Shelby Humane — Local services in Columbiana

If I could give no stars I would. Went to see about 2 cats. Actually talked to someone they called me back after I had left a message they said both where still there. we drove 1.5 hrs we had an appointment at 4:30 last friday. We waiting for this girl to flirt with a guy till 4:58 they close at 5 finally get waited on and find out one was sent to pets Mart ok the other was still there the girl that was handling him was very rough with him after he had just had surgery he and others hissed at her as soon as she walking in the room which put us off a bit with this cat at first he wound up scratching and biting her. With the way he was handled I don't blame the cat. She tossed him back in the cage and said he will be under a 10 day quarantine because he bit her but we could get him after that but couldn't put him on a hold for us or anything. We ask if he was good with other cats she said she didn't know and after finding a couple of cats that didn't hiss at her as soon as she got close she draged them out and shoved them in the ones face (while eating) up against the cage and said he seams fine. She left the room and the one that we wanted was nussling the cage me my husband and my 5 year old son pet him though the cage. He was as sweet as he could be. I called for 5 days sent emails and no one would return my calls I finally got a call back to find out they are not letting us adopt him because he was feral and we have small children. Then she says he was adopted yesterday. She was not concerned at all about how the cat was treated or anything else. These people don't care that the animals are not being treated right at all and love to lie to you. Oh and the other cat that was gone was adopted the night before from pets mart he has been there 2 days and last I checked him and 2 others that where also adopted where still on there sight and they are still telling people that they are there and ready for adoption. If the cat we wanted was feral they should have known that long before he was up for adopting and it should have said something about that. Not that he was sweet and loving. It did say barn cat but that was all. We where looking for 2 cats 1 inside and 1 outside he was going to be the outside as we had already found our inside cat a couple days before. We where lied to and they don't care about the treatment of there animals this...

Done with Shelby County Humane society

So I tried again today to get a dog for my 7 year old. (The main thing that she is requesting for Christmas this year) I called this morning at 9:00 to confirm the dog had not been adopted, and he had not. Excited I made arrangements to be there at 12:00 when the Shelby County Humane society opens. I planed ahead and made it their by exactly 11:03. I actually entered the front lobby around 11:10ish and was told they open at 12:00 and made a suggestion to go grab some lunch. So my understanding was to wait somewhere not inside. So I sat in the car in front of the door. At 11:30ish I see a car pull up and a young lady get out and promptly walk inside. (I assumed an employee) at 11:43 I saw another lady pull up which was when I decided to go start toward the door to make sure that I was first in line. There was one lady in front of me. (because I healed the door open for her.) At exactly 11:59 a young lady said "may I help you?" and the lady in which I had opened the door for requested to see a dog. I was relieved to hear a name other than the dog that I was there for. I signed in at exactly as the clock turned 12:01 requesting to see a specific dog. As soon as I write the dogs name down I was informed that the dog was being seen by someone and they wanted to adopt. I looked up to see the lady that had walked in at 11:30. I asked to speak to a supervisor and explained the situation. She offered to wave the adoption fee for the mix up, but it's not about the money. She nor the Shelby County Humane society has to keep explaining to a sensitive 7 year old that she is not getting the dog that she wants. You can't fix everything with money. I can and will find another company or organisation that will stand behind their business policies. The dog that I currently have and the cat that my mother currently has and the one that she had prior to that came from the Shelby County Humane society. I will not return to your facility nor will I...

My only experience has been with the adoption process. They REALLY need to do a better job of managing the process when it’s busy. My husband and I drove down from Birmingham (over an hour) with our children to pick out a dog. We wanted to take our time, so we arrived in what we thought was plenty of time before they closed adoptions at 3:30. My daughter chose 3 dogs to play with. Although there was no one waiting when we got there, it later got busy and we waited forever for a room to ‘meet’ the dogs. In fact, after 2 hours of waiting, we got one dog in the room only for them to tell us we would have to pull another number and wait for the room again to see another dog. No matter, my daughter had all but made up her mind. Went up to the counter to adopt the dog and waited for 30 minutes behind someone else who was in the process of adopting. When I got up to the counter, I was informed that they had stopped adoptions early because they were busy, and we wouldn’t be able to adopt because they had “several” people wanting to adopt. If we were the first people there, how are there a bunch of people ‘in front’ of us to adopt? I’ve never seen such mass confusion— no one seemed to know what was going on. Now I get to drive over an hour back to Birmingham with two crying kids. They need to get it together.

Update: went back on a Tuesday when they were less busy. They were using a number system to keep everything orderly. They remembered me from the weekend and explained that they were having a promotion and that’s why it was uncharacteristically crazy. They extended the discount offer (which we weren’t even aware of) to us, which was really nice. We left in about 30 minutes with our new family member. Much better experience; we must have hit them on a bad day the...