Can I adopt an animal whose history is unknown?

Yes, and that covers most animals in shelters. A missing history is not a defect, it is a condition to manage: it means starting from direct observation, planning a thorough first consultation and assuming neither skills nor tolerances. The problem is not the absence of information, it is the invention of information nobody has verified.

Is a pedigree a guarantee of health?

No. A pedigree certifies ancestry registered with a stud book authority, not the animal's health status or the screening of its parents. Health information sits in the screening certificates for the parents, which must be requested separately and read for their actual results rather than summarised verbally.

At what age can a puppy go home?

In Italy rehoming is not permitted before sixty days of age, and that limit has a behavioural reason as well as a health one: staying with the mother and littermates during that period builds self control and social skills. Many breeders wait longer, and that is usually a good sign.

If I sign an adoption agreement and it does not work out, what happens?

It depends on what the agreement says, which is why it should be read first. Organised charities accept returns and often require them as an explicit clause, to prevent onward transfer to unchecked homes. Also ask whether they offer behavioural support in the first weeks, because a share of returns is avoided by two consultations at the right moment.

Is adopting an adult better than a puppy?

It depends on your needs, but an adult carries an important informational advantage: final size, temperament, activity level and tolerances are already observable, whereas in a puppy they remain predictions. An adult already living with a foster carer is, in terms of predictability, the option with the fewest unknowns.

Adoption and settling in11 min readUpdated on August 4, 2026

Questions to ask a shelter or a breeder before you sign

The questions that change an adoption, the documents to obtain, the warning signs and the paperwork to close in the first days after signing.

Audience: Pet owners, Breeders
Species: Dog, Cat
Scope: Italy, European Union, Valid everywhere

People looking for an animal almost always arrive at the meeting with a list of health questions and none about behaviour, while most returns to shelters come from behavioural and management mismatches rather than illness. The conversation with whoever is rehoming the animal is the only moment when information can still be gathered at no cost: after signing, the same request becomes a complaint, and the full picture can only be rebuilt by paying for consultations and tests. The questions below serve two parallel purposes, working out whether the animal fits the real life of the household, and obtaining in writing the information the first vet who examines it will need.

Why the questions matter more than the rapport

A serious organisation asks more questions than it receives. If nobody asks how many hours the animal will be left alone, who lives in the house, whether there are young children, whether the garden is fenced and what happens if you move, that organisation is not selecting a home: it is placing an animal. This is the first quality indicator and it is assessed before anything else.

The second indicator is willingness to say uncomfortable things. A shelter that describes every dog as suitable for everything and every cat as friendly with everyone is describing a brochure. The useful information is the negative kind: what it does not tolerate, who it has had conflicts with, which handling it refuses, in what circumstances it has been observed reacting badly.

Questions for a shelter or a rescue

In a rehoming organisation the information is often partial for objective reasons: many animals arrive as strays and the earlier history does not exist. That does not make the questions less important, it only changes what counts as an acceptable answer: not knowing is legitimate, stating invented certainties is not.

How long it has been in the organisation and where it came from: stray, owner surrender, seizure, transfer from another shelter.
Why it was given up, if it was a surrender: the reason stated by the previous keeper is information worth asking for explicitly.
Has it been adopted and returned before? How many times and for what reason.
How it behaves with other dogs, with cats, with children and with strangers, and which observations that description is based on.
How it reacts to handling: ear cleaning, brushing, nail trimming, putting on a harness, veterinary examination.
Has it ever shown defensive reactions around food, toys or its resting place?
Which health procedures it has received and on what dates: vaccinations, internal and external parasite treatment, infectious disease testing, neutering.
Is it neutered? If not, is the procedure planned before rehoming or does it fall to the adopter?
What kind of enrichment it gets: daily walks, contact with volunteers, time in a home with a foster carer.
What the adoption agreement provides for if things go wrong: return, behavioural support, follow up visits.

The question about foster care is the most informative of all. An animal that has spent time in a house has a behavioural history in a domestic setting, which is exactly the context it will live in. Observations collected in a kennel say little about how it will behave in a flat with a lift and a doorbell.

Questions for a breeder

With a breeder the conversation changes character, because here the history exists in full and can be documented. The useful questions concern health screening, management of the litter and age at rehoming, three elements verified with documents rather than statements.

Which genetic and health tests were carried out on the parents and with what results. Recognised screening schemes exist for most breeds, for example official hip and elbow scoring, eye examinations and breed specific genetic tests: ask for the certificates, not the summary.
May I see the mother together with the puppies, in the place where they were born? A visit where the mother is absent or not visible with the litter is reason enough to stop.
At what age are the puppies rehomed and why. In Italy rehoming before sixty days of age is not permitted: a breeder offering a forty day old puppy is breaking the rule and also compromising behavioural development.
What socialisation programme the puppies follow and which stimuli they have met before rehoming: surfaces, noises, different people, vehicles, handling.
How many litters the kennel produces in a year and how many breeds are present. Many different breeds and many parallel litters are incompatible with health screening and individual socialisation.
What kind of contract is offered, what it provides for if a genetic disease is diagnosed after rehoming, and what obligations it places on the buyer.
For brachycephalic breeds, which respiratory function assessments were performed on the breeding animals. This question alone filters the field.
What the breeder asks of me and what happens if I can no longer keep the dog: the answer to this says more than all the previous ones.

The last question deserves attention. A breeder who states they will take the animal back at any point in its life is taking on a costly commitment, and nobody takes it on without having selected homes carefully. It is the commercial equivalent of a guarantee on their own work.

Documents to obtain before or at signing

The document pack is the easiest part to verify and the one most often left incomplete. The rule is to obtain everything before you leave, because retrieving a document weeks later is almost always difficult.

Documents to request and what they are actually for
Document	Who issues it	Why it matters
Microchip number and identification record	The organisation or the vet who implanted it	Identifies the animal and allows the change of keeper
Health record or vaccination certificate	Veterinary surgeon	Carries dates, products and batch labels: without batches the booster cannot be reconstructed
Signed adoption or sale agreement	Organisation or breeder	Documents the date and the conditions of the transfer
Reports of the health tests performed	Laboratory or clinic	Avoids repeating tests and shows the baseline values
Declaration of parasite treatments	Organisation or breeder	Determines when the next treatment is due
Pedigree or stud book registration certificate	Stud book authority	Certifies ancestry, where it was claimed at the point of sale
Parental screening certificates	Breeder	The only proof of the health screening that was claimed

The microchip deserves one further check. Ask for it to be read in front of you with a scanner, compare the number with the one written on the paperwork, and check which name it is registered to. A correct number on paper but linked to a different keeper in the database is a frequent situation and should be resolved before signing, not after.

Warning signs that justify walking away

Some situations are not ambiguous and do not improve through negotiation. Recognising them early avoids ending up with a sick animal, with false documents or with a history no vet will ever be able to reconstruct.

Handover in a car park, at a service station or at your door with no chance to see where the animal was raised.
No opportunity to see the mother with the puppies, with a different excuse each time you ask.
Puppies offered under two months of age, or with paperwork showing a birth date inconsistent with their appearance.
A claim of vaccination with no record, no batch labels and no name of the vet who administered it.
Pressure to decide immediately, time limited discounts, a deposit requested before you have seen the animal.
Immediate availability of many different breeds, or puppies of different breeds all the same age.
No questions about your family, home and management: whoever does not select does not follow up.
Refusal to put the terms of the adoption or sale in writing.
An animal visibly underweight, with diarrhoea, coughing, or eye and nasal discharge, presented as normal for its age.

What to do in the first days after signing

Once the contractual part is closed, a few administrative tasks with firm deadlines remain, and nobody remembers them because they fall in the busiest days of settling in. It is worth putting them in the diary before you go to collect the animal.

Register the change of keeper
In Italy the change of keeper must be reported to the companion animal registry through the organisation or an authorised vet. Deadlines and procedures are set regionally: check which applies where you live and do not overrun it.
Verify the registration afterwards
Once the paperwork is done, ask for confirmation that your name is genuinely linked to the microchip number. A transfer started but not completed is equivalent, if the animal goes missing, to one registered to somebody else.
Book the first veterinary consultation
Within the first days, bringing all the documentation you received. It sets a reference weight, checks for parasites and reconstructs which boosters are genuinely outstanding.
File everything in one place
Photographs or scans of the documents, the microchip number, contacts for the source organisation and the vet. You will need them for the first trip, the first emergency and any change of practice.
Check the timing of any insurance policy
Health cover has waiting periods and clauses on pre existing conditions. Taking out a policy after a sign has appeared almost always means not being covered for that sign.
Set reminders for the known deadlines
Vaccine boosters, parasite treatments, any planned neutering and the post adoption check the organisation may require.

One last element that is nearly always forgotten: asking permission to contact the people who rehomed the animal in the months ahead. Serious organisations offer it spontaneously, and the person who managed that animal for months remains the fastest source of information when an unexpected behaviour appears.

Frequently asked questions

Can I adopt an animal whose history is unknown?: Yes, and that covers most animals in shelters. A missing history is not a defect, it is a condition to manage: it means starting from direct observation, planning a thorough first consultation and assuming neither skills nor tolerances. The problem is not the absence of information, it is the invention of information nobody has verified.
Is a pedigree a guarantee of health?: No. A pedigree certifies ancestry registered with a stud book authority, not the animal's health status or the screening of its parents. Health information sits in the screening certificates for the parents, which must be requested separately and read for their actual results rather than summarised verbally.
At what age can a puppy go home?: In Italy rehoming is not permitted before sixty days of age, and that limit has a behavioural reason as well as a health one: staying with the mother and littermates during that period builds self control and social skills. Many breeders wait longer, and that is usually a good sign.
If I sign an adoption agreement and it does not work out, what happens?: It depends on what the agreement says, which is why it should be read first. Organised charities accept returns and often require them as an explicit clause, to prevent onward transfer to unchecked homes. Also ask whether they offer behavioural support in the first weeks, because a share of returns is avoided by two consultations at the right moment.
Is adopting an adult better than a puppy?: It depends on your needs, but an adult carries an important informational advantage: final size, temperament, activity level and tolerances are already observable, whereas in a puppy they remain predictions. An adult already living with a foster carer is, in terms of predictability, the option with the fewest unknowns.

What to do next

Take a written list of questions to the meeting, ask for the answers to be confirmed in writing, and do not leave without the microchip number, a health record with dates, a signed transfer agreement and the reports of any tests performed. Before signing, have the microchip read in front of you and check which name it is registered to.