Verified Rescues

Been a self funded rescue, it shocks me sometimes how quickly people can hand over an animal without checking me, and making sure I'm legit! Also been a rescue means I've had the unfortunately interactions between other rescues, and seen how easily rescues fraud people and have other motivations where the welfare and and care for the animal is often well below a financial gain!
Unfortunately self funded rescues are so easy to manipulate, and take advantage of, to make money, and unfortunately I would say in the rescue world, as high as 80% of self funded rescues take some sort of advantage, due to the fact that there is NO REGULATION, with small animals! No licenses, No external bodies doing checks, Nothing. It's simply their word against your word!
Due to all of this, I wanted to try and help regulate somewhat, and at least give you things to look out for so you can check and regulate yourself before you donate hard earned money!
Don't get me wrong not every self funded rescue taking advantage of a lack of system and regulations, is trying to pocket your money, some simply are chasing a fame, or recognition, and maybe not putting the animals at the forefront of their rescue efforts! BUT over the years I've learnt things to be aware of, and clues to let you in to know they are maybe not as legitimate as they seem!
So to try and help, because it's heartbreaking to know these alot of these rescues continue to run, and take advantage of a system that needs more regulation and external bodies monitoring them, for the welfare of the animals....
1. I will let you know which rescues I can personally verify, I know are doing a legitimate job...👇👇 (click on the buttons for their facebook pages)
2. I will let you know all the tips and what you should do to regulate and check rescues before you support them, by surrendering, adopting, and donating!

Have they been visited by the RSPCA before?

-This isn't a bad thing and is actually a good thing. I myself have been checked by the RSPCA, and appreciated it. I'd rather someone was concerned and called them, to clear it than potentially have animals mistreated by a so called rescue. Any rescue who has been checked and cleared by the RSPCA, you can almost guarantee is doing a good job with the animals!

-HOWEVER if they seem to be constantly reported by the RSPCA, you have to question why. Even if the RSPCA has cleared the welfare of the animals, you need to be questioning what is causing so many calls to them, is it how they treat people? Because there's a lot of sneaky behaviours that self funded rescues can do, that maybe isn't rescue appropriate, but does not put the welfare of the animals at risk for the RSPCA to be able to do anything.

For example, from personal experience, I had a 'rescue' give me two rabbits claiming she had no room, and was desperate, however kept a double story hutch from the surrender, as well as many other things, then continued to fraud the woman who surrendered them, into giving her donation money to cover the cost of the pregnancy and babies. However has the animals in her care was looked after enough, and there was no concerns for welfare, there was nothing the authority could actually do in terms of the animals!

Constant babies, or random bursts?

Looking at their baby situation can be a HUGE give away of the legitimacy of the rescue. All rescues will have babies at some point. Rescues pick up the pieces for mis-sexing, lack of separation and so much more and will have babies here and there. By sods law, you will normally end up with loads at once, but it will ebb and flow. There will be times when babies are endless but times where babies are none exsistant too! If a rescue appears to have babies advertised all the time or even have just as many babies as adults in a consistent pattern, it's VERY likely they are a breeder posing as a rescue. If they are posing as a rescue and breeding, this also means it's very likely they are also buying animals on the cheap, and claiming they are rescues to make a profit also. This also ties in with animal turnover which I will also discuss.

Do they have a HIGH and QUICK animal Turn Over?

Turn over isn't always a bad thing and is really useful for rescues, the quicker you get rehomes the quicker you can get space to help more in need. However most rescues will keep animals for a minimum time.

So females should be kept for the length of a pregnancy to rule out pregnancy as decent rescues won't risk rehoming potential pregnant animals!

With males, most decent rescues will keep for about a week, just to ensure good health and no behaviour issues!

And babies should not be rehomed before an appropriate age! For example guinea pigs, should be 6-8 weeks old minimum for rehoming as this is the age issues can be spotted, and health checks can be completed properly. And 3 months old minimum for rabbits for the same things!

So if we want to spot a negative turnover, we are looking at people who are barely keeping animals in their care under their rescue! This may be a case of in on day 1, and up for adoption on day 2, in hope for the quickest re-home possible!

It may also look like rescues who you don't really get to know the animals they have in their care or anything about the animals (usually because they don't know as they are trying to re-home quickly!

It may be when you query an adoption, they can't really tell you much about the animals personality, because again they don't know because they haven't had the animal long!

It may even consist of poor adoption proceedures with not a lot of chat, no forms, not alot of anything other than handover of the animals!

It can look like constantly rehoming poor bonds! Because they haven't had the time to see if a bond works well (not all bonds that are poor look poor, so a professional will monitor even the bonds they look good before rehoming)

This is why it's important to talk to other local rescues about the rescue your looking at adopting from and asking on local Facebook groups for example of people's experience!

Now turn over doesn't necessarily mean been adopted out, but it's simply a case of moved out of the rescues care. So if a rescue is also very often moving animals into another rescue soon after arrival this is also a turnover move, and often aids in making more money quickly.

There is a number of reasons for this, but the main one is avoiding extra or long term costs and allowing another rescue to continue the care and costs of the animals, taking the financial strain off themselves and creating room to have more healthy animals in the rescue that can turn out and make a profit from adoption fees!

Again I have two genuine examples of this been the case with local rescues!

One I was given a male and female, but told that they were checked and were female by the rescue in name. Clearly it was known they wasn't and they were handed over to me, claiming they had no room (this is also a poor rescue move we shall discuss later) It was later found out there was plenty of room and became apparent the move, as soon as they hit the rescues property, was to allow myself to deal with the long term care and potential complications of the pregnancy instead. In the meantime they had gained a physically gain in goods that came with the animals, such as cages, bowls and bottles and more which I wasn't aware of at the time, and they had also had several cash donations from the previous owner to help with the care they wasn't providing!

The 2nd example of this was a recent case, amongst another 2 rescues! The rescue in question took in an animal with very clear dental issues which was advertised all over their page! They then decided it would cost more money to correct than it would to get the animal put down, and advertised putting the animal down, so another rescue stepped in to cover the costs of the dental treatment and save the animals life. She did not receive the financially support from the fundraising specifically for the animal that was also advertised very publically, and the rescue in question kept all the money that was raised specifically for the dental treatment. Then a few weeks later, the rescue that stepped in, was expected to come and pick up more animals, due to a supposed lack of space and for this so called rescue taking in animals she had no idea how to care for. On arrival the rescue who stepped in was then asked to take another animal due to an infection. The rescue in question had no knowledge of skin infections and refused to take this animal to the vet (assumingly due to cost) and and the rescue stepped in again and took these animals to take over the care.

Again this is usually common knowledge between rescues and most rescues know who the good ones and who these type of ones are, unfortunately due to proffesionalality it's not possible to name and shame, but rescues will usually happily tell you who you would be better off avoiding and who works hard!

WHAT ARE THEIR FINACES LIKE? AND ARE THEY TRANSPARENT?

This can be a very sensitive topic for people in general and can feel very pressurising to rescues themselves. Are they spending correctly. That money you've donated, has it been spent the right way? Is that extra bag of hay going to be judged? Etc. So rescues may feel reluctant to show accounts, not because they have been spending money elsewhere but for fear of judgements. Some self funded rescues can't show finances either and this isn't because they are spending your hard earned money somewhere else, but often because it's way too time consuming to have a complete account set up while caring for the animals, cleaning and feeding a zoo worth of animals by themselves, maybe like myself they have children to raise also, maybe they are doing very appointments or seeing people etc!

However there is several things you can question and investigate to be able to querie into the legitimacy a little further to help you decide if they are a good self funded rescue to help!

Showing receipt proofs, such a vet invoices every now and then, or updating people of the vetanary care that's been going on in the rescue is an amazing sign of legitimate spendings as vet costs and care is usually one of the most expensive costs within a vet rescue and often leaves self funded rescues in debt to their own pocket despite lovely donations, so a clear sign of vet appointments and proof of vet costs is a good sign. You may see posts or photos on the social media accounts which can account for these goings on! However just because their isn't, doesn't mean it's not going on, and often asking to see accounts or receipts can be this proof. Anyone hesitant or refusing to show, or shows with a boat load of excuses probably isn't as legit as they make out to be!

Most rescues, even if they don't keep a complete update of finances going in and out will have a paper trail or social media trial of some sort, even if it's simply occasional posts mentioning things they've had to buy! A rescue that is been fraudulent with the money isn't going to risk leaving any trail, and if they are stupid enough to leave a trail, it's usually easy to debunk, with bits that don't make sense etc.

But pretty much a genuine rescue with finances or not, will be transparent with you when asked about their spending habits and will be able to provide some sort of proof and back up for their spending habits, so you should never worry to querie them!

What proof/details/assessments/forms Etc can they provide?

Again much like everything else, rescues don't necessarily do this but it's defiantly a good thing for them to do and the ones who do it, you can usually garentee are the better rescues!

Much like myself, I like to leave myself a paper trail not just for my finances but also for the animals and the care and all the things that happen with the animals within their time with me at rescue. This helps prove your care and legitimaucy with what you do! Proving their nail clips, mite treatments, vet visits, injuries and healings etc, proves that you are doing your job and also helps show where your money is been spent too, which is added proof for finances.

It also helps prove your not breeding, buying and reselling etc, because people are physically signing their rights too you, and physically signing their adoptions etc, paper trail of wheres, when's, why's, how's, etc.

Not only that but someone willing to put in the time and effort to be so professional as to have paper trails for everything, shows their desire, and passion to do a rescue, well and legitimately.

Also for me it's a professional and well managed thing to do. It looks good for the rest of the world, and provides cover for the rescue and people surrendering and adopting. Personally If someone doesn't have any sort of paper trails I wouldn't be dealing with them as I would myself want to be protected.