REHOME & SURRENDER
Considering Rehoming or Surrendering Your Pet?
We know that life can change, and sometimes keeping a pet becomes challenging. Before deciding to surrender your pet to a shelter, we encourage you to explore all available options. Our goal is to support both you and your pet by helping you find the best possible solution during a difficult time.
Important Definitions
Rehoming:
When a pet owner uses resources to find a new home for a pet.
Surrender:
When you give ownership to a shelter or rescue to find your pet its new home.
Stray:
An animal you found less than 4 days ago and the owner is unknown.
Your Options
We understand how hard this decision can be, and whenever possible, we aim to help pets stay in their homes. We offer a variety of support resources, including low-cost veterinary care, food assistance, behavior support, and training resources to help address common challenges and keep families together.
SPCA Florida is a managed-intake organization serving Polk County only. To maintain our No Kill status, pet surrenders are scheduled by appointment when space is available. As a result, we maintain an active waiting list for community members requesting to surrender a pet.
Surrendering Your Pet
Steps To Surrender
Determine which of our programs meets your needs.
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Foster Program - Underage animals (younger than 8 weeks old) go to our foster program. Click the button below to fill out an application.
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Mom's Last Litter - If your female dog/cat had an “oopsie” litter and you want to keep mom but surrender her litter, check out our Mom’s Last Litter program. We accept the litter to place for adoption and spay mom (and neuter dad) for FREE. Go to https://www.spcaflorida.org/lastlitter and fill out an application.
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Surrender - Our surrender program is for animals of an adoptable age (2months or older). Applications are required.
Submit a surrender application. All pets must qualify medically and behaviorally for our program.
Once your application is received, we will add you to our waiting list. Please add the surrender email address to your contact list. We do monthly check-ins via email until we have space to bring your pet in.​​​​​
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You will be called and emailed when we have an appointment available for your pet(s). There is a non-refundable $25 surrender deposit due at the time the appointment is made to confirm your appointment. This amount is taken from the surrender fee when you bring your pet in.
Surrender Fees
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Kennel Dogs (30+lbs) or a litter of kittens/puppies $75
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Individual cats or small dogs/puppies $50
The following information should be brought to your surrender appointment:
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Driver’s License
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Pet(s) veterinary records
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Your pet(s) medications and/or special diet foods, if required.
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Payment for the surrender fee. We accept cash and credit.
NOTE: When you surrender your pet, you give up all owner rights. We cannot share any information with you about the pet, its new owners, or its status once you have surrendered.
Under 8 weeks old/Nursing mom and babies
Found a Stray
SPCA Florida does not have a contract with the county to accept strays. Please follow these steps to try to reunite the pet with its owner.
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Bring the pet to a shelter or veterinary clinic to be scanned for a microchip.
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Contact Polk County Animal Control with a found pet report.
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Post found reports on Petco Love Lost, Facebook Lost and Found pages, and the Nextdoor app.
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If you have done these things, and can hold onto the pet temporarily, you are able to fill out a surrender application. We will then work to get the pet into our program.
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If you cannot hold the pet, Polk County Animal Control is your county shelter.
We make weekly trips to animal control to pull animals when we have space.