A division of S.O.S Rescue Relief, Inc.
Adoption Fees
What are adoption fees?
These are the fees you'll pay on adoption day when you officially adopt your new pet. These fees will vary from rescue group to rescue group and for each individual animal. There are a variety of reasons adoption fees are important. Keep reading to find out why!
There are many steps we, and our partner rescues, take to prepare each animal for adoption. Preparation doesn't just include food, litter, days of socialization and routine care between arrival and adoption. It also includes overall health evaluation, vaccinations, spaying and neutering, deworming, topical flea treatment and microchipping. Now that's just the basics. Many of our homeless ones come to us from less than ideal situations and need additional surgeries, dentals, antibiotics and even round the clock care to nurse them back to perfect health. The costliest area of rescue is ensuring we leave no stone unturned to insure every adopted pet has had the best veterinary care!
Our adoption fees range from $150-$275. The amount can depend upon the age of the cat or kitten, overall health upon arrival, adoptability and total "in rescue" veterinary costs. Traditionally, kittens born in our care have a higher adoption fee because kittens require months of in home and pre-adoption vet care.
We occasionally hear “These fees are too high!” or “Why would I pay a fee when I can find a cat for free elsewhere?”. Good question. What such potential adopters are forgetting is when you adopt from a reputable rescue or shelter versus a backyard breeder or your next door neighbor - you will take home a healthy, fully vetted new family member. When you consider every animal sent into a new home is spayed or neutered, up to date vaccines (Rabies and FVRCP), microchipped, tested for FIV and FeLV and treated for fleas, ticks and parasites - you may just find you are getting a terrific deal! Regardless of what you might hear, there is no such thing as a “free” cat or kitten. You will probably find that "free" pet will cost you more than double a rescue group's fee to perform the equivalent veterinary care already included in your adoption fee.
Still unsure of what you’re paying for with an adoption fee? Let us break it down for you!
The main reason behind an adoption fee is to help offset some of the our out of pocket vetting costs. The reality is - no rescue group is making money off adoption fees. More often then not, rescues put more of their money into each animal in their care than they will make back with an adoption fee. Usually animals come into rescue sick or injured, meaning higher vetting costs to ensure healthy animals are being adopted out. You may now be asking, “why don’t you charge higher adoption fees for animals you spent more money on?” While it would be wonderful to have all medical costs offset completely by adoption fees, many adopters would have sticker shock if we charged the amount spent. At the end of the day, our primary goal is matching our fantastic animals to wonderful adoptive homes - not revenue! This is why our adoption fees are set to simply cover the basic vetting. All you need to add is love.
We rely heavily on the kindness of our supporters, donations, and grants to keep providing our animals with the best health care we can provide. If you’d like to help us on our mission, click here!