Darbster Kitty — Local services in Manchester

BE VERY CAREFUL! Ask to review all vet records before adoption. I recently adopted from Darbster and feel information was withheld from me at every turn. I am very aware that no shelter has a full history of any animal, but what is known should be shared so that adopters can make an informed decision.

I put a hold on a 1 year old cat who was said to be good with cats, dogs and kids. (I have all 3) He initially saw the Darbster vet and was very sick, so I had to start with fostering him. I had to bring him back to the Darbster vet for clearance to adopt. At no time did any of the staff tell me anything different from his initial description. When he saw the vet a week later they told me his is an "old man" with arthritis! This vet had already seen the cat and I assume noticed that he was not as described in his inital post. This information was never shared with me prior to taking the cat home. I spoke with staff all along the process and they agreed that I had a right to be upset, but I went on with the adoption process regardless, because I wanted to help this animal. They conveniently left out the info from his first vet visit in his adoption paperwork.

In the next 6 weeks, I was able to determine that the cat was terrified of my very mellow, cat friendly dog! He started marking with pee and poop all over my house. The only time he used the litter box was when I had him quarantined alone. He saw my vet and got a clean bill of health. We tried all kinds of litter, cat pheromones, 3 litter boxes all over the house. Nothing worked. (BTW my vet aged him at 3-5 years old) He was clearly not happy in my home and I sadly surrendered him back to Darbster.

I was very clear when I surrendered him that I believe he is marking because he was not comfortable with my animal and that he should probably be the only animal in the home. Darbster was given all records from my vet.

However, they now have him listed for adoption as a 10 year old senior cat. And they are still saying he is good with cats, dogs and kids! I believe they are just setting him up for another unsuccessful home.

Please be very careful adopting from this organization. I do not believe they do their best to find the best forever homes for...

We adopted a dog. She was a blue heeler. I have owned this breed of dog before. They told us she had been adopted out, but returned due to "nipping" 4 people. She was listed as being good with cats, she was NOT. My poor cat hid for 4 weeks. That is because the dog would attack her each time she came out. We tried to keep them separate as much as possible. They also said she was housebroken, again not true. She peed on our rug constantly. They claimed she was grate trained, she was not.We had signed her up for training, however never got the chance. We were forced to surrender her because she became extremely aggressive. She bit my sister, the final straw was she bit a neighbor for no reason. We couldn't take her anywhere because she would try to attack people and other dogs. We kept calling darbster and explaining the issues. They kept telling us it was just her hearding instincts. We talked to them 3 times looking for help. They said they would have their behaviorist call us. They never did. Biting the neighbor was the last thing. We couldn't take the risk she wouldn't attack someone and really hurt them. We took her back to darbsters. Not only would they not help us. I belive those "Nips" were bites. Nips sounded less aggressive. We felt we had no choice but to surrender her. I believe they thought we were exaggerating her aggression. However when we went to surrender her, they took us to a separate room to fill out paperwork. When Andrew came in with the paperwork he got a good look at her aggression. He never even stepped all the way in the room. She went after him, no provocation. He sent in a trainer, the same reaction. They didn't offer us a refund or allow us to adopt another dog. All we wanted was to help a rescue dog. Instead we are out $525.00 dollars. No money or pet. With our adoption fee of $375.00 and the surrender fee of $175.00. The other people who also surrendered her. That means they have made $1100.00 off this poor dog. They keep sitting her up for failure, they need to work with her. Not keep adopting her out to be returned. Shame on them. Because of our experience we will not be adopting from them again. We don't trust them. Very sad way to treat...

Fantastic response darbster so this means 1 of 2 things, you’re further withholding medical documentation because as stated in my review that in the conversation they had with Andrew your operations manager, he confirmed over the phone the last and only time Marceline had a health check was in October of the prior year, Marceline was adopted at the end of February. And didn’t make it to NH till the first week of February. So if you have more documentation that says otherwise you should reach out too Michael Violette and Annabelle Gregory however it appears you guys have purposefully missed contacting them if that was the case. 48 hours is a joke of a quarantine not even worth putting them on one. The first half of your response didn’t need to be said, I myself and Michael understand you’re a “rescue” it kinda seems like that was a sad and petty attempt to discredit me which is pretty sad given this circumstance because that’s really how you honestly respond? no taking responsibility, it’s not like you even needed to admit your at fault and but instead you try to discredit me? Yall didn’t even have the decency to respond to their reviews but you hand picked mine who’s outraged for them? To sit there and say animals become ill after whatever is a joke, if you would’ve actually taken the time to read either reviews you’d notice a common theme is the first day Marceline was home is when the multi minute sneezing fits were noticed. FIP does have an incubation period however it starts off as a corona virus and than phases and mutates in the body so Marceline had to have been sick since the day you had her or before with some kind of respiratory infection simply basically off how far she was progressed because for FIP the average incubation time while having the corona virus is about 2 weeks so you guys clearly sold a sick cat, or you’re so inept in your ways that...