# Screening Adopters



## Jazy's mom (Jan 5, 2004)

This came up in another thread, but I thought I would start a new thread.

How do other rescues do background checks / screen potential adopters?

I always ask for vet references, but what other checks do rescues do?

What are some good internet sites to search for animal abuse?

Any other ideas or hints would be great.


----------



## oregongsdr111 (Nov 20, 2005)

We run information through the County / City Animal Control to see if there have been any issues at the address, phone number, or names of applicant or co-applicant.

I think depending on the working relationship you have with the Counties, and the rescue determine how cooperative they are.
We pull from all our County Shelters so they are pretty good to us.

We do the typical vet check.
You can go onto Petabuse.com.
They have the bigger case names.
I also work with many other rescues from all over the State, and in turn they work with rescues in neighboring States. If a person of concern leaves an area, word of mouth travels pretty quickly.

We also get tips from the public that are helpful, not only about individule people, but collectors, people posing as rescues and selling pets as intact for the purpose of breeding, or just selling pets that were gained for the purpose of life time ownership, then posted on craigslist or the paper for profit.

I think official DNA lists can be grounds for a lawsuit, but sharing of gerneral facts is okay. 

Networking is the best way to gain information, but research should be done to validate the facts.


----------



## MemphisCockers (Dec 12, 2003)

One additional thing I do is to check the county's property assessor website whenever possible to verify that the applicant really owns the home if they claim to be a homeowner. I do this before contacting the applicant. In one case when I checked an address, it turned out to be an apartment complex and they'd simply left off the apartment number. We don't decline apps based solely on owning vs. renting or even being in an apartment, but we decline automatically if there's false information on the app.

Steph


----------

