It’s almost impossible to have an interest in animal rights and not realise that adoption is better than buying a new pet. This is a reality that stands up to scrutiny, also. These are thousands upon thousands of unwanted pets currently in shelters and rescues up and down the country. Often, these animals will have done absolutely nothing wrong – just victims of circumstance from their owners.
If you have a home to offer a new pet, then it just makes sense to consider whether you can offer a forever home to an animal desperately in need of it. According to the RSPCA’s Facts and Figures, around 50,000 animals are rehomed every year in the UK.
If you have made the decision to adopt rather than shop, then you can give yourself a pat on the back. For the most part, adoptions are almost always successful – but they don’t just happen in the blink of an eye. For an adoption to really work out, there’s a few extra steps and things you need to be aware of.
Rescue Animals Are Often Timid
To an extent, can you blame them? Their lives have been turned upside down, so it might take them a few months to settle into their new surroundings and feel at home. It’s important to remember that you should be especially careful with rescue animals. They’ve been through something rough, so try and be understanding if they’re not immediately full of beans and clinging to your ankles. They’ll get there – it might just take them a little bit longer!
If your new pet is timid, then it’s important to just let them be exactly that. Ensure they have somewhere they feel safe to use as a bolthole, and never remove them from it unless you have extremely good reason to do so. They’ll grow in confidence in good time.
Rescue Animals Can Take Awhile To Adjust
There are a few maintenance tasks we have to do for our pets. Worming is important; as is bathing them if they get messy. Perhaps the most important is flea treatment. As the article on Spot on Flea and Tick Treatments for Cats and Dogs from Farm and Pet News makes clear, getting ahead of the life cycle of fleas is essential for keeping your new furry friend comfortable. It’s a monthly task that you and your adopted pet are going to have to adjust to – and that might take awhile.
If your new friend has been in a shelter for a long time, they might have forgotten behaviours that would be typical for most household pets. They might not take too kindly to having a flea treatment or their claws clipped; even though these are common and unavoidable tasks. You can’t skip them even if they’re a source of discomfort for both you and your pet, so be ready for it to take awhile for them to get back into the swing of domesticity.
Rescue Animals Can Be Prone To Running Away
It is often suggested that when you move into a new house, it takes cats and dogs a few weeks to get used to their new home. This period should be even more extended for rescue animals, especially when they first come to live with you. Give it a couple of months of nothing but supervised outside visits, until you are 100% confident they see your home as their new territory.