Shelter & Rescue FAQs

We’re happy you want to refer relinquishers to Rehome! There is absolutely nothing you need to do to participate. As an animal welfare partner on Adopt-a-Pet.com, your organization is authorized to refer pet relinquishers into the system immediately. All you need to do is send your relinquishers to http://rehome.adoptapet.com and we’ll do the rest.

Currently, while posting a pet, the owner is asked to select the shelter or rescue that referred them (or, if they weren’t referred, they can select any shelter or rescue to receive the adoption fee). All animal welfare partners with Adopt-a-Pet.com accounts (that’s you) appear in the list that the owner selects from.

In the near future, we will most likely be building other ways for the pet owner to specify the referring animal welfare organization without having to select from a list. For instance, we might give you a unique referral URL that automatically registers your organization as the referrer. We may also create graphics you can post on your website that link to Rehome with your unique referral URL.  If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to let us know!

We are very excited to be able to help more pets here at Rehome. We now accept pets who are intact and are helping to ensure they are spayed and neutered. We listened to our essential partners at shelters and rescues about the concerns of allowing intact pets to be adopted. So we took some precautions.

We require the adopter to spay or neuter their new family member within 30 days of adopting the pet; they sign off on it in the contract. We provide a list of recommended vets and clinics the adopters can visit in their area. Our team also checks-in up with our new families to confirm they completed the procedure.

The Rehome team also looks at data and trends to see if pets are being adopted because they are intact. In fact its the opposite, pets already spayed or neutered are more likely to be adopted.

We won’t stop there either. We know we can do more to help these pets and will be looking into improved spay and neuter programs in soon!

This one has a lengthy answer, so bear with us. We tested this service on a limited basis over the past year, and we learned a lot.  First, we learned that 59% of the pet relinquishers who used the service had at least 4 weeks before their rehoming deadline, and 31% had at least 8 weeks.  In fact, only 15% had one week or less to find their pet a new home.  

Now, can we help those people who need to find a home for their pet in less than a week? That depends, largely, on factors like whether the pet is a dog or cat, age of the pet, breed, appearance, size, and whether there are behavior or health issues. We’ve found that small, cute dogs or purebred large dogs (other than pit bulls) can often be rehomed very quickly.  Baby animals of all types can find a home quickly as well.  None of this, we’re sure, is surprising to you.  We are committed to finding ways to help many more pets in need who are on a tight deadline, and we’re exploring lots of ideas, including potentially enlisting foster homes to extend the length of time a pet may have before entering a shelter. Again, we’d love all your suggestions, so please feel free to email us here.

Absolutely not. You have no responsibility whatsoever. When the owner posts their pet, we ask them to let us know what they’d like to happen if the adoption doesn’t work out, and we make that part of the adoption contract between the owner and the new adopter.  The owner can choose to be notified and have the right to take the pet back, or they can specify that the adopter must find the pet another new home, using the Rehome service.

The pet’s owner selects a shelter or rescue to receive the adoption fee when they are creating a profile for their pet. Usually, this is the referring shelter or rescue. If they were not referred, they can select any organization to receive the adoption fee.

Payments will be made via check from Adopt-a-Pet.com, and will be sent out quarterly.

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