Our Approach to Adoption

Saving with Soul’s stated mission is to help shelters avoid euthanasia by keeping kennel spaces open. We do this with a robust foster and adoption program, with the goal of saving at least 100 animals per month.

Speaking of numbers, Saving with Soul has been accused of being “all about the numbers.” That we only care about bragging rights to the number of animals we save. And that we don’t do our due diligence when evaluating potential adopters.

Well, yes… and no.

Yes, we DO take pride in our “numbers!” We ARE thrilled that we save more than 1,000 animals a year because every “number saved” IS a life spared.

And yes, we do take a progressive approach to adoptions. If you have volunteered with other rescues, you might be surprised to learn that we are relatively easy to adopt from in comparison. We adopt animals straight from events – we don’t require home checks, vet reference checks or a first-born child prior to approving applications. We do landlord verifications in many cases but in general, our philosophy is that most adopters are decent people who just want to adopt a pet. Unless there are obvious red flags or the adoption is simply not a good fit, we will probably approve the adoption.

Sure, we get the heebie-jeebies about potential adopters sometimes, and occasionally someone is clearly an idiot, but most of the time, most of the people who apply to adopt an animal are decent human beings.

That’s not to say that we don’t deny applications. Of course we do. But we follow ASPCA and HSUS guidelines regarding “open adoption” and credit a big part of our success to doing so. Questions or concerns about this? ASK!