Free To a Good (?) Home

Free To a Good (?) Home

For those of you needing to place an animal, be advised that offering
to give the pet free of charge to someone you don't know is a very bad
idea. Unbelievable as it seems, and more often than you would guess,
people respond to "free to good home" offers for reasons other than
wanting a pet.

Some turn right around and sell the animal to research labs; others
use young or small animals as "bait" for training dogs for illegal
fighting, or even feed them to pet snakes!

Sadly, these and other gruesome activities are not at all uncommon
nowadays, so please - if you are unable to find the animal a home with
someone whom you can be absolutely certain will treat it well, take it
to a local animal shelter.

Don't take a chance on condemning a helpless creature to possible
abuse and torture. It isn't fair, and it isn't necessary.

Kraut / Larry Stark wrote:

Free To a Good (?) Home

For those of you needing to place an animal, be advised that offering
to give the pet free of charge to someone you don't know is a very bad
idea. Unbelievable as it seems, and more often than you would guess,
people respond to "free to good home" offers for reasons other than
wanting a pet.

Some turn right around and sell the animal to research labs; others
use young or small animals as "bait" for training dogs for illegal
fighting, or even feed them to pet snakes!

Sadly, these and other gruesome activities are not at all uncommon
nowadays, so please - if you are unable to find the animal a home with
someone whom you can be absolutely certain will treat it well, take it
to a local animal shelter.

Don't take a chance on condemning a helpless creature to possible
abuse and torture. It isn't fair, and it isn't necessary.

Agreed (up to a point). Unfortunately, in today's economy, a high
proportion of the "no kill" shelters are already full of abandoned pets,
and cannot accept more. Local Humane Society and Municipal animal
shelters are being forced to euthanize unwanted pets sooner than they
might choose, due to the over-supply of homeless animals. I suppose
that kind of death is preferable to abuse, but it's not an easy choice
to make.

On Apr 9, 10:25*am, Kraut / Larry Stark wrote:
Free To a Good (?) Home

For those of you needing to place an animal, be advised that offering
to give the pet free of charge to someone you don't know is a very bad
idea.

All of my cats have been "free to good home" cats although in the case
of Speedy Joe, Fugazi and Isis the person with the kittens at least
knew us although not really that well and in the case of the Fabulous
Furballs- the woman didn't know me at all- I was doing some temp work
in an office and she thought I'd be "kind to animals" because when she
came to work asking if anyone knew who rescued swans (a swam on the
lake near where she lived had been tied up in fishing lines possibly
not accidentally) I looked it up and found a contact number but the
honest truth is having encouraged a semi feral to hang around simply
to do rodent control she had no idea how to deal with a sudden
outbreak of kittens she was glad to get rid of them to a presumably
good home (If she couldn't she was going to sell them to a pet shop)

They were lucky this is a reasonably good home - we don;t feed them
enough according to Dunzi and we have this disgusting habit of once a
year allowing someone to shove a thermometer where the sun don't shine
and then stick needles in them

But I do totally agree with the above comment. I was totally outraged
when a friend of mine got a job offer down under and said their 3 cats
wouldn't travel well and this was her opportunity to build a new life
so she was getting rid of the cats to a shelter or something.....I was
like "How can you go and enjoy your new life when you betrayed 3
animals who were dependent on you?!"..Luckily the person who brought
their house over here reckoned sitting feline tenants sealed the
deal...i.e. home with all amenities including cats but if she hadn't I
dread to think what would have happened to Fred, Wilma and Tigger..
apart from anything else when I remonstrated with her she said "Don't
tell me what to do unless you're prepared to take them in!"

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

On Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:25:45 -0400, Kraut / Larry Stark
wrote:



Free To a Good (?) Home

For those of you needing to place an animal, be advised that offering
to give the pet free of charge to someone you don't know is a very bad
idea. Unbelievable as it seems, and more often than you would guess,
people respond to "free to good home" offers for reasons other than
wanting a pet.

Some turn right around and sell the animal to research labs; others
use young or small animals as "bait" for training dogs for illegal
fighting, or even feed them to pet snakes!

Sadly, these and other gruesome activities are not at all uncommon
nowadays, so please - if you are unable to find the animal a home with
someone whom you can be absolutely certain will treat it well, take it
to a local animal shelter.

Don't take a chance on condemning a helpless creature to possible
abuse and torture. It isn't fair, and it isn't necessary.

It is common practice for people to ask for a 're homing fee' for cats
and dogs on craigslist.com, to keep the scum away.

THe lowlife scum who want animals for purposes OTHER than a pet will not
pay the $20 to $50 typically asked for by people who want a good home
for a beloved pet they must rehome.

Sadly, there are always a few who just want to 'get rid' of a cat or
dog, or a litter of puppies or kittens, and advertise them as 'free to a
good home'.

These are the animals that are at great risk, unfortunately

Kraut / Larry Stark wrote:

Some turn right around and sell the animal to research labs; others
use young or small animals as "bait" for training dogs for illegal
fighting, or even feed them to pet snakes!

Sadly, these and other gruesome activities are not at all uncommon
nowadays, so please - if you are unable to find the animal a home with
someone whom you can be absolutely certain will treat it well, take it
to a local animal shelter.

Or ask for a fee that will discourage people from doing this stuff.
If you don't feel comfortable accepting cash for an animal, ask them
to make a check out to an animal rescue group or shelter, or if they
give you cash, you can donate it yourself. But if you've spent money
to get the animal their checkup, shots, neutering, etc, then it's a
reasonable reimbursement for that. YMMV, just don't give the animal
to strangers for free!

Joyce

--
There is no alternative to being yourself.

On Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:25:45 -0400, Kraut / Larry Stark
wrote:



Free To a Good (?) Home

For those of you needing to place an animal, be advised that offering
to give the pet free of charge to someone you don't know is a very bad
idea. Unbelievable as it seems, and more often than you would guess,
people respond to "free to good home" offers for reasons other than
wanting a pet.

Some turn right around and sell the animal to research labs; others
use young or small animals as "bait" for training dogs for illegal
fighting, or even feed them to pet snakes!

Sadly, these and other gruesome activities are not at all uncommon
nowadays, so please - if you are unable to find the animal a home with
someone whom you can be absolutely certain will treat it well, take it
to a local animal shelter.

Don't take a chance on condemning a helpless creature to possible
abuse and torture. It isn't fair, and it isn't necessary.

And when you take it to the shelter the odds are that you're delaying
its death by two to four days. Good luck finding a no-kill shelter
with room to take a stray or an unwanted pet! When we rescued Tessie
we called a dozen shelters before we found somewhere to take her, and
even then when we got there they said that she'd be on death row. The
economic situation has only got worse since then.

Not everyone is a boogeyman... if you've got time to look after the
animal yourself until you can rehome it you've got as good a chance as
anyone of finding a safe haven, and you know that it won't be murdered
in the meantime.