’t see it that way. Their extreme suspicion and down right hostility towards folks wanting to adopt the animals is an extension of this attitude. They worry about any placement that is less than ideal. Newspaper ad.s are a much easier way to locate a pet.
I can’t speak for all shelter/humane society people but I know where I was that they considered every placement very carefully and did indeed place animals in “less than ideal” circumstances rather than euthanize them.
Just one example of this is:
Some people come in looking for mousers … not an ideal situation exactly… the cat would be outdoors often; something shelters try to discourage. But if the cat will be well taken care of and the person understands that not all cats mouse well or even at all and they would still want to keep the cat then kitty goes home… they also want to know that after the mice are gone that kitty will still have a home… the shelter isn’t a rent-a-cat!
The problem is sometimes “less than ideal” ends up abusive and neglectful. I’ve seen animals left in crates so long the fur is matted to the bottom of the crate and the animal is covered in feces and sores. Puppies chained outside and ignored so long they grew and their collars didn’t so they end up embedded in the dog’s neck.
Keeping a pet is a huge responsibility. If it was up to me, I’d force people to take a three day test with multiple-choice questions, essays, and an oral exam. Take that as hostile toward people if you will - cuz it surely is. But, hey, I gave the people chance after chance after chance to prove that they were upright, responsible citizens who would care for their pets properly and prevent their pets from being a problem for others, and they just kept failing.
Oh well, thanks to the billions of dollars spent on spay and neuter awareness by well-established animal welfare groups, the average age of an animal surrended to a shelter is creeping from up from six to eight weeks (puppy and kittenhood) to six months to a year (about the point creatures start being dogs and cats.) So maybe there’s hope.
Alice Pink - data can, indeed compromised if the animals were just picked up off the streets. Unfortunately, there have been a number of cases in which the sellers were doctoring their info. If you are looking at, for instance, gunshot injuries or other broken-bone/torn flesh injuries, pedigree doesn’t matter. Of course, I can’t figure out why America’s fine ERs don’t provide more than enough data for that. In any case, most bad research is just same old irritants testing done more to create a legal defense of “we looked at this carefully” than to learn anything new.
Ah-you can’t edit your posts around here.
It sucks, but I understand why.
Either become friends with the preview function, or just press submit and hope for the best, as I do!
I do think that the credit check for a cat is a bit surprising. There’s a private rescue center around here who will not adopt a dog-regardless of its size or nature-out to anyone who does not have a fenced-in yard.
I think that’s a bit ridiculous. I mean, honestly. Are there more dogs out there who get run over than those who are stuck out in the yard all day and night :because: there’s a fence?
Somehow I doubt it.
I once "adopted a German Shepard/Malamute from the local shelter. They asked all the usual questions about my property, room to run, kennel facilities etc. He was a real nice dog, but it finally occured to us that he probably WAS the neighborhood dog who was killing the neighbors’ goats. Way too much trouble for us to keep him fenced in 24/7 and didn’t have the heart to put him on a chain. We took him back to the pound with the knowledge that they would try for 3 days to have him adopted. Thought sure someone would want him. After 2 days, nobody had adopted so I went to get him back. Their response was that anyone who gives an animal up for adoption must not love it enough to get it back. I had to pay a friend to adopt him for me just to save his life!
This is crap. Your commitment to the car you bought five years ago that you lost b/c your employer closed down has no bearing on whether or not you’d be a good pet owner. Neither is bankruptcy; sometimes, pardon my French, shit happens. And all a credit report will prove is the sterile black and white of it; many people run into financial difficulties, or get a little happy with a credit card. It doesn’t make them unworthy of a shelter pet!
One of the happiest dogs I ever met belonged to a homeless man here in downtown San Antonio; that dog ate before her owner did, and went everywhere in his backpack. She was a sweet, chubby little Jack Russell terrier named Sugar, and I guarantee you that little girl was a lot happier with her smelly homeless owner than she might have been as a “prestige purchase” for some yuppie with a big backyard and money to burn.
Last time I checked, dogs and cats don’t care about your credit rating.
AlicePink - not sure if “NGO”‘s can look up criminal records or not, but in some states (I think mine, PA, is one of them) police reports are matters of public record, to which ANYONE can get access. I agree with you about the SS# thing - I don’t like to give that out either. But, if organizations are any “good” or if they have the right contacts they can find what they need to know (including your SS# if they really want it) even if you don’t divulge everything. I’m not saying it’s necessarily moral or even legal - I’m just sayin’.
And personally, I’m with j.c. on the testing bit. We have 3 cats, all of them rescued, and I put people through the 3rd degree when we are looking for a “babysitter.” Our wonderful vet has actually refused to accept new patients who say that they do not want to have their pets spayed or neutered because “oh, they’re indoor cats” or “well, that’s an awful lot of money for surgery for a dog.”
[soapbox hijack]
I wish those bozos would live where I live, where there are at least 15 stray cats and kittens living in the dirt under the pool house, competing for food with squirrels, raccoons, skunks, etc. All because some yo-yo how long ago thought it would be “cute” for their unspayed cats to have kittens so they could teach their kids about “the circle of life.” Get cable or rent “The Lion King,” you goons!
[/soapbox hijack]