Almost Home Humane Society — Local services in Lafayette

This is a non-traditional (and, sorry - really long!) review. We were the "re-home" for a dog we found through Craigslist who we (quickly) discovered had massive separation anxiety. Our house was progressively getting destroyed every time we had to leave (read: scratched up doors, ripped up carpet, chewed THROUGH a door), and we were at our wits' end. We'd ordered a crate, but it hadn't arrived, and we knew we were going to need to be away a couple times during the coming days before the crate arrived. We were so desperate that we seriously contemplated surrendering her to a shelter because we just didn't know what to do and were dreading whatever the next ante-up was going to be in terms of destruction of our home.

(Side note: I'm pretty sure I cried for about two days straight as I contemplated this. I volunteered at a shelter for several years, and I saw first-hand that dogs with separation anxiety were really hard cases for shelters. The dogs are otherwise really adoptable, but they get returned over and over again by angry people whose homes have been destroyed by them. The amount of time and energy spent by shelter employees and volunteers trying to desensitize and retrain these dogs is fairly enormous. Knowing all this, you can imagine how horrible I felt even considering having to burden a shelter with her.)

In a last ditch effort, I called Almost Home to see if they possibly rented out crates. They don't, but they did something better - they loaned us a crate. And even blankets to put inside. I really appreciated their efforts to try to help us KEEP a dog that was otherwise headed back to a shelter because a family just couldn't make sufficient accommodations for her.

[The end of the story is that said dog broke out of the crate and further destroyed the house while we were away for just over an hour, but thankfully, the ordered crate arrived several days early, we massively reinforced it, and I didn't leave the house for 2 weeks while we crate trained her. She still doesn't like us leaving, but she does go in the crate willingly, and thanks to the crate and anti-anxiety meds, we still have her!!! (And the destruction of our house has stopped...still need to repaint, fix carpet and screen doors, and replace an interior door, though...)]

Anyway, I really appreciated the efforts of the people at the shelter, their kindness, and their long-sighted vision for the care of animals, not just those currently at the shelter. If we found ourselves needing to adopt again someday, I'm confident our search would start at...

My daughter adopted a cat from them 8 months ago. They said he was a very friendly loving cat so she decided to get him. Unfortunately when she got him home he was aggressive not friendly and not loving for the most part. He would let her touch him if he wanted her to. Unfortunately his aggression got too bad and we had to return him to them. She wasn't wanting to return him but she couldn't take the chance of him attacking her in her apartment again. We had to have animal control come and help us get him into a carrier to be able to take them back that is how aggressive he was. When we got there to drop him off they made her fill out paperwork which I understand they have to do, but she wanted to be able to tell him goodbye she was in tears and very upset that she had to even take him back. They did let her tell him goodbye but after they had taken him into the back the girl told another person in the building which cat it was and they acted like my daughter was the most horrible person for returning him. As I said she was in tears over having to take the cat back she actually really loves the cat but she can't afford to have the cat attacking her every time she comes home. The staff member that I talked to was very in my opinion unsympathetic to the plight of my daughter and her having to return the cat. The staff should remember that when people are returning animals is not always because they just don't want them it was because of safety reasons. I tried to explain to the staff person they just basically in my opinion blew me off and we were not very happy with how it ended up being. Hope you all have a better reaction or response with them...

I found a dog that was running on greenbush which is very busy most of the day. I brought her into our home to keep her safe. My wife and I posted her on Facebook and Craigslist trying to find the owner. Nobody claimed her, so I took her to this shelter and they told me that if nobody claims her in 5 days that she would be put up for adoption. I told them that if no one comes, I would like to adopt her. My wife emailed them and asked if she had been claimed and told them that we fell in love with her. They replied that she wasn't claimed and that she was going to be spayed and checked out by a vet. The same day she was posted online for adoption, we applied on their website (they were already closed for the day) and went in a little while after they opened the next day, just in time to see her walking out with someone else. It seems rude and inconsiderate of them to not allow the people who expressed interest in her via face to face and email to adopt her. Especially since we applied for adoption first. Our 5 year old son and her had become best friends in the time we had her here, we told him that we were going to pick her up when the shelter opened the next day and he was so excited. He had everything set up for her return...Needless to say, we are all heartbroken over the situation. On a side note, it seems like they have plenty of help, but yet everyone is standing around when their responsibilities to the animals are being neglected. I know this because there was so much feces in the kennels that there's no way they had cleaned them...