There is no reason why strict rehoming standards can't co-exist with human warmth and common courtesy.

We do unfortunately sometimes have to say "no thank you" to applicants - but we will try and make your interaction with us as "un-bruising" as possible.

When rehoming, Companion Animal Trust Nippon does not discriminate on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

We do consider the age of applicants, their physical and mental health, any disabilities they may have and their views about animal welfare to be relevant factors in coming to a rehoming decision, but we do not have a fixed upper age limit and try hard to treat all applications on their individual merits

We will not re-home to anyone under 20 - the age inJapan at which people can drink alcohol and use tobacco.

Our primary concern is that applicants are able to give us a compelling story about the re-homed animal's care over its full natural life, including the animal's dignified death if suffering is imminent.

We welcome applications from older people to re-home older animals. In practice we are unlikely to re-home a young animal with an elderly person, or to a person with a severe disability, unless we know they have strong family or other support.

Please see our "animals for older people" page in the rehoming section.

All applicants must be civilians and governed in the first instance by Japanese civil and criminal law.

We regret that we do not currently accept applications from military personal of any nationality, or from members of the "discipline" services such as the coastguard, police or fire service. With regards to non-US persons, this is a purely pragmatic decision based on our need to make legally binding agreements with re-homers, and subsequently to monitor the animal's welfare. [If you are a member of a discipline service and believe that you can address our concerns, we are willing to start a dialogue with you.]

We may re-home to individuals with diplomatic immunity at the Director's discretion.

[Note that in the light of the Anne Sacoolas incident, we do not rehome to members of the US Military, US Government employees or individuals with U.S. Diplomatic immunity or who may have U.S. Diplomatic immunity, under any circumstances.]