What does it mean to surrender a pet to the PEI Humane Society?

How does it work?

Why does it sometimes take a few days?

Depending on the time of year, capacity of the shelter, and your pet’s unique needs, surrendering your pet can look very different for you than for someone else.

As a Managed Intake shelter, we treat each animal as an individual, assessing their needs and weighing it alongside animals we already have in care at the shelter.

Because each animal is treated as an individual in our shelter, we need to make sure we know as much as possible about your pet before they go up for adoption. Again, this looks different for each animal.

Let’s look at the process step-by-step:

Step One:

Call the PEI Humane Society. You can reach our shelter during business hours at 902-892-1190 or by email at adoption_intake@peihumanesociety.com. When you call, we will ask you some preliminary questions about your surrendered pet and help you decide which path is right for you. 

The three potential paths are:

• Making an appointment to surrender your pet
• Being placed on a temporary waiting list
• Facilitated Adoption

Step Two:

Depending on which options are available, you’ll be instructed to do the following:

• If you have an appointment to surrender your pet, you’ll be told what to bring to the appointment and what to expect when you come in.
• If you’re placed on a waiting list, this means the shelter is currently full and cannot bring your animal in at this time. You will receive a call when we are able to schedule your appointment to surrender your pet.
• If you select a facilitated adoption, we will contact you about bringing your animal in to be assessed, have vet records sent to us and begin the process of preparing for adoption.

Step Three:

On the day of your appointment, you will bring the animal to the shelter and have a conversation with our intake and adoption counselor. This will be a short appointment where we will ask about the animal’s health and behaviour, and will get your permission to have your veterinarian release records to us.

If you are doing a facilitated adoption, you may not need to bring your animal to this appointment, unless it is being examined by our shelter veterinarian the same day. 

Step Four:

The animal is placed up for adoption. 

There can sometimes be a bit of a wait between steps 3 & 4. If the animal is not vaccinated, spay/neutered, or if they have a medical condition, need surgery, etc. the shelter will look to get these things sorted out before putting the animal up for adoption.