One little thing

So, not a lot has been going on, been slow at the rescue, but busy in all other areas of my life.  With my new job, my orders are starting to pile up, so those may take longer now than they have in the past, as I no longer have 24 hours a day to work on them.

Main reason for posting, though, is this -- about knowing when I will get more rescues or when I will adopt rescues.  Here's the thing.  I don't know.

Case in point.  I had someone text me today asking me if I had guinea pigs for adoption, which I do.  They asked if I had two specific ones, and I said something to the effect of, the one went home the other day, the other is still here.  Then they asked, "when are you going to get new ones in?"

Ok, first, this isn't a pet store, so in reality, there's no such things as "new ones," but I digress.  Regardless.... I don't know.  I told this person, right now, I'm already over my limit of guinea pigs, so I don't currently have any open cages to take in more.  Further explained, in order for me to take in more, I would need the current 3 adult males adopted out, as one of those cages is going bye-bye (like I said, over limit), and the other cage has the two adults, and I need no pigs in it to accept other pigs.  So I told em, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, I don't know.  But I told em, for me to have new ones, several things need to happen:

1. three adult male pigs get adopted
2. someone contacts me wanting to drop off a pig
3. someone actually shows up at the rescue with a pig (you'd be amazed how few people that contact me about surrendering actually show up)
4. the pig stays here for 30+ days for evaluation/quarantine
5. the pig is put up for adoption

This isn't like one little thing, hence, I don't know if/when any of this will happen.

Moving on, they said a few more things and then asked, "well, will you still have two in a month?"  *facepalm*  That's like the same question just twisted a little.  Short answer is, I don't know.  I told them, if the pigs aren't adopted, sure.  Or I may have different ones if the pigs are adopted.  But I can't promise that the same animals will be here in any span of time if they're not on hold.

I once crunched the numbers, and the average critter is here about 3 months (that's including the 30 day eval/quarantine).  So, it's very possible the animal will be here a month from now, if it was just put up for adoption.  But, it's also very possible that animal has been here for 6 months and it's overdue to be going home.  The 3 months is one of those weird statistics, because I have some animals who never hit the adoption floor (like the two mosaics I current have, both are on hold, pending evaluation, to go to people on my waiting list), and other animals that will stay at the rescue for a years' time.  The average is 3 months, but it could vary widely.  Some months I adopt out a ton of animals.  There was one week, in 2012, where I adopted out 7 animals.  Some months, not so much.  Currently, I have two rats on hold for someone who's not getting back to me (so they may not be on hold much longer), and other than that, the emails/calls are not flowing in from people who want to adopt.  It's slow.  And I really can't predict this stuff.

I think what it all boils down to is this -- and this is just my viewpoint on things, but... -- if someone sees an animal and wants to adopt it, they should specify as such, even if they don't have the money to adopt it yet, they can put down a deposit on it to hold it for them, for a reasonable amount of time.  Asking if I will still have the animal, x months down the road, and then getting upset when I don't, is just a lose-lose for everyone.  I can't predict the future.  If you know someone who can, send them by, I could use that every now and then.