Published return rates for adopted dogs and cats sit somewhere between 7% and 20%, with about 15% the figure most often quoted.12 Your own number depends almost entirely on how many days after adoption you still call a return a return. That is also why the published studies disagree so sharply about when returns happen.
Where the published rates come from
The 7–20% range is drawn from studies conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia between 1992 and 2018, summarised in a 2022 analysis in Scientific Reports.1 A companion paper by the same group puts the commonly cited figure at roughly 15%.2 The most concrete single-organization figure comes from Charleston Animal Society, a large open-admission shelter in South Carolina: a five-year retrospective covering 2015–2019 found 1,999 owners returned an animal, an overall return rate of 9.2%.1
Treat these as orientation, not benchmarks. Each is one shelter in one market with one adoption policy.
Two shelters, two different answers about when returns happen
| Charleston, 2015–20191 | Charleston dogs, 20212 | Hawes et al.3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animals | 1,999 returned | 132 adopters, 29 returns | 102 dogs, 72 cats |
| Return rate | 9.2% | 22% within 3 months | not reported |
| Time to return | mean 8.68 days | median 8.0 days | 51% of dogs, 57% of cats owned 60+ days |
| Back within ~2 weeks | — | ~80% (earlier cohort, same shelter) | ~27% of both |
| Back after 1 year | — | — | 22.6% of dogs, 29.2% of cats |
| Leading reason | behaviour, 32.8% | animal-related, 58.6% | dogs: behaviour 55.9%; cats: personal 56.9% |
At Charleston, returns are an early-days phenomenon; in the other study, most arrive two months or more after adoption. Both are real numbers from real shelters.
Your definition of a return decides your number
Hawes and colleagues name the reason for the gap. Shelters commonly treat an animal as "returned" only if the adopter had it fewer than 30 days; past that, the same animal coming back through the same door gets logged as an owner surrender. The authors describe this as a subjective definition and argue it limits what anyone can learn about retention.3 Use a 30-day cut-off and your return rate will look low and your returns will look early, because you have defined the late ones out of the category.
Shelter Animals Count resolves this the other way. In the Intake & Outcome Database — the renamed Basic Data Matrix, currently at version 2.2025 — "Relinquished by Owner" is defined as an animal "admitted by its owner, including adoption returns," with no time limit attached.4 A return is an owner-surrender intake on the day it happens, whether that is day two or year two. The 2021 version of the same document was blunter: "All returns should be tracked as owner relinquishment."5
Two consequences follow. Your reported adoption count is not reduced when an animal comes back — the adoption stands as an outcome, and the return enters as a new intake. And if you keep an internal return rate alongside that, state the window and the denominator, or the number is not comparable to another organization's, or to your own from two years ago.
One wrinkle: the 2021 matrix said explicitly that "Adoption" does not include animals in foster care or "trial" stays. The 2.2025 wording drops that sentence.45 If you run foster-to-adopt or trial stays, decide where they sit and apply it the same way every time.
Why adopters say they return, and how cats differ from dogs
In the Charleston retrospective, behaviour was the most common recorded reason at 32.8%, followed by incompatibility with existing pets at 21.5% and owner circumstances at 11.2%. Dogs were returned more often than cats for behaviour (36.1%) and housing issues (11.3%); cats more often for the owner's health (17.8%) and the animal's health (9.8%).1
The second study splits further. Dogs: 55.9% behaviour-related, mostly aggression toward humans (23.5%) or toward other animals (14.7%), with unrealistic expectations third at 12.7%. Cats: 56.9% personal reasons — moving (19.4%), the adopter's medical needs (11.1%), inability to afford basic care (11.1%).3
These are reasons recorded at the counter, and both papers flag that owner-reported reasons are prone to error where behaviour is concerned.13 They are still what your next adopter needs to know.
What a return costs beyond the animal
Of the 1,999 returning owners at Charleston, 10.5% adopted another animal from that shelter within 12 months, and the reason for return predicted whether they came back. Owners who returned an animal for the animal's health were about four times more likely to adopt again than owners who returned for behaviour (OR 4.20, 95% CI 2.37–7.45). Returns recorded as unrealistic expectations (OR 0.42, CI 0.19–0.94), the owner's own health (OR 0.20, CI 0.07–0.57) and the owner's circumstances (OR 0.41, CI 0.20–0.82) all cut the odds of a future adoption.6
The study could not see whether those adopters got an animal elsewhere, so it measures the relationship with that shelter rather than willingness to own a pet.6 Even so, the categories you would most like to prevent — behaviour and mismatched expectations — are the ones that most reliably cost you the adopter too.
What the evidence points to
The clearest signal is about expectations of the animal rather than of the workload. In the 2021 Charleston cohort, adopters who later returned their dog had scored significantly higher on expectations for the dog's behaviour and health (p = 0.02) and for the human–dog bond (p = 0.02), while expectations about the responsibilities of ownership did not differ (p = 0.74).2 The gap was about what the dog would be, not how much work it would be.
Screening on the animal predicted nothing in that sample: returned dogs did not differ from retained dogs in age, sex, size, breed group, intake type, length of stay, or whether they had been returned before.2 Early behaviour problems were common and some eased — two-thirds of adopters reported one, training difficulty fell between two days and four months, and non-social fear fell between two weeks and four months.2 An adopter warned of that in advance is less likely to read week one as a verdict.
Post-adoption support has thinner evidence than you would like. Hawes and colleagues summarise a study of 572 adopters across six shelters in three US cities: just over 10% of pets were out of the home within six months, and adopters who received advice and support from loved ones or professionals had higher retention, while prior research and prior ownership experience did not predict it.3 That is a secondary summary of one study, not a trial. The Charleston shelter's own package — open adoption counselling, a refund voucher for returns within 30 days, a free vet appointment and free behavioural support — is described in these papers, not tested against an alternative.6 It is practice, not evidence.
Pick a definition of "return", hold it long enough to see a trend, and state it whenever you quote the number. Then spend your attention on the reasons column rather than the rate, because the reasons are the part you can act on.
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Powell et al., "The impact of returning a pet to the shelter on future animal adoptions," Scientific Reports 12 (2022). Source of the 7–20% range across studies from 1992–2018; the Charleston Animal Society five-year retrospective (n = 1,999 returns, 9.2% overall return rate, mean length of ownership 8.68 days); and return reasons of behaviour 32.8%, incompatibility with existing pets 21.5%, owner circumstances 11.2%, with dog/cat differences. The 2015–2019 descriptive figures are summarised there from the authors' 2021 paper. Scientific Reports ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
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Powell et al., "Returning a Shelter Dog: The Role of Owner Expectations and Dog Behavior," Animals 12(9):1053 (2022). Source of the ~15% figure; the 2021 prospective cohort (132 adopters, 29 returns, 22%, median ownership 8.0 days, IQR 2.0–21.0; 58.6% animal-related reasons, 34.5% owner-related); the earlier finding that about 25% of returns occurred within two days and about 80% within two weeks; the expectations t-tests (behaviour/health t = −2.32, p = 0.02; human–dog bond t = −2.36, p = 0.02; responsibilities t = 0.33, p = 0.74); the absence of differences in dog age, sex, size, breed group, intake type, length of stay and prior return status; and the behaviour-over-time findings. PMC ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
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Hawes, Kerrigan, Hupe and Morris, "Factors Informing the Return of Adopted Dogs and Cats to an Animal Shelter," Animals 10(9):1573 (2020). Source of the 102 dogs / 72 cats sample; the reason breakdowns; the timing findings (51% of dogs and 57% of cats owned more than 60 days, ~27% of both returned within two weeks, 22.6% of dogs and 29.2% of cats returned after more than a year); the authors' critique of the 30-day "return" versus "owner surrender" convention as a subjective definition; and the summary of the 572-adopter, six-shelter retention study. MDPI ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
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Shelter Animals Count, Intake & Outcome Database standard operating procedure, VRS 2.2025, formerly the Basic Data Matrix. "Relinquished by Owner… Animal admitted by its owner, including adoption returns"; "Adoptions… Animal custody permanently transferred from the organization to an individual adopter via an adoption process." This is a voluntary reporting standard for participating organizations, not a legal requirement. Linked from Shelter Animals Count's Data Standardization Resources page; retrieved 22 August 2026. IOD SOP (PDF) ↩ ↩
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Shelter Animals Count, Basic Data Matrix VRS 1.2021, superseded by the version above. "Relinquished by Owner: Admitted by owner, including adoption returns. All returns should be tracked as owner relinquishment"; "Adoption: Final adoptions, having permanently left the agency's possession… It does NOT include animals in foster care or 'trial' stays." Basic Data Matrix (PDF) ↩ ↩
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Powell et al., Scientific Reports 12 (2022), as above. Source of the post-return adoption findings: 10.5% of returning owners adopted again from the shelter within 12 months; odds ratios by return reason; cat-returners 2.45 times more likely to adopt again than dog-returners; the authors' caveat that acquisition from other sources could not be observed; and the description of the shelter's open adoption and post-adoption support programme. Scientific Reports ↩ ↩ ↩