AIBU to be so upset and think they shouldn't have led me on

[Baybay16]

I was going through the process of adopting a romanian dog rescue. I have been putting off getting a dog for ages but finally decided after like two years when I saw this little puppy they posted.

I applied and was told I have been successful and they need to do a homecheck, I didn't get my hopes up too much as I have heard of people being unsuccessful from little things.

Just before the homecheck I was on their private secret fb group and commented that I was waiting for a homecheck, a volunteer replied that she was with the puppy that I applied for straight away, she sent me photos and said things like "you will fall in love with her when you see her" "she can't wait to come home to you". "Your puppy can't wait to see you" it was really nice of the lady and not going to lie got my hopes up.

Then the homecheck: the lady chatted away to me and at the end said 'I don't think there will be any problems, I will send off forms but I would prepare for puppy's name' if I were you '
We were still kind of holding our breaths at the this point but getting excited.

That night got a facebook message from homecheck lady who said thats the forms sent off, she said she can't wait to see my photos of the puppy and that she can puppy sit whenever I need.

Then yesterday got a phone call who said they won't let me have a puppy as I have stairs in my flat building and they don't think it would be a good idea for training. I explained that there will always be someone with her and we are dedicated to her training and my flat building is very small ( a terraced house converted into 6 flats on three floors ) there is probably more stairs in my mother's house than my flat building. She said she will discuss it with team and homecheck lady and get back to me as she think it would be a great home for the puppy we would be a great match and her heart is telling her yes.

Another phone call again today, it is definitely a no. She said since our check was overall good we can start the process for another dog but I feel disheartened by the whole thing. I would have never gotten my.hopes like this if it wasn't for everyone else sounding so sure.

AIBU to be so upset?? maybe I shouldn't have been so naive. Has this happened to anyone else ?

Strygil - What a ridiculous comment! Adopting a child is hardly the same as taking on a dog. Nor should it be!!
As for the money angle - people spend their spare money on what please them. Cars, holidays, fashion, all sorts of so-called "first world" indulgences. Why should saving the life of an animal be particularly frowned upon?

Check out specific breed rescues my mum has 2 from Perthshire gun dog rescue. They are working cockers who didn't make the grade. Lovely dogs need lots of walking though

mrsk247syd hi ! Thanks for the suggestion about many tears ( and everyone else)
I have enquired but a lot of the dogs have to be rehomed with a dog already living at home. This has been our next hurdle, I have enquired however. There website also says they do not travel and we have to travel to meet the dog in Wales before hand also, we don't drive but maybe will just have to wait until we can before going ahead with any adoption x

Well, personally I do think that most rescues make it much harder than it needs to be to rescue.

I also think that in some instances pts is necessary, however controversial. It's all very well to have this no kill ethos, but what is the price? You see the adverts from the likes of dogs trust about how "we never put a healthy dog down," while asking for your money to sponsor dogs who are so traumatised by their experiences that they will in fact never be suitable to be rehomed.

Do I think that pounds and the like should put dogs down after seven days? Absolutely not. However a dog which is so traumatised and affected by its former life that it will never go to a new home and will never leave the kennels it lives in except to be walked round the grounds should IMO be put out of its misery. Those dogs aren't being kept alive for their own wellbeing, they're being kept alive so that dogs trust and the like can play the emotional card and claim that they'll never put a "healthy" dog down. Thing is though, a dog which is so terrorised/aggressive/nervous/emotionally scarred by its experiences is not "a healthy dog."

Please consider SPDC as I mentioned previously xx

I haven't read all the thread sorry but just to say I'm a home checker for a dog rescue and I have no say whatsoever in who gets and dog and who doesn't - I just put in my answers to the questions and then I'm asked 'would you be happy to leave your dog there' type questions. I'm told never to comment either way so I'm surprised this checker did. I know who is suitable almost straight away for the type of dogs we rehome but I just smile and nod.

Have you thought about an ex-racing Greyhound? Many live in flats. They don't need as much exercise as people imagine and generally fit very well in small spaces.

It's 3:29 am here and I am up with the puppy. My DH stayed up till 1am but when he went to sleep the puppy refused to settle. He peed in the bedroom once and had to be taken out once more. He is now wound up and won't sleep.

So the OP has this puppy and has taken it out at 2am and 6am but the neighbours are complaining about the noise on the stairs in the middle of the night. Plus the flat overlooking the garden is pissed off at the light coming on in the middle of the night. But it I still raining and the puppy cannot concentrate to poo so up and down the OP goes. Meanwhile, during the day, the puppy has dug up the plants in the communal garden, pissing off yet another neighbour, and he jumped on another neighbours DC with muddy paws and mouthed the child so this neighbour is pissed off as well.

The OP is trying to walk the puppy but the park is a 10minute walk and young puppies are not allowed 20 Minutes of exercise in one go, so the OP can't even get to the park and back. So now the puppy is on the lead all the time, it can't use up its energy and doesn't learn recall so by the time it's a teenager it pisses off when let off the lead.

The list of rescues on this thread is now coming in handy because the OP is desperate for someone with 'more time' to take the puppy off her hands...which explains the large number of poorly socialised, poorly trained dogs at rescue.

But the OP has added me to the list of people she is ignoring so that's fine, and puppies are cute, aren't they? You pick a puppy from a picture and hope for the best even when the rescue itself tells you that you won't be able to cope.

Take a dog straight from a family home if possible. Shelters are very discriminating.

No shelters and rescues are not discriminating - they just want to make sure that the right dog goes to the right home so they don't end up needing 'rescuing' again.

A lot of rescues completely rely on volunteers to run them. People who give hours of their time and go through a lot of upset.

Maybe those criticising could offer up a few hours themselves? I work full time and have a toddler and animals myself so I don't do a tiny amount of what others do but I still give up my evenings to go and homecheck - often for people who are completely deluded and are in no way suitable to have a dog.

Buying privately from a 'family home' is just encourage further breeding when this country is already at crisis point with unwanted dogs. Around 21 healthy dogs a day are pts because they are not desirable - not young enough or the latest trendy breed.

Any decent breeder would do there own checks anyway and make sure their puppies are going to a suitable home.

booboo wtf are you one about?

thefirstmrsDV not sure what you are unclear about. The OP was turned down by the rescue because she lives in a flat with stairs and a communal garden, I was pointing out how that could create difficulties with a puppy and why, therefore, the OP is BU to complain about the rescue's decision.

You made up a nasty little story based on very little. You have written in a very unpleasant way, as fact, not as a possible scenario.

Its bizarre on MN. When someone wants to rehome an animal you get a load of people telling them they can't. Its like they think they are the only people good enough to give an animal a home and everyone else is an idiot.

I lived for years in a third floor flat. Always had at least one dog. Always rescue dogs. No issues at all. As long as I was willing to take them out.

Not sure how it can be both 'a made up nasty little story' and 'fact' all at the same time - kind of contradictory don't you think? It is a possibility and clearly it is not that improbable as the rescue had similar concerns.

There are some dogs and some owners who cope with less than good circumstances like living in a flat, or being left all day long, or not being walked, etc. What you do get on MN is the odd person saying but I keep my dog in a flat or leave it all day long or never walk it and all is fine. Perhaps all is fine, but that is purely down to luck.

Just because you got away with doing something unreasonable doesn't make it reasonable, it just makes you lucky. The main problem is that dogs do get returned to rescues exactly because of issues such as living in a flat. That is how rescues come up with these exclusions, because they have seen it all before. The dog room has frequent posts from posters desperately seeking help to rehome young dogs because they did not realize what is involved in looking after one.

Not sure how it can be both 'a made up nasty little story' and 'fact' all at the same time
Its not that hard.
You have made it up but you are writing it down as a done deal. Not a possibility, this will happen. Which is ridiculous.

Just because you got away with doing something unreasonable doesn't make it reasonable

Living in a flat for 10 years with two happy healthy dogs is not 'getting away with it'. Surely the definition of reasonable is to do something that works out for all involved?

I must have missed the bit where the op said she was going to leave the dog alone all day and never walk it.

The dog room has frequent posts from posters desperately seeking help to rehome young dogs because they did not realize what is involved in looking after one

Any from the OP? If not, not relevant. She is exploring possibilities. She isn't rehoming an unwanted dog. You have absolutely no idea what sort of dog owner she will be.

I live in a flat, with no garden, and have successfully kept rescue dogs here for twenty years; that doesn't mean I'd recommend it to anybody else. It can be hard sometimes. A dog with an upset tum or a night like tonight, where it's windy and tipping down and you can't just chuck the dog in the garden while you hide in the kitchen. You always have to go 'out, out' however many times the dog needs in a day; with younger or elderly dogs this can be a lot!

But I have been lucky in that the dogs I have kept here have been suited to it (not barky, not destructive) and my lifestyle has been such that I've been able to offer them everything they've needed in the way of attention and exercise and general away-from-the-building life.

No rescue organisation wants to take from the frying pan and dump into the fire and so they must make a decision based on the most likely outcome. Unfortunately, however many of us manage to keep dogs healthily and happily in this situation, this is far from the norm. Many partnerships stutter and fail on housetraining issues, noise issues, landlord objections - you name it. It is much, much more common that a dog will need rehoming FROM a town centre flat than will do well being rehomed TO one.

Many organisations work on the requirements of the individual dog rather than a blanket ban on flat occupation but the actual success rate of rehomings to flats is relatively low and that in many cases is where the line will be drawn. And no, a rescue organisation doesn't know what sort of dog owner anybody will be but experience gives them a pretty good idea and they try to avoid the more obvious hurdles in the way of a successful rehoming. It isn't personal.

I know someone who actually fund raises so she can have dogs from foreign rescues. One died not long after she'd got it, so she fund raised £300 for another. At one point she organised a food collection and crowdfunded a nice trip to the foreign seaside town to deliver it for a week. She has the cheek of ten arses but people give her the money because they can't resist her constant Facebook posts of neglected dogs I assume.

Then there is the girl with 4 kids under 5 who's been popping them out with some regularity since she was 15. No job, no intention of working at all, lives entirely on benefits and currently pregnant with number 5 and has been happily handed a dog by one of these places. Guess who's paying all the vets bills? Yup, PDSA.

Loki most rescues won't put a dog with child under 8, I think that can be harsh as a blanket ban. Many years ago I was refused a rescue dog because my dh and I weren't married at the time. This was many years ago when 'living in sin' was frowned upon. That rescue was too discriminating a marriage cert doesn't guarantee you won't split up. Too many sad stories on MN proves that.

Booboostwo -it's hard to tell from your very bizarre post if you are trying to tell me you own a puppy I sincerely hope you also got an incredibly condescending and patronising speech before you purchased your puppy. Thanks for the nice story you told, nice imagination there... well done for being the first person to be up with a puppy think you need a medal. Seems like you have a bit of puppy regret and are feeling quite bitter about the whole thing.

You are moaning about people who give up their dogs and I am literally trying to give one of them dogs a home... also never said it has to be a puppy. I have been enquiring with the helpful suggestions of this thread for dogs between 10months and 8 years old.

I have owned family dogs my whole life, had a huge part of their training and never once felt as bitter as you do about the situation. This was the oddest thing I have ever read, thanks for your crystal ball reading though x

Baybay16 Can I ask you not to take an ex puppy mill dog? Rescues that take those dogs enable puppy mills to stay financially viable. They wont go out of business while people pick up their bills for them.
I'd like to see an end to puppy mills in my lifetime.

I can't thank everyone enough for the suggestions, I have been in touch with a lot of the charities to see what they would suggest.
As TheFirstMrsDV said it's been really said to see comments speaking to me and about others like they are idiots but if that makes you feel high and mighty then very good for you.
The original rescue actually ended up phoning me and offering me to start the process with some of the older dogs again, which I am keeping as an option but as I have enquired about so many now it's just about what ends up being the right fit.

Personally I would never adopt a rescue as it's just too unpredictable, however I do think that it's wrong to bring dogs in from abroad when there are thousands in rescues in the UK. Plus it's often said that knowing that people will take in these dogs encourages the locals of the countries involved to dump even more animals in the knowledge that gullible Brits will take them on

Im a frequent visitor to Romania. There isn't enough gullible Brits in the world to take on their stray dogs. Its awful. Absolutely awful. And to be honest if I was the OP I wouldn't be taking one of their strays. The roam the streets in packs and are really scary.

Well I have a Romanian dog and he's lovely.

And just like others on this thread I really wanted to adopt from a UK rescue centre after my old, much beloved, rescue dog died and not one would let me because of the age of my children.

OP don't give up. I hope you find your dog - you sound like a great owner.

I remember reading an article from a friend of mine that was talking about a dodgy Scottish rescue place but can't remember it's name but do remember that one of the owners had been arrested for dressing up as and impersonating a SSPCA staff member and he had been running a scam dodgy rescue centre so please do lots of googling on "rescue centres" addresses etc

Sorry, just to point out I'm not against adopting rescue dogs. I had two myself. I didn't rescue them from abroad. I adopted them where I live with the sole intention of finding a way to send them 'home' to the climate they so desperately needed. It took a year and 5000 pounds but that included the tickets for two travel companions to come and collect them. The day I got a picture of them with their new family, a young man dead keen on outdoor pursuits, getting ready to set off on a day long hike in a national park was a really good one.

TheoriginalmrsDV the only thing that is both made up and a fact is an alternative fact and I don't meddle with those. If you close your eyes and cross the street but do not get run over because there was no car there it doesn't mean it was reasonable to cross the street without looking, it just means you were lucky. I never suggested this potential dog was not going to be walked, it was an example of other, far from deal, conditions people want to keep dogs in and hope they can get away with it.

OP for what it's worth this is my 6th puppy as an adult, I have had dogs compete in obedience and do agility and team clicker challenge for fun, I have qualifications in dog training and years of volunteering at my local dog club. What I am telling you is not an attempt to upset you, it's an attempt to alert you to the realities of dog ownership before it's too late.