The episode discusses the rest of the application process with a foster-based organization and moves on to the fun part: the adoption meeting! Go behind the scenes and find out what we're looking for and what we talk about before an animal goes home forever.
This week's Adoptable Roadie is Cassian Andor! This adorable guy is full of spunk and he's a busy, happy boy that just wants to go, go go. Is he the right fit for you? Check out all our adoptable animals at www.motleyzoo.org.
If you have questions about our podcast, please email us at rescueshit@motleyzoo.org!
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
The episode discusses the rest of the application process with a foster-based organization and moves on to the fun part: the adoption meeting! Go behind the scenes and find out what we're looking for and what we talk about before an animal goes home forever.
This week's Adoptable Roadie is Cassian Andor! This adorable guy is full of spunk and he's a busy, happy boy that just wants to go, go go. Is he the right fit for you? Check out all our adoptable animals at www.motleyzoo.org.
If you have questions about our podcast, please email us at rescueshit@motleyzoo.org!
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
Hey, this is Pate. Oh, hello, Jme. I thought you were gonna introduce me. Do it again. Oh, I'm supposed to introduce you? No. Oh my mind with you starting that's what it was. Hey, this is Pate. And I'm Jme. And we are Motley Zoo Animal Rescue, and this is Rescue Shit. Boop We went through the application process and the questions we ask and ended with Pate, the Animal Control- no Animal Care Director, making matching decisions for dogs. I say that because she has control. She has control over me. No And obviously making decisions for dogs is a little more complicated than for cats, and it may take longer. Partially because we have a team of volunteers that work on the cat side and we don't have that much support for dogs, but dogs have more specific issues and so we need to, address those issues. So it might take a little bit more time to find those matches and adopters. So how do you go about that, o nce you've determined a match, what's the next step? After I've determined a match for one of our dogs, I send the congrats email to the applicant. Once the applicants then acknowledge that they got the congratulations letter, which I would say there are two congratulations letters also. There's congrats, you're approved to adopt so-and-so- the dog that you picked or congrats, you're approved to adopt, but we don't think so-and-so is a good fit. Let's start talking about who is, and here are our suggestions. Mm-hmm. But once they come back and they say, great, we're very excited. We set up a meeting, usually it's three or four days... There's two things really, because we do have a Foster to Adopt program now. But for the ones who are already spayed and neutered who are ready to go home, it's just a simple congratulations. Place a deposit on the dog so that we can set up a meeting. We're gonna have you put down a$25 non-refundable hold deposit. And that means that we've stopped looking at other people and we are only considering you and we would like the adoption appointment to be made in a reasonable amount of time... Within a week. Which also means that when we're looking at other people, if the meeting does not go well, for whatever reason, we've potentially missed out on other homes. It's important that there is some kind of financial b enefit to the animals if you don't show up for the appointment... Which has happened. Yes. Our time is just as valuable as your time. And so the$25 deposit does go toward the adoption donation of the animal that you're meeting. So we're not just taking another$25 and then the adoption donation. We are rolling that into the adoption donation. But in the event that you don't show up then we still have$25 to share with the animals and help them get a vaccine or whatever. So we are either adopting out animals or we're raising money for the animals. Those are the only two things that we have time for. Now we're gonna share a little bit more about the adoption meeting and maybe we can tell some of the stories about situations that happened that led us to maybe say no during the meeting or yeah, people that just weren't great, unfortunately. Or the situation just needed a follow up meeting. Like that timing wasn't good. Yes. When you show up to an adoption meeting, we ask that the entire family is present. Dogs. Oh. Unless it's a cat adoption, then please don't bring your other pets. Just bring all the people. Correct. So for a cat adoption, please bring all the people in your family, not the pets. When it is a dog, you must bring all the people in your family and bring your dog or dogs because we need to make sure it's a good fit. The dog interaction... With everyone. And some people get really annoyed by that. We decided that for a reason though. And why don't you explain a little bit about what that reason is? Having an animal is a family pet. It's not having an animal for a child, or it's my dog, not my husband's dog. The whole family should be involved because a dog is going to be trained by the entire family, how to interact with the entire family. You don't want a dog to resource guard one person because that's the only person that ever interacts with the dog. So we wanna make sure that everyone is on board having a dog in the home. And that's because sometimes we have become marriage counselors. Sometimes it's before the adoption, where in the application people apply and then they, we say, congratulations. And then suddenly they say, oh, my husband won't let me adopt. And then other times we are in a middle of a meeting and the spouses are arguing with each other over whether or not to take this dog home. We did have that happen. And it was because a dog had recently passed and the wife and the daughter desperately wanted another dog, but the husband wasn't on board and he actually left in the middle of the meeting. Yeah. There were lots of tears in that meeting. Yeah. And we couldn't move forward with the meeting because the husband was not ready and okay, fine. Maybe he would've fallen in love with the dog eventually, but what if he didn't? And then that's not gonna be fair to our Roadie. And he was being pretty hostile. Well, I mean, who leaves in the middle of a meeting? It was, he was very resistant. Like, fine, do whatever you want. Mm-hmm. And that's not a home that we wanna send an animal to and whether or not we were willing to move forward later, which I think we would have if the guy came around or whatever, but... If he came back into the room. Yeah. And into the building. He left the building. He did leave the building. So, you know, that's an extreme example. Mm-hmm. Another example was before your time with Motley Zoo and we had a dog that we adopted to a man and his child, and two weeks later he called me and said that we had to give the dog back because his wife didn't want the dog. And that was the first time; that had never occurred to me that that could happen. And so that's really where it started... Mm-hmm. Was a dog actually had to come back and we didn't have a place for him either, so he had to stay a boarding facility until we found a new home for him, which was not ideal. Mm-hmm. You know, we want to be able to take our dogs back, but not for preventable reasons. We want preventable reasons to be avoided, which is why we take so much time and effort with the application process, with the vetting, calling the landlords. We try and weed out all the reasons why this animal might come back to us for something that can be prevented. Everything that we do has a reason behind it. So our rules are not arbitrary. It's because there's been events in the past that have led us to making certain rules and the rule of everyone being involved in the adoption meeting is for that instance. But also we get surrenders, I gotta surrender the day of Mother's Day because the daughter bought the mother, what was it? A little Yorkie or something? I think so. And the mother was like,"I don't want a dog. I never asked for a dog". Because dogs are not gifts. They're not surprises for someone. And when people do say,"Oh, it's gonna be a surprise for my dad", or a surprise for my wife, we say... My son's birthday... Right? We say, that's great. This part of the process can be a surprise, but you need to bring them to the surprise meeting... Mm-hmm. Where they meet, and then can take home their dog as long as it's a good fit. The meeting is the surprise, not you getting home with the dog under the tree or whatever it is that you envision. And on that same note, no, we can't save the dog till Christmas day. No. Or Christmas Eve. That's not gonna happen either. No. The animals shouldn't be the present. Maybe the products of the animals can be their present. Like different toys or Sure, yeah. Whatnot. It's important that whoever this surprise event is for, they need to be at that meeting and we will not do an adoption if it's not going to be that way. Why don't you quickly explain too, in the adoption meeting, how long are they, and what is the general discussion? Adoption meetings for cats can be roughly half an hour. It's just basically talking more in depth about the cat and its needs and how to set up your home for that transition. Cats are different than dogs. Cats, they move at their own pace. So a dog can be your instant best friend right away, and cats may not dig you for a couple weeks until they've settled. Then they've watched you and they've stalked you, et cetera, and then kittens obviously, it's just seeing them, playing with them and then going home with them. Yeah. Just making sure it's a good bond and that... Mm-hmm. If there's kids involved, they're ready, they're excited. Right. And so we are reading the people too, reading the room... Especially the children, because children are more apt to get bitten by dogs and scratched and bitten by cats and we do wanna make sure that child interaction is appropriate and that parental intervention is appropriate as well. Or existent. True dat. If the kids are running around screaming, they are not listening, they're scaring the crap out of the dog, we're not there to judge children but boy, if you're getting a dog, especially, they need to be able to listen to directions and we need a bombproof dog is what we call it. Right. And cuz you re you have to realize the majority of dog bites, dog maulings, things like that, are child related. You should teach your child never, never wake up a sleeping dog. I've punched someone in the face once when they woke me up, not because. I was, see it was an accident. You're a violent person. That's why. I know, but I mean, you know, cuz you're waking up and I maybe I was in the middle of a dream. I've dreamed that I was a vampire hunter before, so you know, who knows what I was dreaming when you woke me up. And the same thing applies to a dog. If they're sleeping, children should not think it's okay to pet them, wake them, crawl on them, et cetera. So we want to make sure that the parents are parenting during that meeting and then the children aren't running amuck because it's really for the safety of the children. Yes. And we had a situation in our daycare where a dog that was nine years old and had been coming to to us since a puppy, one of our dog trainers went to pet him and he turned around and snapped at her and made contact but didn't hurt her. And that surprised her. But the dog was sleeping. Mm-hmm. And that can happen at any point in time. Heaven forbid the dog get older and be deaf and... Mm-hmm. The kid comes up and puts their face in the dog's face and the next thing you know... I mean, I know that's happened to adults. Mm-hmm. I can think of an instance where a woman instantly wanted to surrender her dog because she went to kiss a good night and it bit her. And that was what they had done every day, but she scared it. And she couldn't forgive the dog and I that, That's ridiculous. That's, that really upset me. But yeah, she couldn't forgive the dog and then she bought another German Shepherd puppy that she didn't train and also needed to rehome because it was very aggressive. So two instances where she did the wrong thing. Mm-hmm. And the poor dog... Suffered for it. Suffered the consequences. Another reason that we might end an adoption meeting is when people are really super rude. So when you told me about Mrs. Bigglesworth's adopter Oh God. She showed up early. She interrupted the adoption meeting you were doing and she just kind of took over the situation and it's not your personality to let somebody do that, but you at the time, you also were not given the authority to make choices like that. I, yeah. I was still kind of green and this was a coworker of... A foster... A foster who was with the organization longer than I was. Yes. So, nowadays that ain't gonna fly, but back then there was a lot of questions in my mind of not overstepping and things like that. Well, and she was so bad that I think you were just, you were really just shocked, like,"Oh my gosh, is this really happening? And she was such a bitch. She was. Even the other adoptive family was really taken aback and they're like go... Go deal with her. Yes. And we will wait patiently here, even though we were here first. Exactly. Nowadays, we would never let that happen. We would just tell the lady, you can go wait in your car. Mm-hmm. And you can wait there forever. As long as you... You can go bugger off. Yeah. Because we are not even gonna do an adoption with you. Mm-hmm. So if you're exceptionally rude, w e're not gonna adopt you. Like we want to even remotely like the people that we adopt our animals to. And we are not desperate in that way, we are going to pick the nice people for the animal. Right? Be nice, be honest. Yes. Be kind. That doesn't take a lot to be kind. No. Adoptions do work. We are not judging people. We are, again, trying to find matches. And sometimes things click and you see when it clicks... 99% of the time it clicks. Mm-hmm. They've jumped through the hoops, we've done the legwork, Right? Mm-hmm. You're there because we believe you're the right person for this dog. We believe in adoption can happen, and then we just need to know that you also agree with that. And from that point, then you can take the dog home. Right, exactly. So 99% of the time everyone goes home with the dog that they meet and puppies especially a lot easier, because they are that moldable clay. And it's really easy to fall in love with a puppy. Older puppies, sometimes they go through the fear behaviors, but you have a family who is dedicated. They already know coming in that this dog may have certain behavioral issues that need to be worked on, such as gaining confidence. Well, so rarely do dogs just jump in people's lap. A puppy might... Mm-hmm a puppy might... Sometimes puppies that are scared too. Right, yeah. So, you know, that idea that the dog is just gonna jump in your lap... Be your best friend right away. Yeah. It's not that common and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the dog. Mm-hmm. At all. But a lot of the dogs that we see maybe have been through a few adjustment periods. They just need to get some confidence and so yeah, adjusting your expectations too. And most of the time it is a little bit of work and effort to get them to trust you, but that is so rewarding. Mm-hmm. When you do that. Yeah. It's reality versus expectations. And if you set your expectations appropriately, then you won't be disappointed. It would be wrong to put that kind of expectation on an animal. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's a live animal... Right. That'd be like, I mean, in, don't they say in show business, like working with kids and animals is the most difficult. Most difficult. Yeah. And those are supposed to be professionals. So, here you are, you're, you're coming in and working with an animal and you kind of have to expect that anything is gonna go because they are living, breathing creatures and things can happen that we don't expect but most of the time the meetings go really great and we spend half an hour and hour... Half an hour to an hour. And then they get to walk the dog, they get to interact. And instead of just the dog jumping into their arms and kissing their face, and I, I mean, we do have make out artists who, you know, they're just a little forward and, and then some dogs just take a minute, like, who are these people? And then you walk them, you give them treats or whatever, and they're like, oh, you are awesome. And yeah, 90% of the time there's no issues whatsoever. So in that meeting, in that half an hour to 60 minutes, we are discussing some different things with the family w hile we're observing the behavior and their responses and all the interactions that are happening. And o ne of the things we talk about is any specifics for that animal. You know, this animal had this particularly scary event and they are a little triggered by this or this or this, or here's how you need to approach them. Please remember, put the leash on, leave it on so you don't have to chase them. So we talk a lot about the behavior. And then of course there's a fair amount of health discussion too we know as much as we know about these animals, they've seen at least two vets and we've done very thorough, review of their health. But obviously if a situation isn't showing, we are not gonna look for it either. They don't see two vets. They do, they see the shelter vet when... But what if they don't come from the shelter? Well, okay. If they have a health problem, they will see two vets, that's for sure. So oftentimes when the animals are coming out of the shelter, they've seen the vet there, then we're gonna do an intake exam... Right. So that puts two eyes on the animal. If it's an owner's surrender, they may only see one vet once, but if something is discovered as a health problem, then they will see another vet because they're probably gonna go to a specialist. We're gonna investigate further, so there will be more eyes on that animal. So we know what we know. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna relay that to you. We never want anything to be a surprise about the animal that we're adopting to you. Also, we will never omit anything. Mm-hmm. Because we always say a lie could kill a dog later. If we didn't tell you something and left it out by omission, that could be the very thing that put the dog's life in danger later, and we're not gonna do it. But you should know before going into the meeting if there's any health issues because we will discuss that in advance well, obviously if there's a missing limb you're gonna know that from the pictures. But for cats, for example, if they've had some illnesses that you can't see, such as a heart murmur, such as, heartworm positive treatment, I mean, they were past treatment, if they've had ringworm in the past, things like that. Remember, ringworm is a fungus, like athlete's foot fungus. And a lot of teenage wrestlers have it, so it's not a worm, it's just got a really bad name. It's a mold. Is fungi mold or is it totally different? It's a totally different thing. But they both have spores. Yeah. Anyway, you're gonna know any kind of medical questions or concerns. If they have hip dysplasia, you're gonna know before the meeting and we just discuss it in further detail. With puppies, we discuss how to potty train, how often you should be feeding a puppy. Socializing. Socializing. Don't overexercise a puppy. Rule of thumb, five minutes per month. So a three month old puppy should not have more than a 15 minute walk in your backyard because he's not vaccinated enough for you to walk in the neighborhood. There have been on occasion times where the Foster decides the adoption meeting is the right place to tell us about health or behavior situations that we didn't know about before. Ugh. Depending on the severity of those situations, we may have to call off the meeting. Correct. But typically it's not too bad. Mm-hmm. But they might tell us something that we didn't know, which we will then have to have a discussion with them that they need to prepare us for that. Right. And they need to tell us that information, more freely. Yeah. And we try to alleviate those situations. But every now and then, something may pop up. The Fosters are able to, if they like, meet the adoptive family and the adoptive families sometimes like to meet the fosters because the dogs and cats have been living with these people and so they know them and their personality quirks and, and what their likes, their dislikes. I think the meetings go really well when the foster families are there. Mm-hmm. I guess sometimes the Fosters though, will decide that they can't handle the meeting. Mm-hmm. They're maybe too attached or they're gonna cry. Mm-hmm. And that's fine. And sometimes they do cry. Other times they've done this so many times that they're just like, yay, adoption, yay. Mm-hmm. And they trust us and they know that they're going to a great home. And, you know, there isn't such an emotional... Hesitance. Yeah. There there's not such a priority that they have to be there because they know how it's gonna go. They know it's gonna go pretty well. And then thankfully in the times when it maybe doesn't yield in adoption, usually the fosters are ready to pick them up and take them home and try again. And, you know, we'll tell them exactly what happened and... Why we didn't think it was a good fit, even though it looked good on paper. Yes, and again, that's relatively rare. Mm-hmm. But we like the Fosters to be involved when it works for them. Mm-hmm. Dogs are brought home with a martingale, which is a special type of collar that we use. It is not your typical flat collar. T his is really effective for skittish dogs nervous dogs because if something startles them on a walk with their new family, a flat collar's just gonna fly over the top of their head. Whereas a martingale will close around the neck and give them a little bit of time to settle the dog. And then we don't have to worry about putting up lost dog posters all over the place after a new adoption. It cinches evenly around around the neck, and that helps, keep them safer. And then in addition to the martingale that the dogs go home with, they also get a Motley Zoo leash part of our branding so they can represent, which we need to order more. By the way, you need big ones. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So we got little ones. it's, I know it's so hard. It's hard to find good... Big dog leashes. We've done leashes and we had some that you can brand. We had some originally that were amazing, but then in reordering them, we were never able to get the right kind. Anyway, we digress, So they go home with a leash and a collar, a tour bag of starter supplies. The fosters should bring the food that they've been on so that they can transition in their new home to avoid stomach upset. If there are any medications that the animals on, we'll go over those. We go over a medical summary, which tells about everything that they'll need to know for the dog to make sure that they stay on the vet schedule. Don't they sound really echoy? You do. Why? Yeah. I don't know. I'm gonna get really close. I still sound echoy though. You do. I wonder why. Uh... Okay. So then they go home with a dog. I wanted... Seventies porno music?! I wanted to do this. No, no, I wanted to do this. Okay. Yeah. Nice. Porno music. Why is it even on there? I don't know. It is really weird and I don't know that we can change it, but yeah. So, when we're done doing all this talking and w e watch them take the dog out and get into the car and go home and live happily ever after. Yeah. I forgot what I was supposed to say. I'm Jme. Yeah, I'm Jme I'm Pate. And we are from Motley Zoo and this is our podcast Rescue Shit. Rock on. Rescue On. Woo.