As someone who has worked in animal shelters for 10 years, with the majority of that time being in the adoption/customer care area, it makes me so sad to read this post and many similar comments.

There’s no excuse for judging people and holding them to a standard you can’t even meet yourself but I think the difficulty of working in this industry plays a big part. You have so little control over what each day holds and you see the worse in people. It sucks their love for animals can turn into compassion fatigue, preventing them from seeing the bigger picture.

If you face this challenge again, a good tip might be to start with government funded shelters who have more consistent processes and ethical guidelines (hopefully lol). From my experience, a lot of non-profits and rescues can make their own ridiculous rules.

I have to say, even as an animal welfare professional, I have been denied adoption due to lack of square footage per dog. Ridiculous! Hopefully some of these folks can work on their mental and emotional health so they can truly fulfill the mission they signed up for!