Would it be that much to ask, for you all to check with your landlords before contacting me? I had someone today and yesterday both, who sounded like really good adopters, talked with me and sounded good, I get them the care packet and adoption form, and then they say, oh, well, they can't work out an agreement with their landlord. Wouldn't it make sense to iron this out ahead of time? Because I started thinking, yay, adoptions! And these people weren't smart enough to check if they could have the pet before trying to go about and get the pet.
Which, I might add, is how the rescue gets some number of the animals here. People don't check if a family member is allergic. They don't look at the rental contract which says "no pets" until they have one, and the landlord says, it has to go today. Or, possibly even worse, they know it says "no pets" and they get one anyway, and then have to scramble to get rid of it when the landlord threatens to evict them.
Before I got my dog, I checked with my landlord. I was at the pet store, saw the dog, knew people in the complex had dogs, but I went back to the apartment complex and asked about what I would have to do to get a dog. I had to sign an addendum to the lease. I had to pay an additional fee per month. There were breed restrictions. Size restrictions. None of which I would have known, had I just done what a lot of people do, and thought, "oh, well I see Suzi over there with a dog, that must mean I can get a dog, any dog I want, any size, any breed, any aggressiveness level, and I won't have to do anything extra, because I can clearly tell she doesn't." Um, no.
I had one place I looked at living that charged $20 per month for every pet. That included caged pets, so if I had two chins, that would have been $40 a month. Nice place to live, but not for me. I would not have chins if I had to pay that much per chin per month to live there. But I guarantee you, half those people probably have no idea about that pet policy and bring home a pet and THEN find out, and lookie dat, then that pet is up for sale.
Moving along. Today, I had my first opportunity to tell someone about the new 7 day hold without deposit. They were going to pick up early next week, which would have been day 7. Well, turns out that didn't work for them, now they want to wait two weeks. So, I emailed them back and told them, that's fine, but if you want the chin on hold for you, to be sure it'll be here when you get here, I need a deposit. We shall see how this goes....
One more thing. I have had an exceptional number of people lately email me about adopting a baby. Note, there is a difference between adopting and buying. Adopting means getting a rescue chin, one which was either dropped off as a baby or born here from a rescue chin. Buying would be like someone getting one of my pedigreed babies that I sell. So, these people want to adopt a baby, meaning, they want a rescue that's typically under 6 months old. I went through my list of several hundred animals that have come through the rescue. Over 11 years, I have had all of 13 animals come in that have either been under or around 6 months of age at the time they came in, or been born here to a pregnant rescue chinchilla. That's it. This isn't like a humane society where people drop off their pregnant dogs, we rarely get pregnant chinchillas, and even more rarely does someone drop off a baby. The typical thought behind that is simple -- no one gets sick of a baby. As a baby, it's cute, it's fluffy, people like it. It grows up and people get tired of it. Which is why we get mostly 2-3 year (at the minimum) age chinchillas. I understand wanting to get a young one. Less baggage, less potential issues. That sometimes is true. Not always. I've seen some babies that are nasty. I'd rather have adults myself. But I can understand people wanting babies. The problem is, these people are looking in the wrong place. You may be able to get a puppy at a humane society, because dogs are horribly overpopulated, but a baby chinchilla, you probably have to go to a breeder. And let me be even more specific than that, you may even have somewhat of an issue if you go to too small of a breeder, because a lot of us show. I show my chins, which means the babies stay here until they're about 8 months, and they go to show, and are shown. Depending on how they do, they may or may not be for sale. IF I have any for sale as babies, it's likely standard greys. If that. If you go to a big breeder, they can't show everything and they can tell from early on, what won't do well at show. But I have so few, I'll show most of them. So, I don't often even have a baby for you all. But occasionally I do. On the other hand, the rescue pretty much never does. Please understand this, as I can't magically produce rescue babies because someone wants to get a rescue chin but MUST have a baby. That's just not how the world works....
No comments:
Post a Comment