Question by Laura: What do pet adoption personnel do?
I am interested in a job for pet adoption personnel and from what I gather they just help families in the adoption process and filing paper work. Does anyone else have anymore information on this type of job or know anyone who has does this type of work?
Best answer:
Answer by Jenna
It varies a lot from one shelter to another, but, most of the time you try to verify through normal conversation that they have the knowledge and ability to properly care for the pet they’re interested in. You also try to make sure that their lifestyle matches the pet as well as possible, for instance, you wouldn’t want to adopt out a hyper golden retriever mix to a sedentary older couple. You probably wouldn’t want to adopt an elderly poodle to a family with really active children as they’ll probably do better with a dog they can play with.
A lot of the time, people tend to choose a dog they like the appearance of, rather then the one that is the best choice for their family. Granted, they do have to find the pet appealing, but, you want to avoid obvious mismatches.
A lot of people will understand and appreciate your help, other people will go online and bash you for not letting them adopt the dog they wanted. Then they’ll buy a dog at a petstore from a puppymill and state that you made them do it because you didn’t let them have a dog that would have been a disaster in their family situation. It can be an irritating job, but, someones got to do it and you do get the benefit of seeing a great pet get a great new family. But, like any job working with the general public, you’ll have to deal with a bunch of people that have done no research at all, kept their last dog on a chain by a dog house till it died and “don’t believe in” vets as if veterinarians are some kind of unheard of abominable snowman..
A lot of places though the shelter manager handles any rejections, but, in some places that’s your job.
Overall, it’s very frustrating and rewarding at the same time..
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
