Affiliate Links That Seem Odd

In conducting some more training today, I'm getting frustrated with some of the affiliate programs for pet clothing that I'm finding. I signed up for Petco over a week ago and they still haven't approved my application - what takes so long to help them market their products? Either they want the free marketing, or they don't.

Then, I found another one - AvantLink and they want me to post a random verification link on the homepage to my site.....That looks very unprofessional and odd to have a random post on my homepage for them to verify it. How long does it take? Will I have a random AvantLink URL on the homepage of my site for a week? Longer? I don't like the looks of that when I tried it and looked at my site and there it was, just a random link in a post on the front page of my site.

Then I went to dog,com and they say to fill out a form on their website, but when you click on what's supposed to be a link to the form, it's nothing. So I searched their site everywhere for this supposed form and it's not able to be filled out online. Some of these affiliate links on these sites are a joke. Do they not realize that I'm trying to help them by promoting their items on my site free for them?

Has anyone had any issues with getting affiliate links? Amazon was a breeze, Bitch New York was a breeze; so what's the deal with these others? It's starting to get very frustrating to me and honestly I'm prowling now for any sites that I can get affiliates right away vs looking for the ones that are actually quality looking items to promote. That's not where I wanted my site to go in the first place. I want to promote items I would shop for for my pets, not any cheap items simply because I can be an affiliate immediately.

*Help*