Minimum Standards of Care

AAPAW is committed to promoting responsible, ethical, and humane animal welfare practices across our rescue partner network. To ensure consistent, high-quality care and to protect the well-being of both animals and adopters, all rescue organizations that are members of AAPAW agree to follow a set of minimum standards of care. Many of our rescue members go above and beyond these rescue guidelines; however, these do represent a required minimum for AAPAW membership.

​

These standards reflect widely accepted best practices in animal rescue and adoption. They are intended to support transparency, accountability, and positive outcomes for animals, adopters, and the broader community, while respecting the independence of each rescue organization.

​

• Maintain records on all animals
• Spay/neuter all animals prior to adoption
• Provide all usual vaccinations for the species and age
• Provide care for health issues so no sick animals are adopted out
• Provide health records to adopters
• Inform adopters of any known health issues the animal has
• Microchip and ensure the chip is registered to the adopter or the rescue
• Attempt to place animals with a home that matches the needs of the animal
• Take back animals if the adoption doesn’t work
• Use a written adoption agreement on all adoptions
• Provide foster homes with guidelines regarding what their responsibilities are and what your rescue provides
• Make every effort to determine the owner(s) of any found animal and attempt to return the animal to its rightful home unless there are iron clad reasons for not doing so (make sure you are operating according to the law)