Humane Society of Fairfax County Inc

I used to donate also - stopped when I started receiving requests for donations with advice on who I should vote for in upcoming county elections.

I donated to this organization for years. But won't donate again. We were looking for another dog and I sent this organization an email, asking for for more information about a couple of their 'charges'. I received an email in response directing me to fill out an application PRIOR to getting any information. We have adopted several rescues, over the years from several other organizations. All of our dogs are 'forever dogs' (our last one was over 15 when we had to put him to sleep). I had no objection to HFSC contacting any of the other groups, about us. (All, of which, I mentioned in my email.) None of that was taken into consideration, by HFSC. Very few people have time to fill out an application for every dog they might be interested in, with several different organizations. The good AND bad part of living in the Metro DC Area, is that there are several rescue groups here, so there are many potential 'adoptees' available. We always research any 'new arrrivals' carefully with their group, prior to any 'meet & greet' to ensure that we have a 'good fit' with the rest of the group, AND so as not to waste any of the rescue's time. After 22+ years of adopting rescues, we have not had to return any dogs, for any reason. ALL these critters were 'forever dogs' once they came to us ... and NONE of them were perfect. Most rescues involve some work because they've had several bad situations, prior to arrival into any new home. The secret is to get the dog that you think has more 'positives' than negatives, as far as fitting in and then working with the rest. Anyway. I got the feeling that HSFC was more into the 'process' than placing dogs, so I've dropped them from my doner list. Also, Note: HSFC DOES seem to have time to send out stickers and other 'free goodies' rather than respond to potential homes for their charges.

I applied to adopt an animal. Without know who I am and how much I love animals, they replied and said i am too far away from their area. I only live about 30 mins from there, which is not that far. Shelters that are 3 hours away are willing to work things out with me. I understand that some shelter would want to visit the family before that let people adopt it, but come on!!!!! they would rather keep all the animals in a shelter than willing to drive 30 mins to give them a better home. Super slow respond. whoever in charge isn't willing to work things out with people who want to adopt animals. What kind of shelter is that? If they think about animals first, then driving 30 mins to find them an awesome family wouldn't be a problem. I mean, i am not asking them to driving more than an hour.

The Humane Society of Fairfax County means well and the volunteers do a great job socializing the animals and assisting people who come in to adopt animals. Based on my experience there regarding cat adoption, I saw areas where the HSFC falls short. (1) The hours to view the animals is 12-4 during the week and 12-4 on Saturday. There should be at least one or two days a week that they are open until 7pm. Kids are in school and adults are working. so very few people have the opportunity to adopt during these limited hours. (2) Better advertisement of their location is needed. They have good facilities for the cats but the building itself is not well advertised and most people don't know that it exists. (3) The process to adopt cats needs to be looked at and improved. Kittens should be very easy to find homes for, but the process makes it do difficult that these poor kittens come in and end up spending most of their lives there. They are not around humans enough and become afraid of people, making them very difficult to adopt. The Fairfax Animal Shelter appears to do a much better job actively finding homes for kittens and cats. People right now are looking for kittens and there are many at the HSFC that will probably never get adopted because of the poor process in place there to find animals homes. I will continue to donate because they are giving homeless animals shelter ad food, but they do not do a good job adopting cats out.