How can I find a home for a pet that I've rescued?

There are many excellent avenues for finding a loving home for the pet you have rescued.

For an excellent brochure with tips on finding the pet a new home, go to www.spcaonline.com and click on "It's a Dog's Life." Scroll down to "How to Find Your Dog a New Home." (The brochure applies to dogs and cats.)

It is preferable to find the pet a home yourself rather than taking him/her to a shelter. Even the best shelter is stressful for the animal, and you have only one pet to focus on while a shelter may have hundreds.

Publicly run animal shelters are already overcrowded and in many cities a majority of the pets are not adopted, but are euthanized. Even purebred and friendly animals are routinely destroyed at public shelters to make space for new pets coming in. The extent of the overpopulation problem varies from area to area.

There are privately run shelters and rescue organizations that do not kill pets, but be careful to distinguish between these, and shelters which say there are "no-kill for ADOPTABLE pets," as the latter may kill them for seeming trivialities -- a sneeze, a hiss, etc. But because the TRUE no-kill shelters keep pets for as long as it takes to find a new home, they are usually filled to capacity, so it can take weeks to get an appointment.

If you do find a no-kill organization than might take your pet, offering as big a tax-deductible donation as possible will help.

More than likely, you will need to do much of the work yourself to find the pet a good home. If you cannot keep the pet in your home, ask friends and family to help, or look for a boarding facility or veterinary office where you can pay to house the pet. Don't house the pet too far away or it will be hard to show him/her to potential adopters.

Friends, family, coworkers and neighbors are valuable adoption resources. Not only are they potential adopters, but they can help spread the word to others as well.

Have the pet spayed or neutered-you'll have better luck adopting him or her out!

Take a photo of the pet and make a flyer to post at your work, veterinary offices, pet supply stores, grocery stores, libraries, cafes, or anywhere around town. Be sure to talk to people about the pet whenever you can.

Place ads in local newspapers and neighborhood newsletters—be sure to make it catchy and mention a particularly cute or interesting quality the pet has.

If you are considering giving the pet to someone you don't know, you will want to screen them to ensure the match is a good one. Let the pet's personality be a guide for what questions to ask. Is the pet good with cats, dogs, and kids? Does she have any characteristics that warrant a more experienced pet owner?

Other questions you should ask are: Will the pet be allowed inside the house? Have they had pets before? Did their pets die of natural causes or for reasons that make you suspect they were not properly cared for? Ask local shelters and rescue groups for copies of their screening forms and adoption agreements for more ideas.

After you've done some initial screening and have a good candidate, bring the pet and person together to meet. Visit the person's home, and trust your intuition—you want to be sure that the adopter has the pet's interest at heart. You may want to check identification and ask for references.

Let the new adopter know they can call you for questions or advice. After a week or so, give them a call to find out how things are going and see if they need any follow-up information or assistance.

Thanks again for helping to find this rescued pet a new loving home!