“I’m not interested in a long drawn out process.”
“I applied yesterday and haven’t heard back from anyone yet.”
“I am interested in this animal. Can we come pick it up tonight?”
These are just a few of the messages we often receive. Our process is not quick and easy, and we do not allow same day adoptions. This is to prevent impulse purchases that may end up returned to us again later. It is hard on the animals and wastes valuable volunteers resources. So we have built an adoption process that we believe is in the best interest of the pets in our care and gives them the highest chance of finding a quality, permanent home.
Once you submit an online application, it goes to an adoption screener for that species. They will email or call with followup interview questions to get a better picture of how you would fit with the animal or species in question. Once you have answered everything and your application is approved, it moves on to an adoption coordinator who will work with you to pick the right pet, reserve your animal, and coordinate with the foster to transport the animal to an adoption meet & greet.
EARPS is an all volunteer, nonprofit rescue. That means no one gets paid for this, and most of our volunteers are squeezing in their rescue efforts on top of full-time jobs and families. Many of us check in once every few days, once daily at most. We are not at a desk all day running the rescue. This means that if we have questions about your application, we will email you and then probably won’t see your reply until the next time we login.
Depending on how quickly you respond and what time of day volunteers check in, the entire back and forth can take as much as a week or two. We do lose a lot of adopters with this method, but we firmly believe that the patience and dedication involved is only the start to the patience and commitment involved in caring for exotic pets.
Those who cannot wait a few weeks to be matched with the perfect pet are typically not the type of owners who would pass our screening anyway. Please be patient and courteous to our volunteers who work tirelessly to find the right match for our pets. The time it takes to complete the adoption process will be well worth it once you get to take your new family member home.