A section with key insights from PetRescue's 2025 guardian-assisted rehoming program report: Finding another way home
Reasons for seeking rehoming help via Home2Home
How guardians found Home2Home:
More than one quarter of guardians found Home2Home by searching the internet for pet rehoming options. Approximately equal numbers learned about Home2Home through referral from a rescue group or shelter (446) or by coming to PetRescue directly (429) because they were already familiar with the site, with smaller numbers discovering the program through a range of other sources.
Reasons that guardians sought rehoming help
The overall most common reasons that guardians sought rehoming help, in order of frequency, were:
- Relocation and unsuitable housing: The consistent prevalence of “Moving/Relocating" and "Accommodation not suitable" across cats, dogs, and other pets points to a systemic issue within the housing market. This is not merely about guardians choosing to move, but often being compelled to rehome their pets due to a scarcity of pet-inclusive housing options. The transition to smaller living spaces, like a "caravan" or a "unit," highlights how diverse living situations can quickly become untenable for pet retention, suggesting a broader societal challenge related to housing accessibility for pet guardians.
- Time constraints: Guardians frequently reported that a lack of time prevented them from providing adequate care for their pets. These time constraints often co-occurred with excitable and boisterous behaviour in pets, which may make challenges around limited time to dedicate to pet care more problematic for guardians.
- Behavioural challenges: When considering pet behaviour challenges, a variety of issues were noted. A minority could be considered ‘nuisance’ or less serious behaviours, such as boisterousness, rough play, and destructive behaviours. These were uncommon compared to more serious problem behaviours, including incompatibility between pets within the household, aggression, anxiety, litterbox challenges in cats, predatory behaviour towards other animals, and chronic escapism.
Many guardians reported trying solutions such as "tried vet behaviourists, trainers, and medication" or using calming products like "feliway". That these issues still led to rehoming suggests interventions were insufficient, inconsistent, or started too late. "We've tried vet behaviourists, trainers, and medication and are still unable to resolve this with him" highlights the persistence and severity of these challenges.
- Addition of children: The arrival of a baby or young child was often cited as a reason for seeking rehoming, particularly when combined with pet behavioural challenges. There was a notable co-occurrence of behavioural issues with pregnancy or a new baby, with parents reporting they were unable to manage both. Behavioural issues such as anxiety, aggression, or soiling often emerged or were exacerbated after a baby arrives (e.g., “Dog is jealous of my son and I’m worried if anything should happen.” or dog became "extremely possessive... since becoming pregnant" and was not allowing resident cats nearby).
- Financial hardship: Financial difficulties were reported as a driver of rehoming, limiting guardians’ capacity to provide care and support for their pets.
Beyond the specific reasons listed above;
The majority of reasons reported were human-centric challenges that affected guardians’ ability or capacity to meet the needs of their pets, often also impacting their own wellbeing and stability.
PetRescue’s Home2Home team offered resources and support to help Lenny stay with his family. Read his journey here.
While these challenges were more common than other factors, cases involving personal crisis, though less frequent, had a particularly significant impact on both pets and their human families. Such crises included family violence, homelessness, the guardian moving into a care facility, significant physical or mental health problems, and the death of the guardian.
These reasons reflect similar patterns to both Australian (McDowell papers - see links above) and international research into drivers of pet relinquishment (Investigating owner relinquishment to animal shelters through data practices, self-rehoming outcomes, and community surrender pathways and Investigating the Reasons behind Companion Animal Relinquishment: A Systematic Content Analysis of Shelter Records for Cats and Dogs, 2018–2023 as examples).
Further detail is provided in Appendix Table A3: Reasons for seeking rehoming assistance (Australia).
Co-occurrence of challenges driving rehoming
A recurring pattern in the data is that rehoming is rarely triggered by a single, isolated factor. Instead, it often results from a cascade of interconnected challenges, creating a "domino effect" that ultimately leads to the rehoming decision.
The domino effect example above of a guardian going through financial hardship can prevent access to vital veterinary care or behavioural training, compounding the initial problem.
Some commonly co-occurring challenges, include:
Further detail is provided in Appendix Table A4: Impact of type of behaviour challenge on length of time guardian has capacity to keep pet to facilitate rehoming process (values reported are percent of guardians that fall within time period).
Pet behaviours are associated with variations in guardians’ capacity to retain pets, spanning retention periods of less than four weeks to more than twelve weeks.
Emotional hardship
Guardians also described significant emotional strain. Common sentiments include:
"This choice has been extremely difficult and emotional for me”,
and "It’s all too much for me at the moment", "I feel so guilty all the time that they are bored", and "It breaks my heart". This underscores that empathy and emotional support are as vital as practical solutions.
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