If I could give this organization less than one star, I absolutely would.
We got our kitten through a Petsmart adoption saturday, and from the start, it didn't feel like a kosher adoption.
We fell in love with the kitten at first sight and started asking questions about her after reading her paper. Quote her paper, she is 2 years old and up to date on her medical necessities.
After they asked us questions about our home - what kind of place we lived in, if any other pets lived with us, ect - we said we live in an apartment but have two cats around the same age. This is when things started becoming questionable. They went from 'we'll see about an application' to 'lets fill it out right now' and practically sending us home with her.
It should also be mentioned that they specifically mentioned that numerous people were trying to adopt this cat and they were waiting to hear back from them, but as soon as we mentioned wanting to adopt her, it felt like those other people got waylaid and suddenly because we could put the money up front that we were PERFECT for her.
She also specifically kept dodging our concerns about the adoption fee until they practically put the cat in the box to send home with us. While I'm aware it's a big step to adopt a cat and there are fees involved, I wanted to make sure we were able to cover it at that time. They didn't seem to care about this even though it was a concern I raised.
Now, remember how I said that the paper said she was 2 years old?
She isn't. Judging by her teeth size and the fact that she's got kitty 'acne' on her chin, which is mostly a kitten ailment. When we asked about her age, the kept insisting that 'oh she's just small.'
The medication on her paperwork is specifically kitten medication, as kittens tend to get the three rounds of medication necessary [FVRCCP]. Adult cats only get one round, and so do strays.
Our kitten needed two more and she didn't get them because they misaged her. Even from experience working with shelters, this isn't appropriate at all and could have caused far worse complications with our kitty, not to mention that should be YOUR responsibility as a shelter to make sure this cat is fit to be adopted.
We tried to see if we could take her to the vet that they listed on her contract to see if we could continue her rounds of medication, and the vets office they have listed and recommended comes up as an empty lot on Google maps.
We eventually found the vets office they were recommending, but it isn't the address they provided. Not a huge issue, but still, given our circumstances, it's a little more than annoying to have to hunt down the vet to fix a mistake that shouldn't be happening in the first place.
Another major problem with this company is that when we reached out to potentially return the kitten because her temperament wasn't as stated and she kept fighting with our other cats, they essentially refused.
We had a concern that we brought up at the original adoption since one of our cats has severe anxiety, and they swore up and down that the cat we were adopting was good with other cats and got along with every cat she met.
The first four weeks was nothing but fighting with all of our cats, even after careful adjusting.
When we tried to reach out with these legitimate concerns and about potentially returning the cat, we were brushed off.
We were told we didn't give them enough time to adjust to one another, even though it was nearly four weeks after adopting, and that we needed to get after the cat with a spray bottle everytime she was fighting, which we were already doing.
Ultimately we were told pretty much to just keep tolerating it until eventually the cats got along better.
This is already a very lengthy review, but as a summary, in my extensive years of both working at shelters and working with them to adopt and foster, this is unacceptable behavior.
We were lied to about the animal we were adopting and because of that lie she was given insufficient medical care which we now have to fix ourselves, and when we brought up other problems to the staff at Cat Matchers, they didn't seem interested in providing a proper solution because they had made the sale.
This is the first and only time I will be giving Cat Matchers my business, and I hope that people read this and search out better shelters to work with. read more