Owner Surrenders and Intake

We have two options to assist you with placement of your pet during our moratorium.

OPTION 1: We will intake your dog into our Adoption program, but you will have to foster the dog until a permanent home is found or until a spot opens up in our foster program. We will cover all medical that needs to be completed to include: treatment for illness, prescriptions, spaying/neutering, vaccines, microchipping, heartworm and fecal tests through one of our veterinarians. We will also provide you with the following if you have found the dog as a stray and are willing to foster until adoption: a loaner crate, leash, collar and food if available. We will be responsible for all potential adoption screening to include email communication, phone interviews, reference checks, home checks and after adoption follow up with adopters. If you are interested in this option, please follow these directions:

Please fill out our online intake form.
Download and submit an Owner Surrender agreement (*fee may be waived if you foster until adoption*) to our Intake Coordinator via email.
Download and submit a Foster Agreement to our Intake Coordinator via email.
Submit multiple digital pictures to Intake Coordinator via email

OPTION 2: Courtesy listing on our Page 2. You will be solely responsible for screening potential adopters and will be responsible for all medical. We will not provide you with any referrals except the ones that are generated by our courtesy listing. If you would like this option please follow these directions:

Download and Submit our Intake Questionnaire to our Intake Coordinator via email.
Submit a one paragraph biography and your contact info to our Intake Coordinator via email.
Submit at least 2 digital pictures to our Intake Coordinator via email.

Please note that your dog MUST be spayed/neutered and up-to-date on vaccines in order to be placed on our website.

Policies & Procedures

It is important that if you are giving up your dog that you give us at least several months to try and find a foster placement or permanent home for them. We ARE NOT A TURN-IN SHELTER. We take in Owner Surrenders as a Courtesy. We do not have a shelter and are foster home run, so therefore we have VERY LIMITED SPACE and cannot be expected to take in your dog with one to two days or even a couple of weeks notice. We only make 3-4 placements a month and there is always a steady stream of ACDs that are in need of rescue from euthanasia lists or abusive situations which is our main focus. Please understand, YOUR EMERGENCY IS NOT OUR EMERGENCY, so plan accordingly. We are ALWAYS willing to help you find a new home for your pet as long as you are willing to foster the dog until a home can be found.
New Hope Cattle Dogs will not take in any dog (s) that has a bite record or has aggression towards people and/or other dogs. Please take into consideration that we are a foster home run organization and all of our dogs live in homes with other dogs, sometimes cats and kids. It is MANDATORY that they are good with other dogs!
A minimum donation of $50.00 is required upon surrender of your dog. This fee will help cover medical needs, housing and feeding of the dog. We will take a combination of a monetary donation and other donation. To see what we need, please go to our Wish List.
We require that you provide us with a leash and collar, a crate (if the dog uses one), two 40 lb bags of dog's normal food and copies of ALL medical records during the entire lifetime of the dog.
HONESTY! Please be honest with us about every little fault or unique trait. If they bark a lot, tell us, if they dig, tell us, if they don't like children, tell us, if they don't like cats, tell us, if they aren't housebroken, tell us. It is extremely important for us to know these things so we can address the issues before we place the dog into another home.
An Owner Surrender form MUST be filled out prior to us taking the dog.

Alternative Options

Call 480-898-PETS (7387)
Check other Animal Shelters with No or low Euthanasia Rates
- Arizona Animal Welfare League-Phone:602.273.6852
- Humane Society- OWNER SURRENDERS ONLY!! Phone 602.997.7585
- Friends For Life Animal Sanctuary-Phone 480.497.8296
- For the Luv of Dogs/Paw Placement-Phone: 602-712-1599
- H.A.L.O.
- Sun City Animal Rescue-Phone: 623-872-7941
- Noah's Ark-Phone: 602-298-9108
- Aussielads Lethal White Aussie Rescue-Phone: 480-654-2354
- Arizona Animal Rescue and Sanctuary-Phone: 480-503-DOGS
- Phoenix Dalmatian Station Purebred Dalmatian Breed Rescue-Phone: 480-540-1433
- Arizona Purebreed Rescue-Phone: 623-465-7995
- Animals Benefit Club-Phone: 602-867-2169
- R.E.S.C.U.E.-Phone: 480-598-9410
- Four Paws Rescue-Phone: 602-795-9480
- Coppercloud Pet Rescue-Phone: 480-767-0044
- Coalition of All Breed Rescue of Arizona (CABRA)-You will find a list of every Breed Specific Rescue in Arizona on this website.
- Dog Rescue-Phone: 480-755-7343
- Valley Cats and Dogs-Phone: 480-814-8801
- Arizona Border Collie Rescue

***PLEASE be kind to your animals and don't take your pet to Maricopa County Animal Care & Control because the likelihood of them catching a disease or being euthanized is very high. It is more humane to euthanize them your self than to put them in a small cement cage for the last days of their lives.*** To see what happens to dogs that enter the pound, check out Albert's story in an Atlanta pound.

The Following passages are directed at the majority of the public who think of their animals as objects that can be tossed aside when they are tired of them. The ONLY people who should be offended by these following words are those to whom these words ring true.

We understand that not all people who have to give up their pets are "Average Pet Owners", but the majority of people in this world today fall into this category. We are a "throw-away society". We don't cherish living creatures the way we should (we don't even cherish other human beings). We use them until they are no longer useful and then we throw them away. The sad part is that we chose to domesticate dogs, cats and other pets, so therefore, their lives are in our hands. They did not choose to live in your backyard, chew up your belongings, bite people, nip at the heels of children, breed puppies for profit until they die, or live in their own filth. They do give us unconditional love no matter how much we beat them, neglect them or say we "love" them. It is not their fault that we are too busy, work too much, have children or move to another state or simply across town. They look to us for protection and security for their entire lifetime and if we cannot provide this, then we do not deserve to live with animals so giving and faithful.

So think about that before you judge what has been written and if you still don't like it, please do not contact me, because I am here for the animals benefit, not to make your life easier, stress free or to take away your guilt for abandoning your animal.

Please feel free to contact me if you truly have a good reason to place your pet, because I will help you in whatever way I can.

An Open Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Average Pet Owner

Author Unknown

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Average Pet Owner:

Thank you for contacting us animal rescuers, shelter volunteers, and foster homes about your inability to keep your pet. We receive an extremely high volume of inquiries and requests to accept surrendered animals (and none of us is getting paid, OK?). To help us expedite your problem as quickly as possible, please observe the following guidelines:

1. Do not say that you are "CONSIDERING finding a good home" for your pet, or that you, "feel you MIGHT be forced to," or that you "really THINK it would be better if" you unloaded the poor beast. Ninety-five percent of you have already got your minds stone-cold made up that the animal WILL be out of your life by the weekend at the best. Say so. If you don't, I'm going to waste a lot of time giving you common-sense, easy solutions for very fixable problems, and you're going to waste a lot of time coming up with fanciful reasons why the solution couldn't possibly work for you. For instance, you say the cat claws the furniture, and I tell you about nail-clipping and scratching posts and aversion training, and then you go into a long harangue about how your husband won't let you put a scratching post in the family room, and your ADHD daughter cries if you use a squirt bottle on the cat, and your congenital thumb abnormalities prevent you from using nail scissors and etc., etc.

Just say you're getting rid of the cat.

2. Do not waste time trying to convince me how nice and humane you are. Your co-worker recommended that you contact me because I am nice to animals, not because I am nice to people, and I don't like people who "get rid of" their animals. "Get rid of" is my least favorite phrase in any language. I hope someone "gets rid of" YOU someday. I am an animal advocate, not a people therapist. After all, for your ADHD daughter, you can get counselors, special teachers, doctors, social workers, etc. Your pet has only me, and people like me, to turn to in his or her need, and we are unpaid, overworked, stressed-out, and demoralized. So don't tell me this big long story about how, "We love this dog so much, and we even bought him a special bed that cost $50, and it is just KILLING us to part with him, but honestly, our maid is just awash in dog hair every time she cleans, and his breath sometimes just reeks of liver, so you can see how hard we've tried, and how dear he is to us, but we really just can't . . ." You are not nice, and it is not killing you. It is, in all probability, literally killing your dog, but you're going to be just fine once the beast is out of your sight.

Don't waste my time trying to make me like you or feel sorry for you in your plight.

3. Do not try to convince me that your pet is exceptional and deserves special treatment. I don't care if you taught him to sit. I don't care if she's a beautiful Persian. I have a waiting list of battered and/or whacked-out animals who need help, and I have no room to foster/house your pet. Do not send me long messages detailing how Fido just l-o-v-e-s blankies and carries his favorite blankie everywhere, and oh, when he gets all excited and happy, he spins around in circles, isn't that cute? He really is darling, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all for us to find him a good home.

Listen, we can go down to the pound and count the darling, spinning, blankie-loving beasts on death row by the dozens, any day of the week. And, honey, Fido is a six-year-old Shepherd-Lab mix. I am not lying when I tell you that big, older, mixed-breed, garden-variety dogs are almost completely unadoptable, and I don't care if they can whistle Dixie or send semaphore signals with their blankies. What you don't realize is that, though you're trying to lie to me, you're actually telling the truth:

Your pet IS a special, wonderful, amazing creature. But this mean old world does not care. More importantly, YOU do not care, and I can't fix that problem.

All I can do is grieve for all the exceptional animals who live short, brutal, loveless lives and die without anyone ever recognizing that they were indeed very, very special.

4. Finally, just, for pity' s sake, for the animal's sake, tell the truth, and the whole truth. Do you think that if you just mumble that your cat is "high-strung," I will say, "Okey-dokey! No problemo!" and take it into foster care? No, I will start a asking questions and uncover the truth,which is that your cat has not used a litter box in the last six months. Do not tell me that you "can't" crate your dog. I will ask what happens when you try to crate him, and you will either be forced to tell me the symptoms of full-blown, severe separation anxiety, or else you will resort to lying some more, wasting more of our time.

And, if you succeed in placing your pet in a shelter or foster care, do not tell yourself the biggest lie of all: "Those nice people will take him and find him a good home, and everything will be fine." Those nice people will indeed give the animal every possible chance, but if we discover serious health or behavior problems, if we find that your misguided attempts to train or discipline him have driven him over the edge, we will do what you are too immoral and cowardly to do: We will hold the animal in our arms, telling him truthfully that he is a good dog or cat, telling him truthfully that we are sorry and we love him, while the vet ends his life.

How can we be so heartless as to kill your pet, you ask? Do not ever dare to judge us. At least we tried. At least we stuck with him to the end. At least we never abandoned him to strangers, as you certainly did, didn't you? In short, this little old rescuer/foster momma has reached the point where she would prefer you pet owners to tell her stories like this:

"We went to Wal-Mart and picked up a free pet in the parking lot a couple of years ago. Now we don't want it anymore. We're lazier than we thought.

We've got no patience either. We're starting to suspect the animal is really smarter than we are, which is giving us self-esteem issues.

Clearly, we can't possibly keep it. Plus, it might be getting sick, it's acting kind of funny.

"We would like you to take it in eagerly, enthusiastically, and immediately.

"We hope you'll realize what a deal you're getting and not ask us for a donation to help defray your costs. After all, this is an (almost) pure-bred animal, and we'll send the leftover food along with it. We get the food at Wal-Mart too, and boy, it's a really good deal, price-wise".

"We are very irritated that you haven't shown pity on us in our great need and picked the animal up already. We thought you people were supposed to be humane! Come and get it today. No, we couldn't possibly bring it to you, the final episode of "Survivor II" is on tonight."

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Pet Owner, for your cooperation.

Author Unknown, but could be any shelter worker or rescuer.