Giving up a Pet
To contact the Animal Care Team email ACCanimalteam@animalconcerncumbria.org, call or Whatsapp 07712 330829
Animal Concern Cumbria has high demands working with people releasing their animals for rehoming. We also work with feral colonies and social work agencies dealing with demanding cases and animals in need of urgent care. Please consider giving a donation when releasing your animal to go towards their care. Please see our Support Us page.
Intakes are managed through our "Giving up an animal" process to ensure there is no overcrowding, the animals circumstances and the charities resources. Despite best efforts it is impossible to help every single animal and emergency cases may need prioritising. This may result in your pet being rehomed via our Home to Home scheme or going on our waiting list for intake.
There may be some circumstances where we are unable to help due to behavioural needs (e.g. resource guarding) and you will be asked to contact charities with onsite behaviourists (e.g. Oak Tree Animals' Charity) or ones who have had success dealing with the behavioural trait (e.g. Animal Rescue Cumbria).
It is not possible to bring an animal to our Centre, without undergoing our Intake Process.
- Please fully complete our Intake Form (see below) with as much information about your pet. This helps us to put in place any necessary training, medical or behavioural measures to help your animal adjust into the rehoming process as smoothly as possible and reducing their stress during this time of change. Once the Animal Care Team have looked over and discussed your pets rehoming requirements, a member of the team will contact you to discuss your release request. This will be done as soon as is practically possible, please bear in mind our team are busy caring for animals and may not be able to respond immediately. We appreciate this is a stressful and distressing time, however please bear with us.
- Dogs will have an assessment with our team at your home. This helps us build a picture and gain more information about them and their lifestyle needs and starts to build familiarity. The team can assess any behavioural or medical needs and understand the possibility of rehoming. Photographs of your pets may be requested prior to intake.
- Prepare for intake ensure your cat or dog is microchipped, fully vaccinated and has up to date flea/worming treatments. Please bring in any relevant paperwork, e.g. pedigree, vaccination records, etc. This is the time to consider if rehoming is the right decision, once a pet is surrendered, it cannot be returned.
- When suitable space is available we will arrange an intake date when you will be asked to bring your pet to us and have you sign paperwork transferring legal ownership over to us. If you wish to know how your pet is settling in we ask you wait for 2-3 days before calling for an update. It’s only natural to worry, but they need time to settle into their new environment. Rest assured they will be taken good care of.
- Make a donation towards the cost of veterinary checks/treatment and caring for and rehoming your pet.
- Ensure you have given your vet consent for us to request your pets medical history.
- Owners permission is required for any animal release.
Please understand working to our process enables us to help many more animals. It might seem frustrating at times and delays can be a consequence of the many serious cases we are asked to help with (often hidden from view). Our key aim is to ease you through the process and ensure we take on animals we know we can rehome.
We operate with a waiting list; if your rehoming needs are urgent, we encourage you to reach out to other charities as well.
PLEASE NOTE due to the nature of rehoming, we are unable to give timescales.
It is illegal for cats and dogs not to be microchipped and registered to their owner. Please make sure this is completed before intake.
