Furkids Animal Rescue & Shelters -Headquarters and Cat Shelter — Attraction in Milton

This is by far the worst shelter experience I've ever had in my life. They keep their poor cats in the same large musky room, and they speak about that so proudly, because their cats aren't in "cages" when in all honesty this is just a large cage the cats have to live in day in and day out. To top it off they do have a separate room where they place cats in a cage, and the worst part is these cats don't get NEAR The amount of attention as their other cats. It was so sad, a cat was by himself locked in a cage being completely ignored while the staff members bragged about the fact that their cats were in this other room with glass windows hoping to God someone takes them out of this place. However, these people get some sick sense of self worth by acting as though they're too good to allow anyone to adopt a cat in need of a home. It's pathetic. I grew up and my PARENTS declawed our cats, and those cats have always been spoiled, loved, and happy. But because my PARENTS, declawed our cats this pretentious lady came out and said I couldn't adopt. Obviously she uses this as a way to feel some sort of importance in the world, but at the harm and neglect of the animals in this shelter. Keeping them from receiving loving homes from well educated and worth while people is a travesty. I hope one day she realizes what a detriment she is to their well being, but I can safely assume she will hide behind a shield of denial she's created for herself. Sad. Then they gave me a poorly written paper about the terrible effects of declawing. Although if I overlook the glaring grammatical errors and misspellings I must give credit to the author for writing an emotional piece which can easily pull at the heart strings of illogical people. But I hope they see the truth behind the emotional trauma they're placing on pets just because they fear what they can't understand. When a pet goes under anesthesia for surgery (such as declawing) they are effected by something called anterograde amnesia, which is the same thing that happens to humans, what does it mean? It means that they are unable to form new memories while in surgery, they also have pain prevention, and when they emerge from the anesthetics they have NO recollection of what happened, they keep intact their long-term memory and they're able to create new memories, but they don't remember the actual procedure. After the procedure cats wake up, their paws are sore, they don't know why. Maybe they caught them between two rocks, maybe they got in a cat fight, they don't know, but THEY HAVE NO IDEA THEIR CLAWS ARE GONE. Have you seen a cat without their front claws use scratch posts? It's because they have no idea their claws are missing. You want to know what is cruel to cats? Forcing owners to clip their cats nails because that’s the only option they have. Cats have no idea what you’re doing all they know is you’re squeezing their paws extremely hard and cutting off a piece of their body. They are filled with anxiety having someone they thought they could trust do that to them, and they have to get it done multiple times! But you can adopt from furkids if you do that. Terrible. Let me put it this way. If I wanted to adopt a child, and my wife and I found a baby who really badly needed a home do you think the adoption agency would ask us "would you allow him to get his wisdom teeth removed?" That procedure is the equivalent of declawing cats. You go under anesthesia, you wake up sore, you heal and you forget you're even missing your wisdom teeth. By the way have you ever watched wisdom teeth surgery? It looks TERRIBLE, but thank goodness we have professionals who are able to keep people sedated, relaxed and pain free. How do I know this? Because I'm one of those people. Currently working in critical care and have three more years of anesthesia to be completely done. I'm one of the people denied by some lady who has nothing better to do with her life but feel important by rejecting people who want a pet to love and a cat that needs a home. Go to a shelter that truly...

Furkids is a great organization, and of course the animals all need loving homes, but their organization and communication could use some work. I adopted my black cat 3 months ago, so I feel like my review is not one coming from a place of impulsiveness. I filled out the papers and paid the adoption fee for my cat in May and adopted him in the middle of June. We did this to "reserve" him so no one else could take him until we were ready in a couple weeks. When we arrived at the shelter in June, they were understaffed, which I understand does happen. First, I was assuming we would get to visit with our cat before putting him in the carrier to maybe calm down down and get him to start to realize we were ok people, but the lady just went to get the cat to put in the carrier. She brought back someone else's cat in our carrier. When she came back with our cat, she implied we were good to go and could be on our way. I was really confused by this, because other rescue experiences I have had someone has taken some time to talk to the adopter for a bit before sending them on their way. Additionally, I had been told I would get a small ziplock bag of the food they used to take home. I had to tell the lady at the front this too. I understand that we had already done all the paperwork, I just still thought that there would be a bit more of a discussion when picking up the cat. So we got him home and he has been sick off and on ever since. It was immediately apparent within the first day of bringing him home that he was snotty and breathing heavily. This is why I had wanted to see the cat one final time before taking him home. Furkids offered to have him looked at, but unfortunately our schedules didn't match up. But anyway, we have taken our poor baby to the vet multiple times. At first, our vet thought he might have herpes virus. After months of different medications and being sick off and on, long story short, we now have learned he has kennel cough. (Didn't know this was possible for cats until now.) I hope they can somehow get this under control because I would hate for people to be adopting cats with kennel cough. I also have been in contact with two staff members about trying to track down more information on my cat. They took a long time to locate his records, but thankfully were able to eventually. His bio on furkids had said he was raised in a foster home before being moved to the shelter. I had wanted to see if there was any kitten pictures of him, so I asked if they had the contact info for his former foster. They told me "We do not keep any record of who fostered unfortunately." I'm sorry, what? You don't keep record of your fosters? I don't really understand this. That was the last I have spoken to them because I was so shocked. I'm not under the impression it's normal for a rescue to not have any record of who is fostering or did foster what animal(s). Like I said, Furkids has been helpful at times, do great work and there are some very nice staff/volunteers, but I've been overall displeased with my experience. I wouldn't trade my baby for anything else though. He's the sweetest and...

It’s no small decision to adopt a pet. It takes a commitment to care for the pet for its entire life - to feed it, clean up after it, provide supplies, and care for whatever ailments may appear. It’s a decision we’ve made a number of times over the course of our lives, because the rewards are well worth it. We gain a close member of the family, one who snuggles with us and provides companionship and emotional support. We also provide the pet with a safe home and a comfortable life. Our pets are our friends, our family.

Unfortunately, Terri Brunson at FurKids did not see it that way. We were absolutely shocked and mortified when Terri contacted us regarding our pet adoption application and summarily rejected us from adopting from them. What reason could she possibly have for denying us from adopting a kitten? Well, she offered two. They are as follows:

1. We already have a 9-year-old cat in our household. Terry was opposed to us adopting a kitten because she believes that it could cause “emotional distress” to our cat. What?! Absurd.

2. Because we committed the cardinal sin of not having our 9-year-old cat brought in to the vet for annual check-ups. Again, we know our family members. If our cat does not appear well, we take him in to the vet – and we have. We even offered to take our cat in for a check-up and a rabies shot prior to adopting the kitten. To no avail. We ourselves don’t go to the doctor for annual check-ups! I don’t know many people that do. I don’t know many pet owners that take their pets in for annual check-ups, and I certainly don’t believe that makes them bad pet owners.

Frankly, we were deeply insulted by what Terri was saying. By rejecting us, she was telling us that we were unfit to be pet owners – something that we know not to be true. Her tone was harsh, rude, and overly judgmental – the sort of sanctimonious, uppity attitude that belittles others. That attitude is what compelled me to write this message.

I feel it necessary to go on record stating that I do understand that a shelter does need to take certain precautions to ensure that their pets are going to a safe home. No one wants to find out that kittens are being adopted to become food for someone’s pet snake, or as bait for dog fighting. But when those precautions are so restrictive that they prevent people like us from adopting a kitten, people who love cats, the system is horribly broken.

Before speaking with Terri, we believed the mission of FurKids aligned with our own values. Being a no-kill shelter, and Georgia’s biggest at that, attracted us to them. We had even been making financial donations to them as our preferred charity. No longer. As of today, we have withdrawn our support for FurKids, Inc. We’re ashamed for having supported an organization that creates draconian barriers that prevent animals from finding safe, loving forever homes.

We will continue our search for a rescue kitten elsewhere, and believe we are...