My wife and I had a not so good experience here.
On their website, under "How to Choose a Dog" (which we only discovered later on), they say the following: "MEET WITH THE SULLIVAN SPCA STAFF - The Sullivan SPCA staff can help match you with the right dog. They have valuable information to share that can determine which dogs will be most compatible with you and your household. We welcome a shelter visit to discuss the adoption process prior to choosing a dog. We want your adoption to be a success and provide you with a wonderful companion for years to come!"
Nevertheless, on our first visit there, they allowed us - even encouraged us - to take a dog home after being there for just a few minutes, with virtually no discussion or assessment of whether it was suitable for us and our situation. They also gave us no guidance as to how to transition it into our home, where we already had one dog. Our dog is a female German Shepherd mix, and the new dog was a female Australian Shepherd mix. The two dogs did not get along well pretty much from the start, and within a couple of days we felt it was a serious problem. It was an extremely stressful two days, both for us, and the dogs.
When we called to let them know what was going on, the director (Debbie?), who had not been there the day we came, said it was no problem to bring the dog back. She also said that generally speaking, it's not recommended to bring a female dog in when there's already a female there, and especially when both dogs are herding dogs. Needless to say, we were annoyed that the person on staff when we picked the dog up had not advised us of this. We were further annoyed and disappointed later on, after doing some reading, to learn that there were steps we could have taken while transitioning the new dog in that might have mitigated the conflict that occurred and possibly resulted in us keeping it. This struck us as basic information that a professional shelter would provide as a matter of course.
When I brought the dog back, the director refunded the adoption fee without any issue, but was very laid back and seemed not to care very much about how things had not worked out - that the dog had been put through much unnecessary and avoidable stress, or that I had had to drive almost two hours round trip to return the dog. She didn't apologize or explicitly take responsibility for what was clearly a screw-up on their part, and barely said goodbye when I was leaving. All in all, the experience left me with a bad taste.
I think the people here mean well, and it's possible that our experience was not representative. The fact remains, however, that the way our adoption was handled was totally at odds with their stated policy. For anyone considering adopting a dog from here, I strongly recommend that you ask as many questions as you can, and to make sure they make an effort to ensure that the dog is a good fit for you, and give you advice for bringing it into your home. In addition, as a general rule, don't adopt a dog primarily because you think it's cute. We will never make that...
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