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Adoption Procedure - Opinions Please.

R

RSPCA Macclesfield

Warren Scout
As a branch, we have managed to build up a good rabbit reputation. However, we recently discovered that a home we rehomed to wasn't all that it made out to be (Rabbits now back with us and safe) and it has got us thinking on what we can do to make sure that this never, ever happens again. We were hoping that people could cast an eye over our current adoption procedure and see what we could do to get this 110% watertight. (No RSPCA bashing please)

Adoption Procedure is as follows -

Initial Rehoming Interview (Questions include how many adults/children in the home, other pets, details of accommodation and size). A chance for them to ask questions, and for us to suss out the extent of their rabbit knowledge. We wouldn't turn down someone based on them not being an expert - we instead try to educate them. Following this is weeks of emails/calls etc dependent on what the potential owner knows. In some cases, they know as much as we do and more. In others, they think up a new list of questions each day for us to go through. It varies massively.

An Information pack is sent out in the post after the interview, including the RSPCA Rabbit leaflets, RWAF Hop to It guide etc and again, our contact details.

Vet Check - A call to the vets to confirm that all information given on current/previous animals is correct.

Potential Adopter meets the rabbits. A lot of information is given here.

Home visit - Home visit is carried out to confirm that housing meets the minimum housing requirements (6x2ft hutch, 6x4ft run) and a chance for us to determine if the people will take good care of our bunnies which we are entrusting their lives to.

What do other good rescues do, that we don't? How can we improve? Please make suggestions realistic.

Thanks in advance :wave:
 
I'm not sure what you're not doing that other rescues do do - it seems like you have a pretty comprehensive system in place. You as a rescue sound very open, I assume it's easy for anyone to get in contact with you if they have any problems/concerns after you rehome? Perhaps offer a 1 month (or something) 'return policy' if they find that they're too much work/too destructive or whatever, so that people feel they're able to return animals to you if there's a problem? Although it seems like you'd be open to that already, and it also seems like you'd already have explained the extent of care that's required and how destructive bunnies can be. It's difficult as we don't know the specifics of the situation, but I understand that you don't want to go into it in a public forum.

As a potential adopter, I can't see anything wrong with your system. It's just like I'd expect. The only thing you haven't mentioned is perhaps a follow up email or text, to see how things are going? In the week after, and then after a month or so? Although I can see that some people would find that intrusive... it's a bit of a minefield!
 
RSPCA Macclesfield said:
As a branch, we have managed to build up a good rabbit reputation. However, we recently discovered that a home we rehomed to wasn't all that it made out to be (Rabbits now back with us and safe) and it has got us thinking on what we can do to make sure that this never, ever happens again. We were hoping that people could cast an eye over our current adoption procedure and see what we could do to get this 110% watertight. (No RSPCA bashing please)

Adoption Procedure is as follows -

Initial Rehoming Interview (Questions include how many adults/children in the home, other pets, details of accommodation and size). A chance for them to ask questions, and for us to suss out the extent of their rabbit knowledge. We wouldn't turn down someone based on them not being an expert - we instead try to educate them. Following this is weeks of emails/calls etc dependent on what the potential owner knows. In some cases, they know as much as we do and more. In others, they think up a new list of questions each day for us to go through. It varies massively.

An Information pack is sent out in the post after the interview, including the RSPCA Rabbit leaflets, RWAF Hop to It guide etc and again, our contact details.

Vet Check - A call to the vets to confirm that all information given on current/previous animals is correct.

Potential Adopter meets the rabbits. A lot of information is given here.

Home visit - Home visit is carried out to confirm that housing meets the minimum housing requirements (6x2ft hutch, 6x4ft run) and a chance for us to determine if the people will take good care of our bunnies which we are entrusting their lives to.

What do other good rescues do, that we don't? How can we improve? Please make suggestions realistic.

Thanks in advance :wave:
Click to expand...

Hi there :wave:
It must have been awful to have made that discovery, how frightening that people could pose as one thing but be another, thankfully bunny was ok.

Looking over the adoption, there are some very, very good points - especially the advice/support given throughout... The only thing I wonder, is another home check carried out after the animal is rehomed? Say, after a 2-3 month period?

I'm still wracking my brain, but hopefully someone else might have some more constructive comments.

:thumb:
 
I'm not sure what else you could do, to be honest, other than a post-adoption check a few months down the line, which would be difficult and costly but would help make sure the home was still suitable and they were bonding with the animals.

I'm not sure if you already have one, but a 'we'll take the animals back, whatever happens, no judgements' guarantee would prevent neglect in the dreaded 'children got bored' circumstances or a change in owner's circumstances etc.

Only adopting out to hutches with attached runs would prevent bunnies being left in hutches when forgotten/raining. People with a lack of space could always use runaround or similar. Depends on your views on separate hutches and runs though.
 
Is there anything mentioned about the Cost of keeping a rabbit...

Insurance, hay, pellets, toys on an ongoing basis...? Sounds like you have all bases covered but I was always told bunnies are cheap to keep, I dont think they are..

Glad little bun is safe and sound...

Fee x
 
Good points here which I forgot to mention, Thanks. We ALWAYS keep in regular contact with owners once rabbit/s are home and settled, and quite often for long periods of time afterwards. We also do carry out a post home visit check but not on every home - there are a lot of homes that just don't require this as owners are so well informed/infatuated with new bun and its blatently obvious that everything is as it should be. Lots of homes that our rabbits have gone to, we've actually become friends with! It is also part and parcel of the adoption that if they can no longer keep the rabbit, s/he comes back to us immediately even if we have no space. Thanks for the comments so far :)

ETA I am 99% sure that cost is included in the info pack somewhere, but couldnt swear to it as its been a while since i went through the leaflets and booklets. I will check this though :thumb:
 
Speaking from personal experience, the home check I had was not as strict as I expected. The lady who came out said they didn't even have a form for rabbit adoptions, and she had to adjust a cat/dog one. She came outside to see my outdoor buns, and saw Olly in the lounge, but I had to ask her to come upstairs to see where Barney was going to live with Molly :? She could obviously see that my rabbits were well cared for and spoilt rotten, but I did expect her to ask where Barney would live!
 
ripminnie said:
Speaking from personal experience, the home check I had was not as strict as I expected. The lady who came out said they didn't even have a form for rabbit adoptions, and she had to adjust a cat/dog one. She came outside to see my outdoor buns, and saw Olly in the lounge, but I had to ask her to come upstairs to see where Barney was going to live with Molly :? She could obviously see that my rabbits were well cared for and spoilt rotten, but I did expect her to ask where Barney would live!
Click to expand...

OK. This was actually done by someone not from our branch, with you living so far out of branch area. Stuff like this should always be fed back, so we can act on it :wave: Thanks for mentioning though as obviously this is an issue.
 
RSPCA Macclesfield said:
OK. This was actually done by someone not from our branch, with you living so far out of branch area. Stuff like this should always be fed back, so we can act on it :wave: Thanks for mentioning though as obviously this is an issue.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, I understand totally. I do think all branches should have adoption forms for all animals though :wave:
 
Sounds good to me :)

I have a potentially stupid question though.... With regards to the vet check, what if someone has never had a pet before, or happens to have pets such as hamsters or rats that do not need vaccinating and have always been in good health so have never seen a vet? Do you just skip the vet check bit then? Before I had pets of my own I always thought I wouldn't be allowed to rescue because all rescues websites say "vet check required before adoption", is there a way to put on the rescue website that you do consider adopting to people with no previous pets, despite the lack of vet check available?

Probably a stupid question......
 
In my opinion your process is really good :thumb:

Sadly it is impossible to know for sure what the adopters will be like, even with the best procedure. At my local shelter there was someone who we thought was going to be great and was totally in love, the rabbit ended up never leaving her cage until she was finally returned to us :(
 
I suppose this isn't something that you have control over, but I was disappointed at the homecheckers knowledge of rabbits (basically nothing). I ended up educating her about bonding, housing requirements etc, when I would have thought at the very least they would have had training on that. I felt that they needed someone with a specialist knowledge of rabbits and guinea pigs in the area (this lady was the only Homechecker), so I volunteered :lol: so hopefully that won't be an issue again for the branch!
 
:wave: when I adopted Dandy and Beano from Macclesfield RSPCA I felt that the process was good, with very thorough checks, the first telephone conversation, follow up emails including photos of their setup, the first visit to meet the rabbits, the homecheck etc. I was adopting from outside the local area but she was very thorough, I gave her a grand tour of all the pets I already had, and she had a good look at the set up they were going to have. I think that unless you were to do some follow up visit after a few months I don't see how you could improve on the process really.

Unfortunately you will get some :censored::evil: people who won't care for their animals in the way they have promised to, and once they have the animals in their possession you wouldn't know if they had downgraded the animals set up in any way as well. I think that unless you were to do some follow up visit after a few months I don't see how you could improve on the process really. Perhaps you could insist on a report from the new adopters vet at the next vaccination, but that could probably be anything up to a year away of course. You could ask for regular photos of the buns in their setup, although in Dandy and Beano's case I more often than not get a blur of fur on photos :lol: (unless theirs food involved :lol:)
 
I agree that your procedures are thorough and that people being people some will always let you down. I suppose your biggest clue is in what the problem was with the returned rabbits and focus on what could be done to avoid that issue happening again.
 
RSPCA Macclesfield said:
Good points here which I forgot to mention, Thanks. We ALWAYS keep in regular contact with owners once rabbit/s are home and settled, and quite often for long periods of time afterwards. We also do carry out a post home visit check but not on every home - there are a lot of homes that just don't require this as owners are so well informed/infatuated with new bun and its blatently obvious that everything is as it should be. Lots of homes that our rabbits have gone to, we've actually become friends with! It is also part and parcel of the adoption that if they can no longer keep the rabbit, s/he comes back to us immediately even if we have no space. Thanks for the comments so far :)

ETA I am 99% sure that cost is included in the info pack somewhere, but couldnt swear to it as its been a while since i went through the leaflets and booklets. I will check this though :thumb:
Click to expand...

I used to receive a yearly questionnaire from the Rabbit Residence about my two girls, although I'm sure this would be very labour intensive for an already stretched rescue organisation. To be honest, I'm not sure there is much else you could do other than what you're already doing. If a human decides to be sneaky about the way they are keeping their rabbits, it's going to take a lot of digging for you to find out about it.
 
when I adopted the cats, years ago, I had a phone call once a week for the first 6 weeks from the fosterer checking that things were ok and asking if I was okay with everything. It gave me the opportunity to retell all the little stories and check I was doing things right. And it gave her a pretty good idea of whether they were alright with me. I was "signed off" after 6 weeks. I appreciate that it is labour intensive when you are already stretched and you can only really go on what you see at the time of the homecheck. My local rescue does a homecheck and you MUST take the pet home within 24 hours, which I guess means that nothing much can change between the homecheck and the pets arriving home, but then it is all subject to change, I guess, perhaps not always for the better.

What a pity for the rabbits, now back in rescue :-(
 
MY RSPCA centre (that i got r&t from) did a follow up visit a couple of months after i adopted them.. might be worth a go? Remember, no one who is responsible will be bothered by these extra visits x
 
RSPCA Macclesfield said:
OK. This was actually done by someone not from our branch, with you living so far out of branch area. Stuff like this should always be fed back, so we can act on it :wave: Thanks for mentioning though as obviously this is an issue.
Click to expand...

This is an issue we have as an RSPCA branch. We once had a lady that passed a home visit the hutch was 3ft x 2ft double tier, we were told hutch was perfect and a fantastic home. It was only when the lady sent us photos after he had been rehomed that we as a branch saw the photos. Luckily we managed to get the bunny back. The lady was under the impression a 3ft double hutch was the same as a 6ft single. We have a real issue with some home visitors.
 
redlabel said:
I agree that your procedures are thorough and that people being people some will always let you down. I suppose your biggest clue is in what the problem was with the returned rabbits and focus on what could be done to avoid that issue happening again.
Click to expand...

That's the thing, she'd/they'd become very neglected/poorly and hadn't received veterinary treatment because the owner seemed not to have noticed :cry: We can only go so far as to provide the wealth of information that we do, we cannot physically make them read it/take it all in.

The questionnaire is a great idea, I might contact the rescue mentioned & ask whether I can borrow the idea. However, I suspect that it would only be the tip top homes that I know one billion percent that there is nothing to worry about, that actually filled it in :?

The phone call once a week thing would be perfect too, if we had the resource for that but to be honest we struggle so much with time that it would be near impossible to put in place as on top of the 'routine' calls we also receive all the calls/txts/emails from the owners who go home and have issues with a bond/buns behaviour (Well, mostly bonds!) etc etc which take up a HUGE amount of time.

Thanks for all the input, We'll continue doing what we're doing and hoping it never happens again :wave:
 
x-vic-x said:
This is an issue we have as an RSPCA branch. We once had a lady that passed a home visit the hutch was 3ft x 2ft double tier, we were told hutch was perfect and a fantastic home. It was only when the lady sent us photos after he had been rehomed that we as a branch saw the photos. Luckily we managed to get the bunny back. The lady was under the impression a 3ft double hutch was the same as a 6ft single. We have a real issue with some home visitors.
Click to expand...

I always send an email with what is acceptable/not acceptable if its someone from out of branch area, just to be sure. However I have to mention, the two people who mentioned on this thread that their HV wasn't rabbit competent, I hadn't specified that they had to be savvy for the simple reason that I had looked them up on here (as I do all the homes that come through here!) and knew they were going to be just fine :oops::oops::lol:
 
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