Though I live in a city, I do a lot of TNR in a nearby rural area, and often I come across barn kittens that would be perfect house pets, so I pursue adoption if I can rather than returning them to farms.
My best adoption connections have been through the Nextdoor website, which has the advantage of giving me some clues I can use to check out a potential adopter carefully, but I still run into all sorts of what I guess you'd call approach/avoidance behavior. I don't really get it.
I'd say that 75-80% of the people who contact me are what used to be called "tire kickers." They like shopping, but they're never going to buy. They call me and sound very excited, asking about when they can come see the cats. We'll set a time. Then they just vanish. I never hear back, or if I follow up, I'm told, "I need to check with my husband to see if he's OK with it." (The most common excuse.) Then I never hear back.
Is there just a segment of the population that enjoys calling people about potential pet adoptions even though they're not serious about it? It wastes a lot of time.
One woman told me very specifically what she was looking for, and I came through for her with what seemed like a slam-dunk. She contacted me about one cat I had up for adoption, but she wanted something else. She wanted a pair of kittens, not too young, that got along really well with one another, so I kept my eye out and found them for her. Beautiful 8 month old kittens, brother/sister pair, spayed/neutered, vaccinated, checked (negative) for FIV/FeLV, and dewormed, fantastic temperaments. and after all that, I got, "My husband put his foot down and said he doesn't want us to have a cat right now." I'm thinking, "Um, OK. Maybe you could have worked that out before I tracked them down for you?" (Was that even true? Who knows?)
It's gotten to the point where I'm surprised when someone actually follows through with an adoption and doesn't change their mind or cancel at the last minute. It does happen, but it's surprisingly rare.
Does anyone have any tricks, techniques, or protocols for weeding out the tire-kickers out without seeming like a jerk? I mean, I could ask people, "Are you serious, or are you just toying with the idea?", but that could come across as abrasive.
My best adoption connections have been through the Nextdoor website, which has the advantage of giving me some clues I can use to check out a potential adopter carefully, but I still run into all sorts of what I guess you'd call approach/avoidance behavior. I don't really get it.
I'd say that 75-80% of the people who contact me are what used to be called "tire kickers." They like shopping, but they're never going to buy. They call me and sound very excited, asking about when they can come see the cats. We'll set a time. Then they just vanish. I never hear back, or if I follow up, I'm told, "I need to check with my husband to see if he's OK with it." (The most common excuse.) Then I never hear back.
Is there just a segment of the population that enjoys calling people about potential pet adoptions even though they're not serious about it? It wastes a lot of time.
One woman told me very specifically what she was looking for, and I came through for her with what seemed like a slam-dunk. She contacted me about one cat I had up for adoption, but she wanted something else. She wanted a pair of kittens, not too young, that got along really well with one another, so I kept my eye out and found them for her. Beautiful 8 month old kittens, brother/sister pair, spayed/neutered, vaccinated, checked (negative) for FIV/FeLV, and dewormed, fantastic temperaments. and after all that, I got, "My husband put his foot down and said he doesn't want us to have a cat right now." I'm thinking, "Um, OK. Maybe you could have worked that out before I tracked them down for you?" (Was that even true? Who knows?)
It's gotten to the point where I'm surprised when someone actually follows through with an adoption and doesn't change their mind or cancel at the last minute. It does happen, but it's surprisingly rare.
Does anyone have any tricks, techniques, or protocols for weeding out the tire-kickers out without seeming like a jerk? I mean, I could ask people, "Are you serious, or are you just toying with the idea?", but that could come across as abrasive.
