
ADOPTION CRITERIA FOR RESCUED ANIMALS
Are you thinking on adopting a pet in the Shanghai area? The PPAR’s wonderful adoptable dogs and cats are waiting for you right now! But before doing anything please read the following:
Be aware that some foreign people in Shanghai cannot adopt due to their nationality. For example: Australians cannot adopt because they cannot take pets from mainland China directly back to Australia. The same applies to New Zealand, Taiwan, South Africa and other countries. Other countries such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong have very strict guidelines for pets entering their territory (including blood tests for South Korea and Singapore, and long quarantines in Hong Kong and Singapore), so potential adopters need to be aware of those additional costs in money and time before making the decision to adopt. In a similar way, some other people cannot adopt simply because they work too many hours every day, because their next destination can be a country where a Chinese pet cannot be exported to, because the girlfriend / boyfriend / parents of the adopter disagrees or is allergic, etc.
Please bear in mind that if you adopt a companion animal you must keep him/her indoors or under your constant personal supervision (if walking a dog outside) to avoid incidents of poisoning, cat-catchers, pets getting lost, etc.
Regarding the age of people, in general terms, animal rescue groups do not give pets for adoption to people under 25 years old of age because their lives are still changing too much. In the past there has been cases of young people promising to take good care of the pets forever, only to return / give them away after one year or so because of changes in their jobs, because the new boyfriend / girlfriend do not like pets, because of travels, etc.
Sadly many animal rescue groups in Shanghai have had the experience of adopters lying when answering the screening questions: some people always promise to take loving care of their adopted pets, but then it is found out later that those adopters have given the pets away without letting the rescuers know or they have abandoned their adopted pets in the street instead of asking the rescuer to take them back. Consequently, the potential adopter really needs to be mature and provide honest answers for the safety of the rescued pet(s) involved in the adoption process.