Ok, so some of you may already know that I recently lost by beloved little doggie Boscoe right? Well, I thought this time instead of getting another dog from a breeder I would save a dog’s life at the animal shelter instead. So today my husband and I went to the A.D.O.P.T Shelter in Naperville Illinois (630)355-2299, to get another dog.
On their website they use the term “donation” as another way of saying they charge $200.00 for you to adopt a dog. I noticed they also advertised a “Fee Assistance Plan” so ya’ll know I had to ask about that right? So in order to meet the guidelines you had to basically be poor and your new addition to your family wouldn’t cost you a dime. I was cool with that. Shoot, right now I am poor, my unemployment ran out a few weeks ago, so I was happy to comply with what ever information they needed. After I completed this long application requesting proof of current income, current pay stub, provide a copy of your tax return, etc., I thought I was good to go. I stopped in yesterday and dropped off my application so today all I had to do was take a look at a doggie they had available. Or so we thought…
A Rep from the shelter walked us into a room and began her interrogation… literally! She took her time looking us over as she began to speak. She explained she had checked out our references and they all checked out but was concerned if we were poor enough to qualify for their plan seeing as how she wasn’t able to determined how much money we had in our bank account!!!!!!! I explained to her ( keeping my composure), that first of all my bank account was none of her business and that was not a requirement on their application. She said she knew that but still… she would have no way of knowing if I was in fact truly poor or not. She explained this was the first time any one had EVER challenged them in making an inquiry to receive a “Fee Assistance” and she really didn’t know how to go about it. I said to her, so in other words you’re just sitting here makin up stuff as you go along. She said she honestly didn’t know what to do. I said to her why would you advertise something that you would have no knowledge on how to pursue if someone inquired. She said she never thought about that.
See ya’ll Naperville is hoity-toity rich so they just don’t know what to do with people like us regular working class folks! She told me I didn’t qualify for the program they offered even though she couldn’t clearly explain why. Ya’ll she even brought in a lawyer that was in the facility, that she took in a separate room to try and decipher their Fee Assistance Policy and she didn’t even have a clue either! See they acted this same way when we first moved out here in the area and they didn’t have collard greens or chit-lins in the grocery stores! I’ll have to tell ya’all about that another time.

So where does that leave me…? This organization would lead you to believe that they were in the business of placing the dogs in their overcrowded facility in good homes. They feel that they do not want to do this “free” as they advertise based on their Fee Assistance Policy, and would instead ask that you pay $200.00 for a dog in need. When she came back I challenged her policy once more and stated, this was all a mis-leading crock— and I told her that, if someone were to truly come in here dirt poor as they would have you think, barely able to put food on the table how the hell would they feed a dog… and even more importantly why would you allow them to adopt a dog? She said I was right and they would not want that to happen to the dog going into a situation like that but they would allow it. And yet she denied me when I met the requirements of their application. I told her that I couldn’t wait to get home and post this information. I told her that I would have people come in and actually provide documented proof that they were poor and see if they would be allowed to walk out of the door with a dog for free as they advertise on their website and see what happens. She said she would happily send the dog home with a person that she knowingly knew would not be able to feed it! What kinda crazy mess is that? I guess she had an “oops” moment and said how about we do this… I give you a dog, one of the oldest dogs we have in this facility that has been hard to place and you pay me $75.00? (So in other words not only do I not get a dog of my choice you wanna make me pay for one even after I qualified based on your application…?) Aw hell naw!

I can’t believe I was denied a dog today because I wasn’t poor enough not to be able to feed the dog!