When a dog is in a rescue (not a foster family), how much interaction do they get with people?

[Madblondedog]

Coming from a conversation about rescues not allowing dogs to homes where people work full time, I just wondered how much people time they receive whilst in the rescue?

[MaynJune]

The ones I'm familiar with have volunteers to take the dogs out for a walk, even if it's just a short walk, every week day at least.
They have contact with the staff who feed them and the potential owners walking past.
It's not that much contact really,and there's no-one there in the evenings and through the night.

However, in the daytime it's still more than a dog shut in the house alone, and they can also see, hear and smell the other dogs in the kennels.

[Scuttlebutter]

It varies enormously from rescue to rescue. One of our local greyhound rescues has a relatively small kennel, and all the dogs receive a great deal of attention every day, with regular walks, playtime, grooming, and visits from a behaviourist who does fun training, and other exercises with them.

Most rescues recognise that the gold standard is for dogs to be in foster care for all or at least some of the time before rehoming. EGLR for example work entirely through foster homes, while a rescue like Hope Rescue will insist on a dog having at least two weeks in a home environment before adoption because this allows an excellent and thorough appraisal of the dog's behaviour and interaction with other dogs, family members etc.

It's impossible to compare what is a temporary situation with the lifelong situation of a dog left alone for hours. Dogs are social animals, and the only mammals that have evolved specifically to relate to another species (us). When we were in the situation of both working full time (long hours and studying as well)out of the house, we simply didn't have our own dog - we got our "fix" through walking for the Cinnamon Trust, dog sitting at weekends for friends and doing some other voluntary work. Sometimes being a dog lover is about saying "Not yet" to having your own dog and getting dogs into your life in other ways.

[Madblondedog]

Thanks for the information, we have a dog but I work from home almost every day and the odd day I pop to the office I'm at home over lunch. When someone else was talking about getting one but they're office based and out of the house 8-7 I was saying they'd need dog day care or a dog walker twice a day but couldn't explain why a dogs better off at a rehousing centre than with them and on their own all day (they were talking about someone popping in for 20 mins once a day) as I didn't know enough about rescue centres

[hollinhurst84]

Depends. Walks mostly at our local one but I do a "day release"!
Basically means I pop in, get a dog and take it home for the day. I see how it is in the house, with noises and people knocking on door, does it jump on furniture, try to grab food etc etc. I walk dog a couple of times that day and let them snooze if that's what they want. Helps nervous dogs and ones that are scared in the kennels to get some peace and quiet. Then I post pictures and write a little report, and from past experience my friends then fall in love and rehome them

[MaynJune]

The dogs also go outside in the yard when their kennels are being cleaned.

Out at work 8-7 with one short break for the dog would be totally unsatisfactory. I don't know how they can't see that. In fact I can't see the point of them having a dog at all.

The people at the rescues make the best of a bad situation and it is, hopefully, only temporary.

[Madblondedog]

Love the "day release" idea, would love to do that at weekends as ddog would enjoy having an extra dog to play with for a day.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

I think it's more to do with the fact that dogs are hopefully in rescue for a short time and its a temporary arrangement; once a dog is rehomed to a working family the dog has a potential permanently lonely life alone all day, for years. It's therefore best for a dog to stay in rescue a little longer until it finds the right home.