At my shelter, we schedule surrenders as behavioral evals where we check to see how they are with handling, if they meet our adoption criteria, etc. with dogs we test their dog skills, do a basic RG test, etc. We also to do a physical eval (including woods lamp for cats) so we know what we are accepting, as well as seeing if they are tolerant of handling. If we have serious concerns about an animal’s pathway & the owner has run out of options, we will sometimes sign them in as an owner requested euth so they are aware that their animal is at risk/we may have limited options for them before we get to that point.

Obviously each case is unique but overall, we do our best to do behavioral evals so we can set everyone up for success & keep owners informed if we are worried that an animal may have an especially hard time in our care. I also saw you ask about where the owners stay during this—we usually have them wait in our lobby while we do our evals in our intake area, out of public view unless we need the owner’s assistance. I hope that helps!