Adopting a dog "Dog always remains property of the charity"

Adopting a dog "Dog always remains property of the charity"

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james_zy

Original Poster:

226 posts

63 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Hi there all - looking into adopting a puppy. Last one we had lived to the right age of 16, put to sleep 6 months ago.

Have been investigating adopting a dog/pup; two things stand out:

1. Should we really be looking to "donate" £500-600 for a dog? Seems a lot, our last was £80 from the PDSA (albeit in 2007).

2. Some of these adoption charities have strange wording surrounding legal ownership of the dog e.g. Freedom Angels Romania saying that "The dog ALWAYS remains the property of Freedom Angels Romania”. Upon closer investigation of their T&Cs, they state the following:

Grant of Possession

a) Subject to the terms of this agreement, we hereby grant possession of the Dog to you upon Collection

b) Title and ownership of the Dog will be held by us

c) In the event of any breach of this agreement by you, we may immediately terminate your right to possession of the Dog and any such circumstances you shall allow us access to your home in order for us to collect the Dog

Is this sort of thing common place now? As I said our last dog was with us for 16 years and was very much part of the family, so this type of approach and attitude has really put us off adopting?



Edited by james_zy on Monday 18th July 11:51

PositronicRay

27,533 posts

190 months

Monday 18th July 2022
quotequote all
james_zy said:
Hi there all - looking into adopting a puppy. Last one we had lived to the right age of 16, put to sleep 6 months ago.

Have been investigating adopting a dog/pup; two things stand out:

1. Should we really be looking to "donate" £500-600 for a dog? Seems a lot, our last was £80 from the PDSA (albeit in 2007).

2. Some of these adoption charities have strange wording surrounding legal ownership of the dog e.g. Freedom Angels Romania saying that "The dog ALWAYS remains the property of Freedom Angels Romania”. Upon closer investigation of their T&Cs, they state the following:

Grant of Possession

a) Subject to the terms of this agreement, we hereby grant possession of the Dog to you upon Collection

b) Title and ownership of the Dog will be held by us

c) In the event of any breach of this agreement by you, we may immediately terminate your right to possession of the Dog and any such circumstances you shall allow us access to your home in order for us to collect the Dog

Is this sort of thing common place now? As I said our last dog was with us for 16 years and was very much part of the family, so this type of approach and attitude has really put us off adopting?



Edited by james_zy on Monday 18th July 11:51
.

Seems a lot, do you have a dogs trust nearby?

bucksmanuk

2,331 posts

177 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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So, you pay for the pet insurance, the dog, its food, the vet fees et al, and its still their dog?
It would a FRO from me…

Dave.

7,516 posts

260 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Surely it's just so they can legally retrieve said puppy if you try selling it on for a profit, or if it ends up being mistreated etc.

Can't imagine they go round stealing back a load of dogs they can't afford to keep on the off chance someone else will pay another few hundred quid.

Unless I'm being naive...

Jakg

3,602 posts

175 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Dave. said:
Surely it's just so they can legally retrieve said puppy if you try selling it on for a profit, or if it ends up being mistreated etc.
It's going to be this - they aren't going to go to all the hassle of finding it a home, only to take it back again.

I have a rescue greyhound and had to sign something similar - he's "mine" but they are "authorized to recover possession of the dog".

£500-£600 seems a lot though - are you sure it's a charity, and that your rescuing/rehoming a dog?

Some puppy farms are pretending their dogs are rescues from Eastern Europe. Where does the puppy come from?

My greyhound was £150 5 years ago.

megamaniac

1,060 posts

223 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Our rescue's have all had similar wording, our last one was £200.

markymarkthree

2,545 posts

178 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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A place near where we have had a couple of rescue dogs from in the past (Holly hedge) do a similar thing.
The only payment is for the dog to of had some jabs, £160ish. They check your home first then come back and do a 6 month check after you have had the dog. The dog always remains theirs so if you turn out to be a scumer they can take the dog back.
We have never found this a problem. smile

gl20

1,152 posts

156 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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megamaniac said:
Our rescue's have all had similar wording, our last one was £200.
I don’t recall if we had similar wording but £200 here too, in 2020, right went kennels were charging £5k for a puppy.

They also gave us a voucher to get him neutered. I still don’t think he’s forgiven us

liner33

10,780 posts

209 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Same here that same wording last time we rehomed a dog about 2007 , its to stop you selling it and greases the wheels if you mistreat it , it was £200 donation for us as well and we were "encouraged" to buy a certain dog food as they got kick backs , so £500 today isnt too bad , its cheaper than a puppy

james_zy

Original Poster:

226 posts

63 months

Monday 18th July 2022
quotequote all
Interesting that others have experienced similar wording - that’s helpful. Just not sure how it really works in terms of ownership and liability, who would be responsible legally? According to the wording, the dog is never ours. However would they be so keen to be the legal owner if an incident occurred?

On the adoption fee it seems to be par for the course, especially for dogs from abroad. According to their annual report, some of these charities (e.g. the one above) are pulling in £450k of adoption fees, £250k or so goes to “transportation costs”.

james_zy

Original Poster:

226 posts

63 months

Monday 18th July 2022
quotequote all
liner33 said:
Same here that same wording last time we rehomed a dog about 2007 , its to stop you selling it and greases the wheels if you mistreat it , it was £200 donation for us as well and we were "encouraged" to buy a certain dog food as they got kick backs , so £500 today isnt too bad , its cheaper than a puppy
I didn’t even look at “buying” a dog until today (assumed adopting was the way forward). However on looking was surprised as it seems that the market is now saturated, so prices on Pets4Homes are now well below £1k for a puppy, far lower than during lockdown.

Therefore seems a bit odd that a charity, who claims to ask for a donation equal to their costs, would put their prices up so much in the last few years. Is it really costing them £500 per dog to rehome, despite having “volunteers”? Where is that money going?

liner33

10,780 posts

209 months

Monday 18th July 2022
quotequote all
james_zy said:
I didn’t even look at “buying” a dog until today (assumed adopting was the way forward). However on looking was surprised as it seems that the market is now saturated, so prices on Pets4Homes are now about £500 for a puppy, far lower than during lockdown.

Therefore seems a bit odd that a charity, who claims to ask for a donation equal to their costs, would put their prices up so much in the last few years. Is it really costing them £500 per dog to rehome, despite having “volunteers”? Where is that money going?
Well if less people are looking for dogs now then they will spend longer looking for a home so i guess the money is going in dog food, vet bills and volunteer expenses same as always

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

260 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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If you tell them the dog is dead, how are they to know any different?


Lotobear

7,152 posts

135 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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We've just adopted a lovely pedigree dog and the fee was £200 which we considered extremely reasonable bearing in mind he would have been 2k as a pup (he's only 20 months old).

The adoption guff raised a brow for me too however I could think of no reason to disagree with any of it - we intend to keep him forever, won't breed anyway as he's been castrated, and it's clearly just boilerplate stuff principally to protect the dog. As far as we are concerned he's our dog

Red9zero

7,912 posts

64 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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markymarkthree said:
A place near where we have had a couple of rescue dogs from in the past (Holly hedge) do a similar thing.
The only payment is for the dog to of had some jabs, £160ish. They check your home first then come back and do a 6 month check after you have had the dog. The dog always remains theirs so if you turn out to be a scumer they can take the dog back.
We have never found this a problem. smile
I like HH. We regularly drop food and toys down there that our dog has turned his nose up at. He is very fussy and doesn't know how lucky he is !

stuartmmcfc

8,702 posts

199 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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There is a very similar clause in the contract of my assistance dog. As previously said it’s a stop you selling it on et cetera. They’re not going to come and take it off you in a million years but just in case if you tried to sell it on orbadly mistreated they can do.
I imagine in my case it’s a bit like leasing a car. I’m fully responsible for it but I can give it back at the end of its working life. I won’t!
Incidentally my “possession fee” was £1!

Edited by stuartmmcfc on Monday 18th July 13:57

AndyC_123

1,171 posts

161 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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The rigmarole involved in adopting a dog now puts many off, in my opinion. Very "fur baby esk".

I also feel like many of these "charities" care about the money more than the welfare, although I'm sure that isn't true of many of the staff members.

Yertis

18,681 posts

273 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Red9zero said:
markymarkthree said:
A place near where we have had a couple of rescue dogs from in the past (Holly hedge) do a similar thing.
The only payment is for the dog to of had some jabs, £160ish. They check your home first then come back and do a 6 month check after you have had the dog. The dog always remains theirs so if you turn out to be a scumer they can take the dog back.
We have never found this a problem. smile
I like HH. We regularly drop food and toys down there that our dog has turned his nose up at. He is very fussy and doesn't know how lucky he is !
Another Holly Hedge fan here, it's where (nearly) all or charity donations go since we took on Monty in 2007. The 'we retain title' thing was in place then but it's not an issue at all and quite understandable.



LordHaveMurci

12,099 posts

176 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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Many Tears ‘donation’ was £220 2.5yrs ago.

My spaniels donation was £350, 5yrs ag

It amazed me the shelters didn’t increase their fees when puppy prices went through the roof.

MXRod

2,800 posts

154 months

Monday 18th July 2022
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We/ my daughter have a jackapoo ,the dog was originally from a rescue centre near knockholt in Kent ,we are the third keeper of the dog .the original keeper mistreated the dog making him terrified of men and folded newspaper .
The dog was returned and let out to an acquaintance of my OH , they decided they did not want a dog afterall ,and in conversation with my OH it was decided we would take the dog on , that is when the rescue centre jobsworths put up all sorts of hurdles for us to jump wanting to inspect the garden to see if it was secured , ignoring the fact we already had a dog ,and the retention of onership otherwise the dog would have to be put down due to checkered history,we said no ,we would own the dog and no way was it going to be put down .
They still wanted ownership of the dog but no fee ,we accepted that .
All this was 12 years ago , how many times have we been contacted about the dog , a big fat zero
The dog ? We'll settled happy with men , still a bit wary of folded newspapers .
My daughter has moved out , and the center will not be getting the new address for the dog .