AIBU to ask who can own a dog then ?

[Troublewaters2021]

I have been seeing a lot a lot of owners recently on social media as well as people looking at getting one.

The general stance is seems to be only is you are not out the house for long periods / as in work full time.
Have enough money to feed and loom after dog as well as pet insurance / vet fees.
Surely there is very few people who don’t have to work out of the home full time for 10 plus years who also have enough money for a dog ?.

@tabulahrasa

“I think it lets puppy farms off the hook with their “discards” whilst rescues and new owners are left picking up the cost and pieces of the poor animals left as consumable waste”

It’s easier to just literally dump them, or kill them... and that’s what they do.

news.rspca.org.uk/2018/03/01/bad-stock-from-puppy-farm-dumped-six-months-after-dogs-abandoned-in-same-spot/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38026524

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55425764

They don’t rethink their whole business because there’s no-one to pass dogs on to...

You don’t need to send links I’ve seen all those articles already I’m all too acutely aware of what’s happening and how the terrible business works.

However, it’s treating the symptom not the cause. In the middle are the poordogs, the rescue centres raising money for vets bills and the heartbroken owners.

@Chicchicchicchiclana
My husband brand new Mercedes - 20plate purchased in June insurance cost him £58 a month .
My french bulldog 15k a year lifetime insurance cost £70 a month 😂
KC & Pet plan wanted over £120 a month
Dog Insurance is a bit like car insurance and is based on the breed and your postcode
French bulldogs are like a young teenage boy who’s just passed their test and is driving a 4 litre souped up sports car . You just know they are going to wreck it at some point .

In a french bulldogs case it’s normally being an asshole and thinking that they can fly like superman of the sofa and breaking a few bones .
Insurers know that at some point they are probably going to have to pay out ££££ so they price accordingly
A broken leg will cost you a min of £4000 possibly as much as £7000
MRI £2000
One thing I do notice is that a lot of people often buy a dog and then bitch about the price of the insurance.
Especially in french bulldogs English bulldogs where they are expensive dogs and insurance can be very expensive

Don't forget that you can't have a dog if you have kids. We wouldn't consider getting a ddog now, DD is only a toddler but rescues seem to have no under-16 type rules for kids where they place rescues, yet loads of us had dogs when we grew up so managed to successfully combine DC and ddogs at home.

They shouldn’t be left for more than 5 hours absolute max, you can’t leave puppies at all unless you want to make training them harder and longer

I don’t understand how so many people seem to have problems getting a dog from a rescue? Mines a rescue and I had two primary school aged kids when I got her.

I work part time but can easily afford the vet bills, I just put a bit aside every month.

I think if the dog is going to be left alone for 10 hrs every day even with a dog Walker coming in at lunchtime it’s still not fair on the dog.

“However, it’s treating the symptom not the cause.”

Of course it is, but until the laws that actually exist are enforced properly and people stop being willing to spend thousands on a puppy but spend less time researching where it comes from than they do their t shirts...

There are going to be dogs being dumped, the alternative to rescues taking them isn’t that they’ll stop being dumped.

[quote Grinch48]@Chicchicchicchiclana
My husband brand new Mercedes - 20plate purchased in June insurance cost him £58 a month .
My french bulldog 15k a year lifetime insurance cost £70 a month 😂
KC & Pet plan wanted over £120 a month
Dog Insurance is a bit like car insurance and is based on the breed and your postcode
French bulldogs are like a young teenage boy who’s just passed their test and is driving a 4 litre souped up sports car . You just know they are going to wreck it at some point .

In a french bulldogs case it’s normally being an asshole and thinking that they can fly like superman of the sofa and breaking a few bones .
Insurers know that at some point they are probably going to have to pay out ££££ so they price accordingly
A broken leg will cost you a min of £4000 possibly as much as £7000
MRI £2000
One thing I do notice is that a lot of people often buy a dog and then bitch about the price of the insurance.
Especially in french bulldogs English bulldogs where they are expensive dogs and insurance can be very expensive[/quote]
That’s not why they’re expensive to insure, it’s the breathing, skin and joint issues...

My DP and I work fulltime and we have a ddog. He has 1 day a week at his grandparents (PIL), and 1 day a week when he's left "alone" at home. He's not really alone, he has a dog walker come round twice during that day so is never left alone for more than 3 hours at a time. Every other day one of us is home due to our shift pattern. He does fine with this and gets minimum 2 hours walking a day, even on the days he's on his own, usually more than that on other days.

This schedule is just fine for him, although didnt stop a Mrs Judgypants at my work criticising me on how dare I get a dog when I work fulltime

We are struggling to get one!

Can't get a rescue as we had a DD whose 5 and a cat.

So we started looking at breeders. Only breeder we found with an open waiting list for there next litter turned us down as they thought DD would be all over it 🤨
All other breeders have wait list till 2022!!!!

Contacted a few people on pets 4 homes but after researching the people selling we thought best to avoid!!

So....

don’t understand how so many people seem to have problems getting a dog from a rescue?

I think it depends on the rescue. Different ones seem to have different rules.
My mum (very experienced dog owner, decent sized garden etc) was turned down by one rescue because she had 5ft fences, rather than 6ft. She was trying to adopt an small elderly laso apso. Unless that dog was fitted with mountaineering equipment there was no chance it would have climbed over a 5ft fence.

@williowrosenburg it's worth contacting the smaller breed specific charities who Foster. Generally they have been able to do more assessments on the dog within the home environment and how they will cope.

We have a rescue greyhound cross with a toddler and we used to have a cat because we went with a specialist charity. The wait list for cat safe greyhounds can be pretty long though (they do exist though my cat ruled the house and my dog was terrified of him even though she still chases cats in the garden!)

@Returnoftheowl

don’t understand how so many people seem to have problems getting a dog from a rescue?

I think it depends on the rescue. Different ones seem to have different rules.
My mum (very experienced dog owner, decent sized garden etc) was turned down by one rescue because she had 5ft fences, rather than 6ft. She was trying to adopt an small elderly laso apso. Unless that dog was fitted with mountaineering equipment there was no chance it would have climbed over a 5ft fence.

Sometimes their blanket rules are a bit random, obviously you don’t need a 6ft fence for a dog that couldn’t clear 3ft and some dogs could get over 6ft with ease...

But, knowing that most rescues have a 6ft fence rule... tbh, I don’t know why people don’t just stick a trellis on.

@Crayfishforyou

I don’t think it’s fair on the dog to work full time, even if you use doggy daycare. It would be downright cruel on a puppy. I work part time and from home during the day. This isn’t set to change much, there may be the odd day when I have to use a doggy daycare. If you work full time and are out the house 8 hours plus I would join borrow my doggy for weekend walks instead.

^ I agree!

But, knowing that most rescues have a 6ft fence rule... tbh, I don’t know why people don’t just stick a trellis on
In my mum's case the rescue insisted it must be 6ft of solid fence...trellis wasn't good enough.

“In my mum's case the rescue insisted it must be 6ft of solid fence...trellis wasn't good enough.”

Pfft, yeah, that’s a bit nuts...

I was picking on your post just because you see people saying about fencing a lot, in a sort of, well I couldn’t get a rescue because of my fences so I had to buy a puppy.

And I often think, well redoing your fences would have been cheaper and you want pretty decent sized fences with any dog really.

Anyone who picks up after it and knows what a leash is for

The problem with people getting dogs with atiung family us that too often the drive for a dog is for it to entertain the kids.

Fine at first, until realisation that the dog needs entertaining and the kids have become bored. This what happened with my neighbour. That poor dog is now ignored most of the time, never taken out. Unsurprisingly, it has started barking Amit and of course, it's being yelled out to shut up. It's not totally neglected, but just isn't getting the attention it deserves.

So yes, I can why this would be if concern by rescuers.

There are quite a lot of us FT WFH folk, TBF. However, eons ago, I was working mornings only in an office when I got my oldest dog, so it can be done. I did take all my annual leave to get him settled in, though.

Rescues where I live match the dog to the owner. You might want a particular breed but may not be the right owner for it.

We have a rescue dog - only one rescue that would allow us to have one as at the time youngest DS was 18 months. But dog had been in foster with a family so they knew how he was with kids. I used to be out at work all day, DH worked split shits. So generally someone was home between 11 and 3. But I could leave him all day on his own if I needed to (and have done a couple of times) because he is spectacularly lazy. He likes to sleep when the kids are out of the house and has been most annoyed it seems that I'm WFH for the last year and takes himself off into another room to sleep for the day

You should never, ever leave a dog alone for longer than 4 or 5 hours according some posters.
Jesus.
Before lockdown my rescur dog would be alone for 6 hours ONCE A WEEK.
I work part time so in effect she is with me a lot. Even on that weekly day when I work a bit longer than normal, she gets three long walks with me or my DH.
But according to some of you she should have stayed in the rescue place. She would have been much happier there I'm sure

You should never, ever leave a dog alone for longer than 4 or 5 hours according some posters.

I'm always interested to know what arrangements these posters make for during the night, especially when the dog is not allowed into bedrooms/upstairs.
Do they make sure they never sleep past 4 hours in one go so the dog has company outside those 4 hours? Employ a dog walker to come in in the middle of the night so it's not alone for more than 4 hours at a time?
I work nights, there's someone else here at night, I'm here through the day. They're walked twice a day, fed twice a day and have been trained. I can leave them if I need to. The most I get when I come in from work is a lazy tail wag and a look as they make themselves more comfortable! I have to start rattling leads and bowls to get any action tbh! Their routine is the same and they're not that bothered about being left if the return greeting is anything to go by. My company alone is not worth moving for, only food or a walk! Sometimes there's a cross over between us having to leave/get home, I get the same reaction when they have been left. And there's times we have to be somewhere together, or out at the same time.
You could argue that it's selfish to get a dog and then shut it in the kitchen or downstairs all night because you don't want it upstairs. Separated from the family for sleeping. But most dogs cope with that without an issue and most people don't even consider that because they're home.
I'm not saying that dogs should be left for hours at a time, regularly, but some people (in general, not on this specific thread) are so hung up on this working thing they can't see past it.

Rescues can be unrealistic but I suspect that is in reaction to potential owners who also can be unrealistic about the animal they are getting.

All the time you see people want a dog who:

• doesn't mind being left "for a few hours"
• is playful (but only sometimes when humans feel like playing)
• doesn't bark, except if the house is being burgled
• doesn't dig
• doesn't chew
• likes everyone the owner likes but will be protective to people they don't
• likes children in all their formats
• won't chase the cat
• won't run off
• doesn't need 1+ hr walk a day
• doesn't shed fur
• doesn't use normal canine communication when upset (e.g. growling)

Whilst many dogs fit some of these criteria and the unusual few fit them all, essentially what is being described is not a typical dog. It's this mythical other animal.

Dogs are amazing, but the downside to this is that it leads people to imagine they are magical animals who will happily live according to very strict criteria and not come with their own wants and needs and preferences and instincts and behaviours.

It's an unfair pedestal to put them on. Not least, because if they fail to do so they are often passed on or put down.

On the 4 hours thing, dogs are strangely adept at telling night from day. It really isn't an issue overnight.

Tbh I’m not sure I would hire a dog walker.

Around here there are several and they all seem to get together with their dogs in the local park where it’s perfectly legal to run dogs but because there are two or three of them each with 3/4 dogs you end up with a whole pack of dogs who are essentially out of control and who intimidate the other dogs in the park.