Monday, August 01, 2005
A perfect home soon.
Of the 96 adoptions all the groups did on Saturday at the Adoptathon, 19 of them were from the Oakland SPCA. 19. That is pretty darn good. It would have been 20 if the story below went a different way.
A family came in to look at dogs. They saw little Kobe. A four year old rat terrier mix. They hung out with him, talked at great length with one of our canine associates about adopting Kobe and decided to do it. Our staff approved the adoption and they went up to the front desk. We did all the paperwork and even went as far as having the client pick out a collar. But then, the credit card was declined. And the client had no cash. She asked if she could pay half now. We said, no. We asked if she could run to the bank. She said, no. She got very upset. To avoid any situations in the lobby, we said we could hold the dog until opening the next day for her. The dog would still be ours and if she didn't show up, we would put the dog back up for adoption. She said, Of course we will be back. We said, Great, but we just wanted it to be very clear that the dog would not be held for her past the time she indicated. She said again WE WILL BE BACK. NO QUESTION. GUARANTEED.
Well, this morning, when I came to work, the little pooch was still in the kennel waiting patiently for someone to come take him out. The clients had not showed. Had not even called us. I tried not to think of the time our staff spent with them, or the tons of other clients who wanted that dog, or the extra special effort we put out to ensure these clients went home with the perfect pet. I just tried to remember that Kobe will get a perfect home soon.
