Join a Pet Chain

Since the introduction of the Safe Transfer option, the ALP lends pets primarily via transfer chains. This means that rather than us sending the pet to you and you sending it back to us once you have the avatar, you will more than likely be asked to transfer the pet on to the next member of the chain. Obviously if you're the final member of a chain you will send the pet back to us ;) You will need both your send and receive transfer open for the month that you want join a chain. Please remember that a pet can only be transfered once per day! You will not be able to accept a pet and send it straight to the next person, so keep this in mind to help prevent delays.

Before you go any further, make sure you've read the Pet Lending Rules. Done that already? Good, lets continue.

Updates to Pet Lends

We have made a few small changes to assist you in obtaining pet avatars we provide through our chains. Due to the decreased number of participants each month, resulting in long wait times until more people have applied for a certain chain, we have decided to run every chain monthly. If you apply for a chain, you will be added to it for that month regardless.

Choosing a Chain

The first thing you'll want to do is choose which pet's chain you would like to join! To begin with, take a look here - this page lists all the pets we currently have to lend. Once you've figured out which pets we have to lend, and thought about which ones you might like to borrow, head over to the Lending Chain Timetable. This page has a list of the chains, with easy-to-see details about whether they are running or not for the current month.

You should now have a good idea of which pet chain you would like to join so lets move on :)

The Application

To apply to join a lending chain, head over to the Join a Pet Chain requesting system. You'll be asked to include:

1. Your Neopets username. So we can contact you!
2. Your TDN Forums display name. This is for us to check that you meet the post-count requirements and for communication.
3. The month you want to borrow. You may sign up for whichever month is listed in the Timetable, or the following month.
4. Transfers. This is how many transfers you get per month.
5. The name of the Pet Chain(s) you want to join. If you want to join more than one chain in a month please list them all in the SAME application.
6. Anything else you think will help us. Other chains you've participated in, a little about you, etc. Please keep in mind that I don't want to read essays of your life story though, keep to the point!

Note: We look at both your Forums and your Neopets accounts when you apply for pet lending. Please keep in mind that if you are applying for pet lending with less than 50 posts on the forums or less than 150 avatars on Neopets, your application will be rejected automatically.

Now you've just got to sit back and wait for us to deal with your request! We will review your application, your Neopets account and your TDN forums account - if we are satisfied that you're trustworthy you will receive a message on our Forums stating that you've been added to the chain. You will also be told to expect to hear from us closer to the starting date of your chain.

If we found something in your application that wasn't quite right - say you hadn't made any posts on the forums, or your Neopets account was under the transfer limit - then we will reply and let you know what the problem was. You will be invited to reapply once you've fixed whatever it is that worried us :)

The Actual Chain

Once you're approved to join a chain, we will store your username in our fancy little databook until the start of your chain. As soon as our ALP Pet Team Coordinator goes over the applications you will get a message from us on the forums stating if you're accepted or rejected and to confirm that you are still willing to be a part of the chain. You will need to reply with confirmation that you still want to participate. If you do not reply, you will be dropped from the chain, no more warnings will be given. You are, of course, welcome to apply to join a future chain for that (or another) pet. If a chain isn't running for any reason and you had been accepted for it, you will be notified in this message that it is cancelled, and asked if there is a replacement chain you would like to be placed in.

Past that, you will receive a message from us 2-3 days before the pet is due to arrive with you. Due to the shifting nature of the chains, we are unable to send out accurate notifications any earlier.

We ask that once you send the pet on to the next member of the chain, you reply to the message and let us know that it all went okay :) This just helps us keep track of where all our pets are - since we're usually running several chains at the same time it can be hard to keep track sometimes!

Extra Important Stuff

1. Obviously, the chains won't always go as planned. We try our very best to make sure that pets get sent to the right people on the right days it isn't always going to happen. If you do not receive the pet on the day you were told you would, chances are you'll get it the next day. Please try to be flexible! If the pet is expected to be any later than that, we will try to let you know.
2. The message on the forums you send telling us that you've sent the pet on is to be sent when you initiate the transfer - not once the other person accepts!
3. If you're going to be away or unable to get online for a few days during the month of your chain please let us know. It won't affect you being able to participate, but we need to know so that we can make sure you're not gone when the pet is sent to you.
4. Don't be surprised if you've got a low avatar count and you are rejected for pet lending. Our baseline requirement - for those with the minimum 25 forum posts - is over 200 avatars. This does go down with increasing post count though. If you're rejected for this reason, you will be told how many avatars you would need with your current post count.

I think that's all for now - we will update this whenever new information is needed so check back often. Good luck with joining and participating in the ALP's pet lending chains! If you have any more questions feel free to ask in the general ALP thread on TDN forums.

Hello!