Question
A cat adoption agency wants to take our cats back and is threatening legal action against us. We adopted two cats, but had some issues with the second cat and asked if we could exchange him for another one, the rescue obliged, but when they arrived they came with 2 carriers instead of one. We realized they planned to take back both cats this entire time and used this opportunity to do so. We showed them the room we were planning on keeping the cat in and then they turned away from the room and tried to go into my bedroom for no reason. When I told them no, one of them came up with an excuse of "I smell smoke and your endangering the cat and you violated the agreement and no deal" as an excuse so she could take the cats from us. This was false, and when I realized she was trying to scam us and take our cats, I asked her to leave my apartment. She refused and threatened to call the police.
We had paid $125 for both our cats and got their microchip registrations, but never got their adoption papers after asking multiple times over the course of months. The adoption papers agreement we signed after rereading it, had not been breached and we were not in any violation as she claimed. She then went on Facebook the next day and made a sob story making false accusations about us claiming we "bullied" and "threatened" her, which we did not. She also made claims that we were all a pack of liars and were so poor we couldn't even afford to feed our cats, which is also false. She claimed she was getting legal advice from some lawyer friends of her's to see what she could do, my guess is to scare us into handing over the cats. Can she legally take the animals from us?
Answer
The rights of a rescue and adopter are typically contained in an adoption agreement. Sometimes these agreements provide that the rescue shall have the right to reclaim animals under certain limited conditions, usually related to animal care. Consider that animals are occasionally adopted as pairs and it could be inhumane to separate them. If the case goes to court, the judge will decide whether the adoption agreement was breached and what remedies the rescue has for breaches.
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