My Nonprofit Reviews

(This is not being written because we did not go home with a dog at an adoption event; this is being written to address the dismissive attitude of RMPR and their claim that we were denied due to a policy that does not exist in writing.)

My wife and I attended the adoption event on October 15th and attempted to adopt a puppy. We sat down with the dog, answered all of the interview questions (after having already done the online application), and committed to adopting the male puppy. However, we were denied the adoption due to having a male dog in the house who is not yet neutered.

We attempted to have a sit-down conversation with the owner, but we were dismissed and told she would not talk to us. When we offered to wait until she was ready, we still got the same dismissive response and were redirected to talk to the owner's husband as he passed us by in the doorway. We were told by him “we do not allow families to adopt a dog if they have a non-neutered dog in their home. It is against our mission.” We tried to explain that our puppy is only 4 months old and that he has not yet been neutered per our vet's professional recommendation for the sake of his health and the latest guidance of the AKC. We brought a signed letter from the vet that we offered to RMPR. He refused to listen to us and told us that our vet must be a “traditionalist” and that it did not matter that we were doing what was best for our current pup. He proceeded to walk away from us and leave us standing with one of the volunteers, never having shown us the basic decency to actually listen.

To be clear: None of RMPR’s paperwork or policies state that they will not allow you to adopt if your current dog is not neutered. In fact, the application specifically asks if you have other animals and if they are neutered - Yes, No, or N/A - and provide a space for you to explain “If no, Please explain why”. We filled that out, gave the medical explanation in person, and were still dismissed without a proper explanation or conversation.

We left defeated and feeling very disrespected as RMPR would not take the time to talk to us or consider our individual situation. In reviewing their mission, we realized that the explanation we were given for denying our adoption was not true: their mission is “To rescue, foster, vet and rehome unwanted shelter animals and promote spay and neuter of all animals.” We were aligned with that mission and yet we were denied … in addition to being disrespected when we attempted to politely inquire.

We followed up with an email asking them to reconsider - they have still not responded to that email.

Our goal was always to give a rescue dog a good home, and we believe in spaying/neutering our animals. All of our past pets have been neutered when the vet has said it is appropriate. RMPR was unwilling to talk to us further and made us feel extremely disrespected by how they treated us.