I want to start out by saying I don't aim to prevent animals from being adopted, as I think all of…read morethe animals here deserve to find loving homes. However, I recently adopted a cat from White Oak Animal Safe Haven, and if I knew then what I know now, I never would have adopted from here. We took our new cat to the vet after about a week of having her home, and she tested positive for Giardia and Coccidia, two types of parasites. If you don't know anything about this, a quick google search will show you what a process it is to get rid of these parasites in cats. It is really difficult to get rid of and has been an emotional roller coaster. We have spent hundreds of dollars in vet bills and cleaning supplies. We had to treat and quarantine our resident cat. We have a carpeted apartment which makes this so much harder to get rid of. We spent hundreds on carpet cleaning alone. It is also highly contagious, so it is very likely all of their cats and possibly dogs could have this as well. I find it very hard to believe the shelter had no idea their cats have this, and if they didn't, they are not properly vetting their animals (which is funny because they told us they denied someone's application because they said they wouldn't take their cat to the vet). Giardia and coccidia cause the cat to have really bad diarrhea and gas, so if they really did not know their cats were infected with the parasites, they were knowingly not seeking care for their animals. We noticed the smell on the drive home after picking her up, so there's no way they didn't know something was up. They never once mentioned to us that this is something they were dealing with, and they knew we had another cat at home. So they risked my current cats health as well. The adoption process is quite intense and very thorough, which I don't think is a bad thing necessarily; however, to have that type of adoption process and then give me a sick animal is crazy to me. After we got the results, I called the shelter to inform them in case there's some possible way they didn't know, and the woman I spoke to was kind of rude and very dismissive. No apology or anything.
I will say, we had a good adoption otherwise. The cat coordinator was very kind when we went to meet the cats and when we picked up the cat we adopted. I just can't believe they gave us a sick cat and never felt the need to mention anything. All of this being said, be aware that if you have recently adopted a cat or plan to, there is almost a 100% chance they will also have Giardia and Coccidia because it sometimes takes multiple rounds of medication and cleaning to fully get rid of this. Our cat has been on one cycle of meds already, and there has yet to be improvement. I don't know how long this has been going on, but if you want to adopt from here, please do some research so you can get it right from the beginning and help the sick cats. It is treatable but it requires a lot of time, money, and consistency.