They are not all at all transparent to adoptive families. One lie after another. A foster family built up our hopes for a dog. They concealed that his entire litter had parvo, was treated, yet they took in other parvo dogs in her home, which was not well kept at all. That place was a breeding ground for viruses. As a Consultant with a successful career, they didn't like that I was between projects, despite I am financial comfortable. The foster family lives in a town home with no yard near a busy street, kept one of the dogs, yet my home was not suited because I had a fence midway through repair from flood damage. They also wanted my money before a home check. After the the run around with these nuckle heads, we went to the humane society and found the perfect dog. While they have a God complex, they are no where near being angels.
I have volunteered with this organization for a while. They are very devoted to saving dogs from euthanasia and less so to adopting out dogs that will make great pets. They frequently have aggressive dogs, or dogs with other significant behavioral problems, that get adopted and returned. Instead of putting them down or providing behavioral interventions, the dogs are placed for adoption again. And are frequently soon returned to the shelter. I get the sense that they are not always up front about the dogs' issues with adoptive families.
They tend to take on way more animals than they can accommodate in their desire to "save lives" and are constantly (2-4x week via email campaigns) begging volunteers with emotional appeals to foster dogs in their homes after they've overextended themselves yet again.
Several staff members openly complain about the volunteers in front of us! They treat us as if we are invisible and unwelcome nuisances. I've been blatantly ignored when I've tried to engage two of these staff members to ask a question on MULTIPLE occasions. I'm guessing if having volunteers is more trouble for staff than it's worth, there is something wrong with their volunteer program, not the people giving of their time and talents to help at the shelter. There are also a couple of staff members that appear to do very little. They are usually standing around commiserating with other staff.
There are several staff members who are friendly towards the volunteers and are good at what they do. But they are not the dominate group there.
Because of the culture, volunteering there is a bit of a bummer. I continue because the dogs there so very much benefit from volunteer services, as the shelter is really too overwhelmed to provide excellent care. Whether it is appreciated or not, it does help the dogs.
FurKids (the shelter's new name) is aware of some of the problems they have. They have acknowledged the over-extended issue and are working to address it.
Over the years, I have adopted three dogs from these wonderful people. They are VERY careful and although I had owned dogs all my life, still called my vet for a reference. The dogs are checked thoroughly, not only for health concerns but do they get along with other dogs? cats? kids? My dogs have all been so great, I still have two of them and they are spoiled rotten!