Richmond SPCA

Reviews 4

WE

Wei Styer

The Richmond SPCA is run on a lot of volunteer support, so each visit depends a lot on who you interact with and how familiar they are with the pets themselves. We recently adopted a cat from the SPCA who we absolutely love, but it was an interesting process getting to that point. PROS The SPCA does have a lot of animals on premise, and is one of the few places in Richmond that does (a lot of the other ones rely on foster care support, so you have to schedule visits). This means you can come in and visit the animals without having to schedule a meeting, which is convenient. They also have a low-cost vet clinic that any animal adopted from the SPCA automatically qualifies for. They also keep quite extensive notes on the pets medical and behavioral histories. CONS Its a toss-up how youll be received. Because so many people just waltz in, youre not likely to be greeted or have things explained to you unless you want them to be and ask. Animal personalities are a bit of a toss-up. They certainly try their best, and a lot of them fit, but you need to give the pet time to warm up first. And certainly they have good and bad days. A lot of the animals are stressed, because it is ultimately a facility, not a home. Keep that in mind when you see how they interact. That said, I think the SPCA does a good job providing space for most of their animals (its bigger than a lot of other places Ive seen). OUR STORY The first day we were with a volunteer who was more familiar with dogs, so she was a little less helpful since we were visiting the cats. Bosco, the cat we ended up adopting, was very unfriendly the first day, and the staff told us it might have been due to him being over-handled. We visited him again another day and he was just wonderful - the staff member we were with that day was much more familiar with cats and mentioned that he didnt like other cats, which may have accounted for the difference in behavior (since we hadnt visited any other cats yet the second day). She had a lot of advice for us in terms of how to settle him in to our home, and his diet (he has a condition so hes wet food only). So it just goes to show how much the person you interact with really matters in how helpful they can be, even though both of them were very nice. If you had an unpleasant experience, try again on a different day. It might make all the difference. As an addend, we had a very smooth paperwork transition process, so nothing to complain about there!

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EM

Emily Dawson

If I could of rated this zero I would of. I had a horrible experience seems they are only about money and for so finding the right people. I put a dog on hold wonderful dog but he had another dog to meet before deciding well they were roommates that had a dog they moved out because we were wanting a dog for our family anyways got there to adopt him and they girl that helped us questioned us about it to no end whatever not a big deal. Anyways we get him home and the first day he bite our 3 year old in the face my 3 year old is gentle and knows how to behave around a dog he wasnt touching the dog or anything dog was laying in my lap and bit him on the forehead we gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was very new. Next day he peed on my sons bed whatever cleaned it up but he yet bit him again on the hand not bad enough to leave something but my son wasnt anywhere near the dog so the dog only had his hand to get once again dog was sitting in my lap we figured he was being protective over me for some reason. Yesterday 3rd day dog wasnt in my lap no where near me my son had goldfish sitting on the end of our couch he knows dog isnt suppose to have them so he went to get them and dog bit him yet again on the check and Ive been keeping door closed to his bedroom went to change son and throw it away in the trash not even a minute gone and dog already got in there and peed yet again on his bed after I took him out and he peed. We loved the dog but having something against our kid wont work so we called and set something up to bring him back went this morning and they were giving my spouse a hard time 20$ went to the donation whatever but they young girl we worked with said we could get our refund back if something didnt work out when we adopted him get there and they said no youll only get 50% back not only that but we paid for leash and collar there and they took that too. I would be careful adopting from here especially with kids they obviously just jump to hes good with kids hes obviously not good with kids, he just got realeased to be adopted when we got him.

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AM

Amanda Pearce

With my mother suffering from cat allergies and no longer being able to tolerate cat dander, she requested if I could re-home/surrender my cat as soon as possible to help with her deteriorating health issues. I figured it would be quicker to surrender my pet with the SPCA then to try to re-home my cat through websites as time was a factor. I contacted the SPCA, gave them the medical records requested and also gave my reason (see above) on why we needed to surrender the cat. I received a call from a young woman who did not seem very knowledgeable in how to handle these types of requests/phone calls. She told me that my cat could not be accepted and when I asked why, she claimed it was due to “resource” issues. She also added that the only thing they could assist with was “behavior counseling”. Though I didn’t ask why she felt I needed to be offered those services, I can only assume it’s because we had a documented urinating outside of the litter box issue from September of 2016. Which was resolved. However, was I asked about this issue or if it had been resolved? No. It also seemed that it wasn’t as if the SPCA wasn’t accepting ANY animals, just not MINE for whatever reason based on the medical records. It also wasn’t until I asked what my options were to try and re-home my cat that she even offered other solutions. My honest impression of this whole experience was that they pick and choose based on what is documented in the medical records without asking any follow up questions. How does an organization designed to help animals discriminate on rescuing a pet based on an issue that no longer exist? Perhaps I have it all wrong, but this the impression I was left with. Extremely disappointed as I thought this would be my cats best chance to find a good home.

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CU

Cullen Brightwell

My wife and I were looking online trying to find a dog that was not a puppy but also that was not 15 years old. So we looked on the Richmond SPCA and found a cute dog named Becky. We were very interested in her and came in to see her, she was on hold with another couple which fell through. We got the call and found out we got her and we were very excited even though she was not very social and we knew she would need a lot of work. We let her get comfortable for a few days then took her to our personal vet, we found out that she was not 6 like we were told. Our vet told us she was more like 10 or 12, we werent mad that she was that older just mad that she was said to be 6 when she clearly was not. Also while the vet was checking her out they saw her ears were very nasty and apparently had been that way for awhile. Yeast infection in one ear and bacterial infections in the other. So what I have to say about the SPCA is, instead of trying to move dogs and make then look nice and cute for people to take home and find out they have more problems is to do more digging on the dogs that are brought in and get them READY to go to someones home. For having a "full service" vet they do not do very good finding issues with the dogs.In our opinion, the ear infections could have easily been found by lifting the dogs ear. Considering they were full of black/brown infection. Hopefully others will have a better experience than we did.

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