[akintolife]

I personally think the difference would be how the adoption process is carried out. Do they do an adoption questionaire/ask questions to find out if the home is suitable? Also how is the store set up? Are the animals up for adoption clearly labelled as being from a rescue/shelter? And are they next to other animals that are for sale? I also guess it would be important (to me at least) to know if there was a way of identifying who was volunteering for the rescue and who worked in the store.

While I don't support the sale of animals in pet shops, I would have less of a problem with this style of adoption if 1) The animals for adoption were clearly labelled with details of the resuce organisation listed 2) the animals for adoption were kept in an area of the store where they were not near animals that were for sale and 3) those working with the adoptable animals were clearly identified as working/volunteering for the resuce.

The other thing I would consider is where the pet shop was located in relation to the rescue/shelter. If the pet shop that had animals for adoption was a reasonable distance from the rescue and allowed people who would consider adoption over purchasing, but were unlikely to make the trip to the rescue/shelter location an option for adoption, then it's not so much of a bad thing and may result in less stress on the animal in question when they are taken home, compared to a longer drive.

For me, unlike a lot of the others that have replied a lot of this is theoretical, since I am unaware of any pet shops that offer a service like that here, so you might want to take than into consideration with my response.