Dishonest adopters? What would you do?

[ziggy'smom]

My rescue partner is on vacation so I'm alone making decisions and this is a tough one so I could use some other people's input. I hate having to make hard decisions. I'd much rather have someone else make them for me

The situation is this. A couple of weeks ago we placed one of my foster cats, AJ, with a young family not too far from here. They filled out our application, we visited them and verified with their vet that they took their old pets for regular check ups and if they would recommend them as good pet owners, etc. Apparently we didn't screen them well enough though. We were told that they used to have a dog that had died from old age and an eight year old cat that was put down due to illness. I never questioned this and during their home visit when they talked about picking up their cat as a kitten it didn't occur to me at that time that the cat could not have been 8 as they said.
There has just been a number of things that has given me a bad vibe so today I called their vet back and talked to the actual vet who gave me more info. It turns out that the dog was not old at all but just four years old and still alive as far as they knew. The cat was not eight but listed as born in 09 and he was not put down there and had no illness that they knew of.
While searching these people's facebook accounts today I found a picture of a puppy from last summer that said that it was their new puppy that they were going to pick up the next day. They don't have a dog now. In that post they talked about picking the puppy up nearby and not "across the country as last time". That leads me to believe that they have picked up another dog or cat somewhere far away. According to them the dog they had was the guy's family dog that he had taken over from his parents.
This does not sound right at all. I can't believe that I didn't find this out before I dropped AJ off with them. They came across as very sensible and responsible. My fear now is that they are the type that goes through pets like they do underwear and I do not want any of our rescues to end up in a home like that, especially not one that I fostered. My husband thinks I'm overreacting and that things may have a reasonable explanation but I don't see how it could. They obviously lied.

What would you guys do in this situation? I feel like going to get him tomorrow. Our contract clearly states that we reserve the right to take our cats back at any time. I'm so upset over this and I'm so mad at myself for not digging deeper into their stories. I surely will next time. Any advice?

 

[gailc]

Can you print out the facebook information? I would them go to their house, take a friend or two and take the cat back. Then can they be put on some sort of local do not adopt to them list?

 

[ziggy'smom]

I think that's exactly what I'm going to do. Good to have someone agreeing with me. I wish my partner was here. She's definitely the tougher one of the two. I'm a weakling

.

 

[cococat]

I would get that pet back and out of that situation ASAP. Sorry this happened but so glad you followed your instinct. I would bring others with me. And evidence. And I wouldn't leave without the pet.

 

[cococat]

Thinking about this more, you could coordinate with the vet somehow? Ask the lying adopters to bring the pet up there since it is a public place rather than their home? Either way, that cat has to come back. It just isn't negotiable.

 

[natalie_ca]

This sounds like a legal mess to me.

Did they sign an agreement stating that if they are found to be unsuitable or have mislead the agency in anyway in order to facilitate a pet adoption, that they have to return the pet?

I would think that just showing up at their house and confronting them with their lies and demanding the cat back wouldn't go over very well at all. And if you try to force your way in and take the pet, you could very well find yourself in hot water with the law.

Before doing anything rash, I would talk to a lawyer. All lawyers give a free 15 minute consult. I think you need some legal advice.

However, there may be nothing you can do except to hope and pray that these people take care of the cat and then make it a policy to be more restrictive and do more in depth research into potential adopters in order to try and minimize the chances of someone with a bad pet history, lying their way into an adoption.

Chances are they lied to you because they have a bad history with other adoption agencies and couldn't get a pet through them. Keep in mind that no matter how hard you try, there will always be those rare cases where a bad pet owner dupes their way into getting a pet, from someone.

 

[feralvr]

I feel for you on this!!!!

And would want the cat back as well. BUT::::: Did they sign some contract agreeing that everything on the contract was truthful? Was there anything in the agreement about them having to relinquish rights back to you if you found the home unsuitable? If so, then Go and get that cat!!! If not, I am not sure you can do much at this point other than keep trying to reach them. So sorry you are going through this. It is hard when we foster and they get adopted out not to constantly worry about them.

 

[ducman69]

Our contract clearly states that we reserve the right to take our cats back at any time.

I don't see any issue, as you have a signed contract. Just be polite, explain your concerns briefly and show a copy of the signed contract, and collect the cat. If they complain, explain that you do have a legal right and can contact the authorities. Pretty sure you could even call the police in this instance even though its a property claim, based on immediate concern over the animal's welfare and I don't think that would be considered emergency services abuse.

I wouldn't call in advance.

 

[cococat]

Please update when you can.

 

[nurseangel]

Originally Posted by cococat

Please update when you can.

And please be careful.

 

[otto]

Hope you have AJ back by now.

 

[ziggy'smom]

Sorry to take so long to update. I've been pretty upset over the whole thing.

Well, it didn't go well. I went to the adopters and attempted to get him back but of course they got very angry and refused to let me have him. The police came but since the cat was in good shape and seemed cared for and their house wasn't in shambles they said they couldn't let me take him because he's their property now. If their house was in shambles and they didn't seem like good, responsible people I would never have let them have him but the issue it that they made themselves out to be something they are not. They were not able to enforce my contract which I find odd. The adopters agreed at the time of adoption to let me take him back and it's on paper but I guess it's not worth the paper it's written on. It was just a horrible, horrible night.

This should be a lesson to every rescuer. Dig deeply into the people that are wanting to adopt from you. I thought we had a pretty good screening process and we do manage to weed out a lot of unsuitable people. We have a three page application that is pretty in depth. We do a home visit and an interview and we check vet references. So far all we have checked with the vets is if they have seen their pets, if the adopters bring in their pets for regular routine visits and if they would recommend the adopters as responsible pet owners. It's clear that we have to ask more questions and ask to speak to the actual vet and not the receptionist. For those who do rescue, what do you ask the vet and how do you screen the potential adopters?
The screening issue is a pretty tough balancing act. I know that we miss out on some adoptions because people don't want to have to jump through all the hoops we require when they can just go to most other shelters and rescues where they can walk out with the cat right away. We send out a lot of applications and never hear from the people again. I know that some people look at it and think it's a bunch of crap and move on to another place. I believe that some people find the scrutiny to be offensive. If we added more steps and more scrutiny we could risk scaring away some genuinely good adopters but we also have to make sure that something like this never happens again. It's not easy finding a good balance. If anyone has any suggestions or advice I'd love to hear it.
In this case I found out most of the information by going through the adopters' facebook sites. But to have access to that you have to send a "friend request". I think it may be out of line to do that before the adoption. Wouldn't that seem a bit too nosy?

Because of all this we are going to rewrite our contract a bit and make some changes to the application. We're also going to have to sit down and take a good look at how to weed out liars without scaring everyone away.
I'm looking into what legal recourse we may have to get AJ back. I'm afraid that in the end he's going to have to stay there and we can just hope and pray that these people will care enough about him to treat him as disposable as they did their other pets. But I think we may have a legal claim for him that I'm going to look into further. I don't think that the adoption contract is going to be enforced by a court but I think that we can argue that the whole deal should be voided because there was no meeting of the minds which there has to be for a deal/contract to be legal and binding.
In the eyes of the law AJ is property and this is legally a case of a sale of property. They got AJ and we got $50. The sale is technically a legal contract. But since our decision to sell him was based on false information given by the other party there really was no meeting of the minds and therefore the contract should be voided and everything should go back to the way it was before the contract was made. Basically we get AJ and they get their $50 back. That's my plan anyway. I'm hoping that a judge will agree with my argument.
We're going to look into hiring a lawyer and we have to do a lot of research before we take the step to file a lawsuit. I'm open to any suggestions or ideas.

At least I got to see AJ and I know that he is okay right now.

 

[orangeishcat]

Originally Posted by Ziggy'smom

.
In this case I found out most of the information by going through the adopters' facebook sites. But to have access to that you have to send a "friend request". I think it may be out of line to do that before the adoption. Wouldn't that seem a bit too nosy?

Not in the least. When my husband and I adopted Sylvie, I saw that the woman fostering her had tried to look at my profile (I'm a teacher, so it's locked down tight- don't need my students to see me out carousing!

). Had she asked me for access I would have given it to her without any problems, and I think most people would. If not... well, what do they have to hide? It's a good way to really make sure someone is representing themselves properly, I think.

 

[ducman69]

Cats are considered property, but if you have a contract and its in writing no less, I don't understand how the officer wouldn't recognize the legality of that document.

What an odd call. Small claims court, or just dropping the issue and hoping for the best would be my recommendation.

 

[otto]

I'm so glad you are going to pursue this. You've got to go with your gut on these things. You've got a lot of love and care invested in AJ and I understand you wanting to look out for him and make sure he gets the best home he can.

Praying for him, and please keep up posted.

AJ