World League for Protection of Animals Review

They lied: our cat is FIV positive.

We saw our cat on a site listing animals in need of homes. That site led us to the WLPA. We made arrangements with the coordinator, Jonine (who seemed pleasant albeit rather outspoken at that time) to visit the cats on a Sunday afternoon. Our first impression of the WLPA (Gladesville) was that it was overcrowded and disorganised, although the volunteers were clearly passionate about their work. In short, we found a cat with whom we really bonded. Throughout the process, we made clear that we were looking for an FIV negative cat, as our new cat would be joining a household with two healthy cats. Jonine and a volunteer confirmed that our prospective cat was FIV negative, much to our relief.

We later made arrangements for adoption...and that s where our problems began. Interacting with Jonine was extremely frustrating to put it mildly. On several occasions, she made plans with us which she failed to follow through on including: (1) agreeing to drop off our cat and never doing so, requiring us to travel to the Newtown shelter at short notice to collect him; (2) ignoring repeated requests for our cat s papers to be sent (we are still waiting for them a month later); and (3) supposedly arranging for a vet to attend our home on a specified day, which never eventuated (we still don t know his medical history). The latter two examples struck us odd given the harsh and almost authoritarian manner in which Jonine instructed us to properly care for our cats (including recounting a very grisly cautionary tale of a cat being eaten alive by rats, but that s a whole other story).

Eventually, we called the shelter to request our cat s papers and Jonine answered the call. She scolded us for calling the main line, stating the volunteers don t know anything about the cats . She made it very clear that we should exclusively deal with her. She then insisted that taking our cat to our regular vet was a waste of time yet insisted that her vet visit our house. Again, we were open to this option, but the vet never showed. During this lengthy and condescending lecture, Jonine mentioned in passing that our cat had not had a blood test, much to our surprise and dismay, as a blood test is required to confirm FIV status.

Frustrated and worried by this turn of events, we took our cat to our regular vet, who confirmed that he had not been recently tested and was in fact FIV positive.

Long story not-so-short, we love him and are keeping him. However, his diagnosis has left us heartbroken (I m talking tears in the car after the devastating vet visit) and in a dilemma about how to keep our three cats distanced and healthy.

For an organisation that prides itself on animal care, Jonine and the WLPA are endangering the lives of pet cats by not being honest about their rescue cats FIV status. We sincerely hope this practice does not continue and that every rescue cat at the WLPA is afforded, at the very least, a basic level of care and assessment in future.

Worse experience I've got from this lady on tued night around 6 pm. She hates her job and took it out on my sick cat... Disgusting

WLPA is unreliable and disorganized at best. Have worked for AWL, Cat Protection Society before and would recommend you do poor animals and yourselves a favour and donate your money and time to reputable established structured organisations instead. Flea riddled stressed cats and rude coordinator are probably tip of the WLPA iceberg

WARNING: Get your cat from ANYWHERE else. Jonine is the rudest, most arrogant, disorganised stress ball who takes it out on you. She's never responsible for anything despite losing my number and address four times and will blame you in a passive aggressive manner. She's impossible to deal with and as a result they have not given me the paperwork for my cats. She looked after my cats over Christmas, was a no show for their handover, acted like she didn't remember, completely unapologetic and they were flea ridden when I finally got them back days later. AVOID!!!

Great place to find a cat. No kill policy. Save a life today

A great volunteer run shelter for cats. The volunteers work really hard and the cats are socialised to be very friendly when you come to visit.

Do Not Do Business with the WLPA.

We applied on July 20 to take a rescue cat from the WLPA.
We left a deposit of $50 cash as requested by the Management.
We were unsuccessful in our application to take a cat.
We have no issue with this decision, it is their right to approve or decline any request.
They said they would refund the deposit, after several phone calls over several weeks, no deposit has been returned.
The staff are co-operative and helpful.
The Management however has always been aggressive, insensitive, rude and unfortunately, plain dishonest.
Don t take the chance, keep your $50, go to professionals like the Cat Protection Society.

Avoid adopting here at all costs.. The kitten we adopted had ringworm and the shelter had absolutely no idea. Prior to the adoption we were presented with all paper work that indicated the kitten was healthy and ready to move in with out family. It wasn't until a week later that we found out after taking it to our own vet as we noticed some strange behaviour from the kitten.

Despite bringing this concerning issue up all that was offered in light of these events was to "buy some canestan". Now more than half my family has ringworm with some members having it worse than others.

This whole process of adoption has been a nightmare and to make things worse we can't even play or snuggle with our kitten during its early stages in our family. Thank you WLPA for completely ruining our kitten adoption experience.

I adopted a unsocialised and extremely timid cat about 18 months ago and was told she was ferel and distrusting of people as she has been rescued by WLPA from a place in Campsie along with other mistreated and neglected cats. Jonine was very supportive and helpful during the adoption process and offered advice on how to care for our new pet. Now Inka is a very friendly and much loved member of the family who loves cuddles, being brushed and chasing balls. Jonine was even kind enough to cat sit Inka at her home when we went overseas for several weeks. Would highly recommend WLPA if you are considering fostering or adopting a new fur baby, they have many animals who are looking for new loving homes.

Avoid this place at all costs! Worst experience ever. Couldn t think straight or meet the cats for more than 10sec because Jonine would not stop going on and on about who knows what and including cats that weren t even there or no longer available! Verbal diarrhoea is an understatement. We felt suffocated and didn t have anytime to meet with and bond with any of the cats as she just wouldn t let up! She needs to back off and let people breathe and meet with the animals. They had like 50 cats there and she just wouldn t give us 5 min of space or peace to pat or bond with any of them. Seriously feel sorry for the animals, they ll never get adopted out with her helicoptering and non-stop talking and information overload!

If the way the receptionist spoke to me is indicative of the way they treat animals God help the poor animals in their care.

I was looking for a cat for Mum. We were able to meet and assess 3 cats in Mum's home, thanks to Jonine. We were also introduced to Donna, the vet, who makes house calls. This would be my first stop if I were thinking about getting another cat.

Too many cute cats to choose from... You want to take them all home !

No kill policy and lovely devoted people. Recommend, especially volunteering as they need as much help as they can get!

The volunteers here are so sweet and caring, they're careful to ensure each cat is given the best chance at a happy life by carefully selecting adopters. Highly recommend.

Jonine helped us with our rescue, Charlotte 5 years ago. A tiny, neglected kitty who was the smallest of a litter and found in someone s front yard. We love our cat and forever grateful for the help of wlpa to get her, and to desex her cheaply. I think the charity seem very run off their feet, I drop them cat food and make donations sometimes to help. I think people should realise when they use this service they are a charity and need people s donations and assistance to keep it running

wlpa helped me get my first cat. Jonine explained everything to me and it a great place to find a beautiful animal and sometime i am allowed to help out

My husband and I have had dealings with the WLPA for a couple of years now and we have found them to be caring and professional in all situations, we have had to call on them many times for help with urgent homing and care of sick or injured strays and abandoned street cats and kittens. I cannot speak highly enough of Jonine whose compassion and care for these unfortunate animals is heart warming and she always goes above and beyond to help them out and make sure their future is safe and secure.

Excellent work Jonine!!! ( :

Great organisation that helps a lot of cats and kittens. Have adopted from them in the past and they are very helpful throughout the whole process. Often they are very busy with rescues but would definitely recommend adopting through WLPA

They do some good work regarding cats.They also offer cheap desexing of cats through devoted vets. Jonine-Manager needs to learn to distance herself from her jobs.She is a nervous wreck and thinks she can be rude to the general public. I will not support them anymore. A percentage of animals die always in farming, breeding and rescue .Human babies as well die, let alone small beasties.

Very disappointing experience here.
We came looking for our very first cat - stressing to all the volunteers that we were first time pet owners. We were given a cat and assured that he was going to be perfect for first time pet owners.
At first we thought he was just timid, but after doing research I've learned that this cat is feral and does not trust humans.
I would've expected a bit more consideration for people who said they were looking for their first time pet.

The organisation (Gladesville) is very unorganised, and there is not really any space to bond with the cats. At one point we were left alone in a room full of twenty odd cats for about ten minutes.

I would recommend any other organisation - this one is not suitable for first time pet owners.

I called Jonine for help with homing stray kittens found at school/work. I was met with judgement, criticism and rudeness like I ve not encountered in a long time. I had to cut our conversation short because I didn t call to be verbally abused. I m sure that she cares for many cats who need help but customer service is a big, fat zero. Cat Protection, Street Cat Rescue and others have been much nicer and more helpful even if they were unable to help straight away.

We went to the Newtown adoption centre. There was pee all over the floor and the cats were climbing on top of each-other in a cramped space. One cat had cat-flu and was sneezing constantly, likely infecting all the other cats. It was a bit disturbing, to be honest.

I tried to look beyond this though, and breathed out of my mouth to avoid the stench. It was clear from the start that she had her favorite cats and was trying to get us focus on her less favorite ones. It felt quite awkward, like a pushy salesman. But I figured it was all in my head and tried to ignore it. I bonded well with one cat who was about 2 or 3yrs old, and expressed interest in adopting her. We left that evening and in the morning my partner and I called to let her know we made our decision. I was over the moon excited and she responded: "oh....well, my husband likes her, I didn't realise. One of our other tabby cats died and we want to keep that one to replace her. Sorry about that and making you come all the way here...but the others I mentioned are still up for adoption. "

I can imagine how hard it would be to part from the cats you rescue, but shouldn't your main goal to be re-housing the cats to a nice, loving home? The other thing I noticed was that in her main house she had about 10 -15 pet cats. To me this just seemed really wrong and unethical to add more to an already overcrowded home.

Anyway, I hate to leave a bad review but it was a really strange and disappointing experience.

I offered online free quality food and equipment, a woman I presume is the manager rang very early in the morning and said she would pick up by a certain time later that morning so I waited and waited. She did not text or call at all so I eventually donated the items to a more professional, courteous rescue group.

I am absolutely appalled by the service I received today. After finding 4 beautiful kittens abandoned under a bridge I rang WLPA for assistance. I am disgusted by the coordinators attitude and the way I was spoken to. I was rudely interrupted multiple times and told bluntly "you need to step up and take care of them". When I tried to explain that I was not in a good position to care for them the coordinator interrupted me again and very abruptly before replying "yes you can, step up... you need to just step up".

I would not recommend this shelter to anyone now and they should be ashamed of themselves.

I have gone through 10 pet cats in my lifetime and they were all rescues, I fostered 13 kittens together for 6 months until they each found a home or space in a no kill shelter, and I have fostered strays. I LOVE cats!! If I could have kept these 4 babies I would have but for the first time ever I was simply not in a position to do so and yet I was made to feel terrible about myself for it. WLPA should be ashamed of their choice in coordinator, this person should not be representing WLPA in any way as they don't seem to care about animals in the slightest.

I would recommend trying another shelter before this one unless your'e happy being told to "step up".