Adoption Process
Our adoption process involves several steps to ensure that the pet you adopt is the best match for your family.
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Step 1 - Adoption Application: The adoption process begins with the Adoption Application. Anyone wishing to adopt one of our dogs must first fill out an Adoption Application Form. Upon receipt, your application will be reviewed and veterinarian as well as personal references will be checked. Please contact us at shepherdstolove@comcast.net and an adoption application will be e-mailed to you.
Submit an online application
Step 2 - Phone Interview: After your application has been reviewed and references have been checked, if you are approved you will be contacted by phone to discuss the animal you wish to adopt.
Step 3 - Meeting the Dog(s): Following the phone interview, arrangements will be made for you to meet the dog you wish to adopt. This meeting usually takes place at the home where the animal is being fostered. If you have other dogs in your home we strongly recommend that you bring along your dog(s) to this meeting to make sure that all animals are compatible. Additional meetings may be arranged at your home, if necessary. All household members must be present at the time of the visit.
Step 4 - Home Visit: Following your visit with the dog you apply to adopt, we will schedule a home visit for one of volunteers to come to your home. A home visit is required to ensure that a proper and safe environment will be provided for the dog you wish to adopt.
Step 5 - Adoption Contract: Once the adoption has been approved we will contact you again to finalize the adoption (this can also be done at the time of the home visit or meeting the animal, as long as all other requirements have been met). At this time you will be asked to review and sign the Adoption Agreement Contract and settle the adoption fee.
General Information
Our non-refundable adoption fee (cash or check accepted only) replaces the funds that we have already spent on the dog you adopt. Our dogs are vaccinated and spayed/neutered (unless they are too young). We pay for a fecal exam and deworming, a heartworm test, and we keep them on monthly flea and heartworm preventative, while in our care. The veterinary care for a healthy dog is around $200. We also pay for their transport from the shelter to the foster home (in the range of $100), boarding ($12-20/day) and food supplies while they are with us. The heartworm treatment of a dog costs $300-400. The adoption fee helps defray our expenses, so that we can save more dogs.
Safety is our primary concern. We reserve the right to decline adoptions that our volunteers deem unsafe (for adoptive or resident pets or humans). Rehabilitation of abandoned, neglected, sick or abused pets takes a lot of money, love, time and effort. We reserve the right to decline adoptions in situations when resident animals have aggression issues (for example, our volunteer cannot touch the resident dog after a one-hour walk). Adoption can be declined if the resident pet shows sings of hostility towards the adoptive animal after a reasonable amount of time spent introducing the animals to each other. Our volunteers donate their free time to this cause, helping the animals. They may not be able to invest weeks of their free time trying to make animals get along, for example. We do not place our pets into homes where a dominant resident animal will beat on the adoptive pet. A pet returned to us from a home like this may end up in a worse shape than after leaving the shelter.
We do not adopt our dogs into homes with unaltered pets or homes where pets are not vaccinated and maintained on heartworm prevention.
80% of the funds for treating, housing, boarding and training our pets as well as supplies come from the personal funds of our volunteers. The remaining 20% comes from adoption fees and occasional donation. We do not receive funds from any governmental organization. Our volunteers have jobs, families, responsibilities as well as their own pets. They are as busy as you are: however, they chose to set aside a part of their free time and money for the welfare of the animals that are to become somebody else's pet.
Shepherds to Love is not affiliated with and does not receive assistance from any MD rescue or organization.