So, I know I've blogged about this a few times, ok, MANY MANY times, before... but I think the new year is going to bring new policy changes. My patience with people is on it's last thread right now, and either I'm going to stop rehoming the critters (unlikely) or I'm going to make a significant policy change (waaay more likely).
Case in point. I posted some young guinea pigs up for adoption. Two sisters that are like... 8 weeks old? Babies. Mind you, as of today, 4 days later, they are still here, despite a surprising number of inquiries (not a big deal, but wait til you hear why). Anyway... I posted them, and immediately had multiple inquiries for them. I contacted the first person, and she emailed me back, asking if she could come see them the following morning. The following morning was this past Saturday, when I was going to be at that local expo / craft show at Morton High.. so I told her that. As that show is only like 3 miles from my house, not far... I told her, if I have a list of stuff you want (or even just the guinea pigs), I can bring them to the expo, but I told her, I would not be bringing them if I wasn't sure they would be going home. Reason being, I didn't want to bring them and have them sit in a carrier for hours on end, especially if I wasn't sure that someone was coming to pick them up. So, she agrees, and says, yes, bring them. For reference, this is at about 2 pm on Friday (and I'm not leaving for the expo until 8 am Saturday morning), so I'm figuring, we have plenty of time for her to figure out if she needs supplies or whatnot.
So she asks for the address of the expo, I provide it, and she asks if we have a care packet, and also, if we have / can sell her a cage, supplies, etc or if she should go to the pet store. So I reply back with a long email about yes, we have two different used cages, we also have houses, water bottles, food dishes, and so on so forth... everything a guinea pig needs, all broken down with prices and roundabout amounts she would need. This is still in the afternoon. I figure, since she asked about all of the stuff, the next email would be more or less the start of a list of what I needed to bring in the morning. I should note, in my email to her, I listed, ok we sell Oxbow guinea pig food, it is $2/ pound. If you get both guinea pigs, they come with 4 pounds of food, and that'll last x amount of time... so I gave her a basis to go off of.
I get an email back at like 11:15 pm. Now, before you think it... I'm not saying people should check their email religiously, just because they are emailing me, BUT... surely I would think, if you want someone to bring you something the following morning and they are LEAVING their house at 8 am (which she did know)... surely you don't wait until close to midnight to get them a list of what you want. But wait for it... the email wasn't any semblance of a list... rather, she asked for pics of the two cages, and pics of the used wooden hidey houses that I had.
So, with the thought that she would respond quickly as it was later at night (giving people the benefit of the doubt is really biting me in the ass lately), I went downstairs, turned on the lights, took pics of all of the used hidey houses. Went into the garage (23 degrees), took pics of the two cages. Sent them off to her within 10 minutes, and sent an email along with it with dimensions and cost of every item.
Fast forward to about 12:15... I still don't have an email back... and I am set to go to bed soon, as for us to leave at 8, I need to be up by about 6. So I send her an email which nicely says (in so many words) that I'm not staying up much later, but that if she gets me a list no later than 7 am, I will do my best to bring everything she wants, but that if I do not hear from her, or she doesn't get me a list (which she would have to do, since she didn't have a cage and all that) or I don't hear from her, I reiterate that I will not be bringing the guinea pigs, just to have them sit there all day, without confirmation that she will be there. Which I think is reasonable, again, figuring that if she wants them brought there, surely she will check emails and will be getting back to me asap.
I check my email multiple times before I go to bed. No response. I get up at 6, check my email. Nothing. Check my email shortly before 7, I have an email from 6:30ish, where the person says, hey, her 12 year old daughter just got up and she's super cranky and because of that, they can't decide on what to get (because she can't decide herself?), so they'll have to come out another day. She wishes me good luck at the expo.
So, I head to the expo, baby-guinea-pig-less, and the expo goes on. About an hour previous to the end of the expo, I email this person, and because she'd said, hope things go well at the expo, yadda yadda, I tell her in the email, things are going well, thanks for asking, and then I ask her, when else was she thinking of coming by? This was maybe 1-2 pm on Saturday.
Mind you, I had, between Friday and Saturday, about 8 people who'd messaged about the guinea pigs, all of who I'd told, if everyone before them magically somehow backed out, I'd let them know.
So, I figure, this lady who had wanted them brought to the expo would surely email me back... but the entire rest of Saturday passed, and so we fast forward to Sunday morning. Still no email back from the lady, so I emailed the first person in line after her, who had wanted to come see the guinea pigs. They said they were still interested, but I was in Chicago for part of the day on Sunday, so we set up an appointment for 7 pm, as that was the first thing I had open that day, after I got home. They said that time was great, they were excited, they'd text me around 6 for the address.
I'm home around 3, and have appointments every hour... and when the 6 pm appointment has left around 6:30ish, I realize... I still do not have a text back from this person, asking for my address. So, I text them, asking if they're still planning on coming. Their response: no, can't make it (apparently weren't going to tell me), maybe tomorrow.
I nicely texted back, explaining that I needed to know whether or not they were planning on coming, as I had a lot of people asking about the guinea pigs, and I didn't want to leave them all hanging. I explained to this person, if they wanted to adopt them, great, but we needed to set an appointment for that, and if they weren't sure exactly when, I explained I could always have them put down a deposit to hold them for 14 days for pickup. I have STILL not gotten a text back.
So, fast forward to Monday morning. Having never received a text back from either of those people, I started contacting the other people who had been asking about the guinea pigs, in order. I emailed back two people who asked about how adoption worked and who mentioned being super excited to come see the girls -- have no return email from either of them. For all the texts that I sent back, I had two tell me that they already found guinea pigs elsewhere. I had one who asked for pics... I referred her to our website page that has the pics of these guinea pigs, for them to go look to remember which pigs we were talking about, and then get back to me for scheduling an appointment. No text back after that. I had another one who asked me to remind them what guinea pigs we had available, and so I told them, some babies, some adults, and asked them what they were interested in? I told them, their initial text made me think they were interested in the pair of baby sisters. Their response -- "do you have the babies left? Are they free?" Yes and NO (and really???). I nicely explained, yes we do still have them, but they do have an adoption fee like all the critters do. So they asked how much, I told them. They asked if I was a shelter / rescue and I explained that this was NWI Chinchilla Rescue. No text back after that. All of this contacting these people and getting nowhere took ALL DAY Monday.
Got a call Monday evening from someone else asking about the guinea pigs. They seemed super interested... they said they would call in the morning with a deposit, because they were out driving their kids home from something, and didn't have a card with them. Fine. Morning (Tuesday morning, today) comes, and they called... they're a little worried about putting down a deposit, because they've had issues with giving out their debit card number before (which I do understand), so they really really REALLY hope the guinea pigs are still here later, they're going to call back later in the week, and see if the guinea pigs are still here.
For the love of god, people.
And for a shorter, but just as aggravating story, let's move onto Georgie. He was adopted out, came back, adopted out, came back. Had someone call a few days ago, asking about him. They had a young daughter, and were interested in him, and because he didn't do well in the last home... not positive why exactly (if only he could talk!), but there was a lot of commotion and young kids and such, so now I have him listed as needing a quiet home. Anyway, I asked how old the daughter was (11 years), to ensure that he would be going to a good home. Fine age, no problem, not a young young kid, and we talked about the adoption form and how they needed to fill one out. I explained, they could do it online, or could fill it out when they got here, whatever. They wanted me to send them a link to the online form, so I texted that to them (this was Saturday), and we set the appointment for Monday night at 7. They literally said, "OK thank you very much, I think I'm more excited than my daughter, he is so adorable." So I was like, ok cool, entire family on board, always a good thing. I even had someone put in a sponsorship for Georgie and I emailed them and was like, hey, he's going home tomorrow, who would you rather sponsor? So they email back, tell me another chin. Monday night comes... 7 comes and goes, 7:15 comes and goes... nothing. About 7:25ish, I send them a text, asking if they're still planning on coming by, since I never did get an online adoption form submission from them, and obviously, they hadn't shown up yet. No reply, and they never did show up.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of great adopters, and plenty of people who DO show up on time (or... within an hour of it... but I'd rather people be late than not show up at all)... but with the increase of numbers of chins finding homes, this is happening more and more often, and my patience with this sort of thing is really taking a beating. I don't have hours on top of hours to chase people down who want to adopt... or say they do, and then don't show up. And miss out on adoptions in the meantime, because I was holding the critter for them. And what really boils my blood is that while some of these people were definite flakes and likely wouldn't have adopted anyway, even if I had immediately said the guinea pigs were available (like the person who asked if they were free), others definitely seemed like they would have been on-board with adoption... and COULD have adopted the guinea pigs, had I not been holding them for someone else. And this is what happens, all the time, where I hold an animal for one person, with no deposit, and tell other people, "sorry, that animal is on hold"... and then miss out on the second person adopting the animal (usually, IN PERSON, when they could have taken it home right then)... and then the original person with the hold backs out. I almost had our most recent curly go home TWICE with people who were at our place.. except both times, he was on hold (for two different people), both who later backed out. He went home on Black Friday with a great adopter. But... he could have gone months prior, had it not been for him being on hold for flaky people. Not like there's any rush to adopt out animals, but there's always more waiting to come in, and of course, I'd prefer the critters to be in homes as opposed to here, and what often delays all of this (even more than normal) is by people doing this sort of thing.
While I've never been a super big fan of the rescues that are first-come, first-served... the more time that passes, the better and better of an idea that sounds. I think what I'm going to change the hold / deposit policy to is this -- you can put down a deposit and that will hold the chin / animal for 14 days. That will remain the same. What will change is that there will be NO holds WITHOUT a deposit. You're coming in 2 hours? Great! Credit card number / paypal for the deposit before you come, and the chin / critters will, FOR SURE, be here for you. No credit card / paypal for the deposit? Better rush here and hope you beat out everyone else! You know why? Because if you don't show up, and I had someone coming earlier that day (but after I said I'd hold the animal for you), undoubtedly.... the person with the appointment before you, would have LOVED to have taken home that animal... but didn't, because it was on hold for you. Yet, it's still here.
It's kind of sad that, this time of year, more than usual anyway, people have to be so difficult as to make it so that I need to change policies. But... it is what it is... and I honestly feel like, if you 100% want to adopt that pet, and plan to show up, then there's no harm in putting down the deposit. Because then you're not losing anything.
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