Burlington County Animal Shelter

This was the best experience I’ve been through at an animal shelter. The first time we went, no small dogs were available for adoption. After a month off searching and feeling discouraged by many dirty, small, not so friendly shelters, we’ve decided to give it another shot. The stag were welcoming and friendly. We decided to take one for a walk and they immediately attended us. The attendee smiled, was not nosy nor did he asked any question. He did his job and let my daughter and I walked the dog. We quickly submitted an application and the staff was informative. She gave us the pros and cons. Now this was on a Saturday. Before you knew it, we had our dog the following Saturday. The staff exceeded our expectations and were understanding of my complex schedule and why I couldn’t be in Monday, when they called and said we were approved. That Saturday I was in and out within twenty minutes. Keep up the good work in being nice, friendly, overly staff, clean and prompt.

We had a terrible experience here. We saw a sweet beagle with good energy, so we asked to take him out to play. They said, «we have a beagle back there?» That was my first sign that this wasn’t a top operation, that and the fact that several dogs had poop in their kennels.
A woman brought the dog out with us and we had a great walk and play session with him. The woman kept emphasizing how much he seemed to love us and encouraged us to fill out an application. Already totally in love with him, we did.
We were told we were the first application, so they would probably be able to approve it the next day (Friday) for a Saturday adoption. Our application would be easy to process because we own our home and don’t have landlord issues and we don’t have kids or other dogs to bring in.
Friday night, we bought a bed and food and all that good stuff and couldn’t wait to pick up our new dog, who we named Morgan, on Saturday. But then Saturday, they told us they had adopted him to another family the day before. WHAT?! WHY?!
They said they have a policy of accepting three or four applications for each dog and then choosing the best family. Of course, they had approved our application already and couldn’t give a single reason that the other family was «better.» It wasn’t as if they had interviewed us or even asked basic questions. After rolling their eyes and giving a ton of attitude at even being asked why this would happen, they eventually gave in and said it was because that family had already been disappointed three times before when other families were chosen over them.
This makes no sense and certainly isn’t good for the dogs. Instead of encouraging our friends to visit and perhaps adopt a dog of their own, we warned them against this shelter, both in person and on Facebook. How are shelters like this helping dogs get adopted?
If we weren’t more determined, we might have just gone to a pet store and bought a puppy mill puppy since no one would be jerking us around.
Fortunately, we found The Animal Orphange in Vorhees, which had amazing customer service for both their humans and animals. They knew every animal by name as well as its temperament and needs. We’re happy and proud to say we adopted a wonderful German Shepherd mix who is very happy in our home.