Stray Rescue of St Louis — Local services in St. Louis

I have adopted 2 animals in the past 3 years from stray rescue. First was our sweet baby Charlie. She was truly the light of our household and was the sweetest cat I have ever had the honor of calling our own. Charlie was the kind of cat that would curl up into your neck while you were sleeping. She would give out the littlest, most pathetic “mehs” like she never learned how to meow. She was our baby. Our second adoption was Plymouth. Plymouth was posted to the stray rescue website and listed at “dog selective, cat friendly”. We came up to stray rescue to meet Plymouth around a month ago and we loved him at first sight. The sturdy tripod ran around the yard with confidence which is what we wanted for our other dog. Our other dog Suka is a young female pit and Plymouth being a bit older male pit, we thought it was an amazing fit. We bring Suka to meet Plymouth at Stray Rescue and let the employees take them to meet outside, they get along great. We decided right then and there that Plymouth was ours. The employees made the comment “just introduce him to your cats the same way the dogs were introduced.” No problem. We bring Plymouth home. We put our cats on the back porch so he could explore our house first and get comfortable. Perfect, no problem. Eventually we let our cats inside with a baby gate up to let them get used to each other. Plymouth seemed to have a prey drive towards them from this moment. He didn’t see our cats as his friends, he saw them as prey. My partner and I thought we could work through this. There were two severe incidents in which Plymouth got ahold of each of our cats. These were traumatizing to both of us, having to pry our cats bodies each time from his mouth. We bought more baby gates to keep them separated. I began picking up Charlie and bringing her into the room with Plymouth. Slowly getting them closer and closer until we eventually would be able to lay on the bed with them and he would just ignore her. Fast forward. A month later, while our baby gates were up, Charlie jumped over one of them to come into the room with Plymouth. At this point Charlie had done this multiple times, each time Plymouth would ignore her. Well this time Plymouth darted after her. He immediately got her in his mouth, a 8lb cat was absolutely no match for him. He killed our baby Charlie, breaking her neck in an instant. This was unimaginably the hardest thing my partner and I have ever had to go through. We had to bury our baby. My partner who was in the hospital with brain cancer was an inconsolable. We talked and I decided to drop Plymouth off at stray rescue that moment. I left a note with him stating that he had just killed our cat, my partner has brain cancer, and this is not something we’re able to deal with. I watched them bring him in and I left. This has absolutely ruined our household. I can’t even come into my home without feeling the grief, death, pain, in the air. I could have possibly got past all of this. But here is where stray rescue loses all of my respect. My partner calls stray rescue the day after and tells them “we dropped Plymouth off, he killed our cat last night, and we need you to know he cannot be rehomed with other cats” they responded “Ok” and hung up. These people have no care for you or your situation if you have to return an animal, we knew this already which is why we worked so hard with Plymouth even after the two incidents that he got ahold of our cats. Stray Rescue does not care about the people that adopt or rescue their animals. Once they’re out the door, you might as well be a stranger to them. I am attaching pictures of our Charlie girl below because SHE deserves to be remembered. SHE was our first rescue. Stray rescue should be ashamed of themselves. I will never donate, adopt, or support this...

If I could give zero stars, I would. My husband and I applied to adopt a dog and after a week of not hearing anything my kids and I went to the shelter to try to meet with an adoption counselor in person. To our luck they had a dog they thought would be a great fit. The kids and I spent quite a bit a time with the dog and fell in love. The dog was amazing with my kids and everyone took a liking to each other. We have two other dogs in the home and so we set up a time to bring our other dogs back in for a meet and greet and for my husband to spend some time with our potential new family member. The day of the meet and greet it was storming and so we were put in an inside room with no windows and fairly closed off for our meet and greet. This made one of our dogs pretty anxious, understandably (new place, new smells, stormy weather, etc.). When it came time for our meet and greet with the new dog, our dog was a bit unsettled and nippy (she about 15 lbs and the dog we were looking to adopt was much larger so the nippy-ness never really posed a threat). The situation improved when we left the room for a bit, however. We met with one of the staff members who explained their thoughts on our current dog’s behaviors. We talked through things and since we really thought the new dog was a great match we let them know we would be willing to work to help our dog socialize adequately in hopes we could eventually take him home. It was decided we would come back the next day (pending good weather) and would have then meet outside in less of a confrontational setting than a closed up room, maybe even perhaps go on a walk together so there was lots of time and room to explore and get used to each other and ultimately to lessen the stress for both of them. Before we left my husband asked if he could spend a couple minutes with the new dog (as he had not come with us to meet him the first time), they agreed and “went to get the dog back out.” While he was waiting I went to out into the lobby to go out to put our dogs and our kids into the car and wait for my husband, however it was still storming so the SR staff herded is into another room to wait. While waiting for the rain to subside one of their “trainers” came into the room and closed the door behind her and then proceed to personally attack myself and my husbands choice to get another dog. Stating specifically that we clearly have our hands full with the amount of children we have. And that to take care of this dog it needs to go to doggy daycare and we couldn’t possibly afford that. Also that we need to really think through decisions like “these” before we make them. (For the record we have three kids that are all well behaved and well cared for, I work from home and my husband does at least once a week as well so I’m not sure what doggy daycare would be for, and we have been mulling over this decision for two years before deciding to apply at stray rescue - all things that were mentioned in our application that I sat there and watched them read over to pre-screen us). This particular staff member belittled myself until I was in tears. When my husband tried to engage her and bring her up to date on what we had spoke with the other SR staff about, our application and plan moving forward we were totally dismissed and we were basically told not to come back. It was such a disappointing experience. I have always loved following SR’s work but their customer service really missed the mark this time, and the arrogance and unfriendliness of their staff was appalling. While I’m sad to be missing out on the doggie that we had our hearts set on, I’m more sad to think that other dogs might miss out on their forever families because of the unprofessional demeanor of some...

This company is the least transparent, fraud of a non-for profit that I’ve had the disgust to try and work with. We took a 6 month old puppy we found in the alley, with a hurt leg, in and filled out paperwork to foster her ourselves because they stressed that they had no space. We signed a contract with them that they would have no responsibility other than providing vet services as they stressed they were at capacity. They said they would likely amputate her leg because it was most cost effective for the clinic not what’s best for the dog!! When we had a problem with amputation, because we had been told by our vet who took X-rays that there were two other options other than amputation, We were accused of caring too much for a dog that wasn’t ours BY THE CLINIC MANAGER!.…what does that even mean!? I can’t care for a dog because they’re not mine? We later called to check her status and were told that they would be keeping her because she may later need to be medically fostered. My thing is if you were telling us amputation was the route to go then why not mention the fact that we wouldn’t be able to foster her due to medical reasons related to amputation. My biggest take from this experience that everyone should know is that they will do what’s quickest and most cost effective for them not what’s best for the dog. Also that they lie to people about being at capacity. I will also add that this dog shows no signs of pain other than a limp. She had been running in the alley and then playing with my dogs just fine.

Update in response to CEO reply:we discovered they had a personal relationship with the vet who we see that ended on not so good terms because our vet speaks his mind and he couldn’t take it there anymore after just one year. This is likely the reason they kept her, seeing as a previous review described their experience being denied fostering on the way out with the foster pet because of a friend they had not having a good relationship with one of their employees. This highlights how corrupt this company is. Also we never planned on keeping this puppy and we made that clear. We just wanted to make sure she was a healthy pup getting the best care which is now clear that it is not coming from you all. Stop lying and your company would be better. You all weren’t transparent about needing a medical foster when discussing the amputation that was decided before being seen by your vet. We were told by your clinic manager that you all would do what was quickest and would be most cost effective for the clinic and that you all would not spend the money on her being seen by an orthopedic surgeon. Don’t go back and try to change what you all said now because you were caught. It keeps adding to the poor reputation you all have already. I’m disgusted every time I think about our experience there and I will be sure to specifically advise everyone against this company for taking found animals to. My heart goes out to this puppy. I just want what’s best for her. The clinic manager told us she took her own dog to get the surgery which would likely lead to arthritis. Her dog is good enough for the surgery but not this one? Got it. Also arthritis is common in pitbulls even without an amputation. Your telling me living with an amputation is better than the possibility of arthritis that is already common in these dogs? This again speaks to your alls judgement. Your supporters are brainwashed into regurgitating what you all say. It’s clear that the worse case dogs get the best care so you can have them at the front of your website but dogs who won’t make the front page get bottom of the...