If you can comply with our eligibility requirements, the next steps in our process are:

Fill out our online application completely  Please answer all the questions as thoroughly as you can, as this will help us to determine which dog will be a good fit for your home.  There is a $25 non-refundable application fee.  There is no fee for a Foster application.

Background Vet Check  We will contact your vet to make certain that animals you currently own, or have owned in the past, are or have been appropriately cared for, including being:  • spayed or neutered   |   • kept up to date on vaccines    |   • kept on heartworm preventative (dogs only)  |   • yearly physical  |   • proof of heartworm preventative. Please call to your vet to allow us permission to have this discussion with them.

Telephonic Interview  Once we have both your complete application and the required information from your veterinarian, we will call you to conduct a phone interview. It may take 10 days to 2 weeks for us to contact you, so please be patient as we are an all-volunteer organization and we receive and process upwards of 500 applications per year.

Home Visit  The final step in the approval process is a home visit. When practical, one of our volunteers will visit your home to meet all members of your family, pets included. Please note that we are simply looking to “get to know you,” and to be able to see where the dog will be living, not to critique your housekeeping skills!

We make every effort to match out adoptive families with their “perfect” dog. It is easy to see a photo of a dog on our website and “fall in love”, but please be aware that new dogs are constantly entering our care as others are being adopted when they are ready for their forever homes. Therefore, the dog that you see on the website today may actually be unavailable to you, if he or she has recently been met by an approved applicant and a match has been made. We keep the “available dogs” section of our website as current as possible, but there is no guarantee that the dog that interests you will be available to you. It is best to fill out an application and go through the approval process before you choose a dog, as the approval process can take up to 3-6 weeks, depending on how busy we are at any given time, as well as your availability and location.

Please read the biographies on the available dogs carefully. If the bio states, for example, that a certain dog needs a structural fence and another dog for play and company, then we will not place that dog in a home with an invisible fence and no other dog. We do our best to place our dogs in home environments in which they will succeed. Each dog has his or her own personality and needs, and not every home will be a good match for every dog.

Once your home visit has been completed and you are approved to adopt, we will put you in touch with the foster parent(s) of the dog that interests you. If, after a phone conversation with the foster parent(s), it seems that the dog will be a good match for your home, you will then meet the dog. In most cases, we ask that you travel to the foster home to meet the dog. Because the dog will have become comfortable in his or her foster home, you will best be able to see his or her personality there, as opposed to in a strange environment.

In order to be eligible to adopt from Golden Retriever Rescue Club of Charlotte (GRRCC), applicants must: