Thank you for volunteering to do a Home Visit for Safe With Us Animal Rescue!

Home Visits are essential part of our application process. It gives us an insight into the potential adopter’s home and lifestyle, and helps us place our dogs in safe loving homes.

Some things to remember:

• Do not talk about specific dogs with the potential adopters. Remember, people only hear what they want to. When you engage them about a specific dog they feel that that dog is now theirs.
• Keep in mind you are not there to approve them or not approve them. You are there just to gather information and pass it on to our applications team who will approve or disapprove the applicant based on the home visit and all the other aspects of the application process.
• If they have specific questions, direct them to their adoption coordinator. Our adoption coordinator is the person that knows which dogs have been promised as well as which dogs would be a good fit for their family. Play up their role, make them sound like the dog guru and that they are excellent at making sure the new family member is a perfect fit for them and the dog. It keeps you out of the hot seat.
• If you are contacted by the applicant after the home visit, please refer them to the adoption coordinator. Having the applicant contact the correct person speeds up the process and gets dogs adopted faster.

Home visit information for you:

The purpose of the home visit is to meet the prospective adopters and see the environment that they will provide for a dog. Safe With Us Animal Rescue essentially wants to know if you think the applicant will provide a good and loving home and provide for the dog’s safety at all times.

When you arrive at the home, introduce yourself and briefly explain the function of the home visit. Tell them that you are visiting to meet them and to evaluate the appropriateness and safety of their home for a dog and to get to know them a little better.

NOTE: If you are not comfortable with the applicant as a dog owner or are in any other way uncomfortable, please end the interview on a nice note and leave immediately.

Tour the house, including the yard, basement, garage and living areas. Check to see whether the living quarters are dog friendly and dog proof. Check the condition of the fence and areas where the dog could get out. Look for areas that could cause potential harm to the dog. If they have rooms in the basement or garage, ask if the dog will have access to them unattended. If so, check to see if they are dog friendly and dog proof.

Try not to make this a formal interview!

Observe their behavior. Get a sense of how they would be as dog owners. Do the children seem like they would be respectful to pets? Will the adults monitor the children’s’ behavior with the dog?

When the meeting is over don’t tell the person whether or not they are approved.

The information you provide is relayed to our applications team to make the final decision. Not every home is right for every dog so even great people can be wrong for a specific dog.

That is why we have an adoption coordinator, to try and make sure that the dog or dogs they are interested in is a good fit for their family and lifestyle.