
Surrendering or Returning Your Pet
We're here to help you and your pet!
Secondhand Hounds can offer many resources to keep your animal in your home. From our pet food shelf in Minneapolis to training support... we're here to help keep pets with the people who love them. That being said, we are aware there are times when an owner can no longer care for their pet, or has found a stray in the community. Our surrender application contains the necessary information we will need to determine if we can place your animal in our foster system.
Although we would love to help all pets, we are a foster based rescue and need to assess our current foster home availability before making a decision to accept your pet into our foster program. While filling out our pet surrender/return application does not guarantee that we will be able to rehome your pet, Secondhand Hounds will be happy to provide additional resources that may assist you in the training or rehoming of your pet.
Please see the following conditions before completing the surrender form.
**We have extremely limited capacity to accept surrendered bully breeds and adult dogs over 35 lbs, due to an increase in surrenders and a decline in available fosters. We will prioritize surrender applications for animals previously adopted from SHH.**

Conditions of Surrender or Adoption Return
We accept dogs and cats from Minnesota in our pet surrender program. All animals 16 weeks of age and older should be up to date on their rabies vaccinations before being accepted into our foster program. Please contact your vet directly to have them send over official vet records with exam notes. We will not be able to process your application without these records and cannot accept copies of invoices.
We cannot guarantee acceptance of your animal. We do not accept non-SHH animals with the following:
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Animal aggression issues, including dogs and cats that must be the only animal in the home due to behavior issues
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Human aggression issues, including children and adults
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Multiple bite history of a person or other animals
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A Dangerous Dog or Potentially Dangerous Dog declaration by the county
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Severe separation anxiety
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Cat urination/defecation outside of the litter box
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Animals from states other than Minnesota
Next Steps...
1. Fill out the Pet Surrender/Return Application.
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2. Vet records must be sent to us at surrenders@secondhandhounds.org, unless if the animal is a stray and you do not have vet records.
For questions regarding the application or the surrender process, email surrenders@secondhandhounds.org.
Thank you for thinking of Secondhand Hounds as a safe place to rehome your pet. Please do allow up to 48 business hours Monday – Friday (not including weekends) to hear from our team.