We previously rehomed a dog from Dogs Trust (Basildon) 7 years ago as a companion to our westie & had no issues with service provided. So when we lost our westie recently we went back to the Dogs Trust to find a friend for our remaining dog. What a mistake!!! there are now so many restrictions in place about the type of home the dogs can go to that it is now impossible for us to adopt another dog from there. We are an all adult family of 4 but many dogs can only go to a home with one or two people. We also have 4 cats & none of the dogs can go to a home with cats even though they have never actually lived with a cat. Apparently the way they test to see if a dog can live with a cat is to rub the scent of a cat on a piece of material then introduce to the dog to see how it reacts, as is only natural the dog thinks it's a toy & wants to play with it, so shakes it, verdict can't live with a cat, this is ridiculous the only way to test if a dog is cat friendly is for it to meet a living cat. Staff at centre not particularly helpful when we enquired about a number of dogs we saw on web site that were not at the site, gave negative feedback about dogs to discourage us from adopting. Altogether a waste of time. As someone who sponsors 3 dogs I'm considering withdrawing my sponsorship, it's only because I care about the dogs that I continue paying