We do require veterinary & groomer references. Applicants must have prior or current experience as an adult dog-owner with solid references. We do not adopt to first-time dog owners. Applications without veterinary and groomer references, or outside our adoption area will not be considered. Please don't ask us to make exceptions!

Adoption process includes: Application with references (including veterinarian & groomer), and for approved applicants - 2 telephone interviews and home visit with all household members & pets. We only schedule meetings with our dogs & their foster families to approved applicants, and we process applications in the order they are received.

Important Information - Please understand that we cannot make exceptions to the following policies. Thank you for your time and consideration.

1.  We only accept applications by email at adoptarescue@earthlink.net. Most of our volunteers do not have access to fax machines and it is difficult to forward the applications for processing.

2.  If you are within 40 miles, you are within our adoption areas. If you are unsure of meeting the geographic criteria, please go to http://www.mapquest.com and map out the distance from your zip code to Washington DC, Baltimore, MD, or York, PA. 

3.  We are an all-volunteer organization.  No one receives any form of compensation.  It can take up to two weeks to process an application. Due to the volume of email we receive, we cannot respond to inquiries that do not have a complete and approved application.  We appreciate your patience.

4 . Please understand that we cannot adopt any of our dogs to families that have a larger breed dog over 25 pounds.

5. Shih Tzus are a member of the Asian and Toy Breed families. With very rare exceptions, Asian and Toy Breed dogs are not recommended for children under the age of 14. The majority of our dogs do not do well with children

6. Asian and Toy Breed dogs are most often cage and crate aggressive. We do not recommend our dogs to any environment with a need to cage or crate, and none of our dogs are accumstomed to spending any time in cages or crates.

Our website is updated regularly. You do not need to email us to inquire if a dog is available.