# DogsInDanger.Com Do You Think It Encourages Impulse Adoptions?



## Gharrissc (May 19, 2012)

I was talking with the director of the city shelter last week who was telling me that she has decided to pull her listings from Dogsindanger.com because of a lot of people who saw dogs on the site with their euth date,adopted them, and then returned them due to having 'good intentions',but not being ready to for a dog.

I wanted some opinions on whether or not you thought the site does more harm than good? My opinion is that while many people may request to adopt dogs they see on the site,it is the shelter's responsibility to be sure the dogs are in the best possible homes. That still doesn't guarantee the dog will remain in that home,but it will cut down on a lot of returns or rehoming the dogs to another person.


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## Gretchen (Jan 20, 2011)

I don't know about this site, but our local SPCA now has a branch inside our mall. And yes I think it encourages impulse adoptions. 

Case in point my neighbor: Two weeks ago, he and his wife were in the mall, our local SPCA is a no-killer shelter, my neighbors said they advertise this and that they bring in dogs from kill-shelters and so of course my neighbors said that although they were not looking to get another dog, when they were at the mall and found out this one dog was close to being killed in a shelter from SoCal, they adopted him. And although my neighbors are crazy in some ways, at least they are good pet owners. So the dog should be OK.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Yes! So do those listings on The German Shepherd Community on Facebook. People jump in without proper evals and then get a dog transported across the country to find they aren't suitable for the homes. One dog almost ended up in a shelter in a different state due to that.


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## sitstay (Jan 20, 2003)

I certainly do believe it encourages impulse adoptions.
Sheilah


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## gsdraven (Jul 8, 2009)

Yes! And I absolutely hate "reduced or no adoption fee" weekends.



Jax08 said:


> Yes! So do those listings on The German Shepherd Community on Facebook. People jump in without proper evals and then get a dog transported across the country to find they aren't suitable for the homes. One dog almost ended up in a shelter in a different state due to that.


I think Facebook "rescuers" and Urgent pages are doing a huge disservice to the rescue community as a whole. 11th hour dogs are posted and shared all over the world and people are helping complete strangers obtain dogs with absolutely NO idea who the person is or where the dog is really going.


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## Mrs.K (Jul 14, 2009)

Jax08 said:


> Yes! So do those listings on The German Shepherd Community on Facebook. People jump in without proper evals and then get a dog transported across the country to find they aren't suitable for the homes. One dog almost ended up in a shelter in a different state due to that.


Absolutely agree with you. Especially Facebook groups like Urgent are notorious for that. One word that you are just _thinking _about taking a dog and you get pressured into taking it by getting tons and tons of messages and once you have taken one dog. Just one, they WILL remember you and keep on pressuring you into taking more because you've taken this one already and one more can't be that much of a burden, can it?


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## jae (Jul 17, 2012)

For certain. Humans are notorious for not thinking things through and acting on emotions.


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## BowWowMeow (May 7, 2007)

Yes and selling litters of puppies in parking lots, at Farmer's Markets, through the newspaper and on Craigslist do the same thing. That's why so many dogs end up in shelters: people don't think through what it means to own a dog. 

That's why breeders and shelters who use a thorough, multi-step application process that does not include walking off in the same day with your new animal, have a higher success rate with adoptions/purchases.


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## jae (Jul 17, 2012)

BowWowMeow said:


> That's why breeders and shelters who use a thorough, multi-step application process that does not include walking off in the same day with your new animal, have a higher success rate with adoptions/purchases.


This is also why people go to pet shops, sub-par shelters, and classifieds.

Can't win.


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## BowWowMeow (May 7, 2007)

jae said:


> This is also why people go to pet shops, sub-par shelters, and classifieds.
> 
> Can't win.


Absolutely! We live in a society that fosters impulse buying and then returning things when they're not what we want or expect. Unfortunately when it's a life and not a thing that doesn't often work out so well for the animal.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

This is a good topic. We just went through this change a few months ago here, too.

The shelter where I volunteer used to publish a weekly "e-list" -- dogs scheduled to die Friday night. When the list came out on Tuesday, it caused a Facebook uproar. There were chip-ins (to pay for the adoption fees for a perfect stranger to go and get the dog), mad rushes to get dogs out, and dozens of people whining for _someone else_ to please go help this dog. It attracted people who feed on drama (and there are A LOT of those people attracted to animal welfare...). However, it saved _a lot _of dogs from certain death (300 or so, as I recall...). 

The new shelter director got rid of the list, and while I was ambivalent at first (as dogs _are _still being euthanized), I've come to believe it was the right call. That drama was toxic. We've encountered people in the community who were scammed by e-list chip-ins (and then have a bad view of the shelter--even though the shelter had nothing to do with it). We've also heard stories of these former e-listers bouncing house-to-house as no one really wanted these dogs, and sometimes ending up chained out in someone's yard. Granted, I have a marvelous former e-lister who had a _very _happy ending -- she'd have been dead had I not been in volunteering on her last day, and seen her on the list. For every story like hers though, I fear there are five that ended up in bad situations.

I _wish_ the people who fed off the e-list drama would put the same energy into coming to the shelter every week to do the hard, dirty work--and fostering. But no. They mostly want to be involved if there's drama, not for the week-in, week-out unglamorous work of saving dogs. Every time someone complains to me about the e-list being gone and there being too many euthanasias, I have to ask, "So how many are you fostering right now?" If the answer is "none" (and it always is), they have no standing to complain. 

I've come to believe FB is a medium for fake-volunteerism. Many of the people in those FB communities believe they are "rescuing" by "networking" the dogs (sharing and liking things posted by others). Uh, sure. While they sit at the computer and "like" dogs, I need to go and clean up the car-sick vomit from the filthy, poop-covered foster I just brought home, deal with crating-and-rotating a reactive dog with "issues," clear my Thursday night to start another obedience course for a new dog (to train it for someone else I don't even know), and work on fixing the psychological damage someone else inflicted. If I could save and rehome a dog by "liking" it, it would be a lovely world...

I've also come to dislike off-site events. The shelter now requires fosters to go to two a month at the mall on weekends. I am not about to let one of my fosters go home with someone on the spur-of-the-moment thing at the mall (without home, vet, and reference checks), so I have to view it as nothing more than a meet-and-greet opportunity--and a chance to work on dog socialization skills. Otherwise I'll just end up annoyed at wasting half a day.


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