rehoming a rescue dog

[lemonymelanie]

Hello, I'm new in the doghouse, but hope to become a regular :-)

Have been looking for a dog in rescue shelters to rehome and yesterday we found her! She is gorgoeus, a sort of staffy cross - so gentle and friendly. We are going to see her again today, and we should have her home with us by the end of the week.

I am taking her a blanket we slept on last night, to leave in her shelter bed so she gets to know our scent. Is there anything else I should be doing? She is a rescued dog - it seems she has had pups recently, so I thought maybe a plush cuddly toy puppy to snuggle up with? I think she must be very confused and maybe a bit hormonal as she will be getting spayed by the shelter this week too.

thank you in advance for any advice!

About 6 weeks ago I was in your shoes. I came on here and got lots of advice and support. The pulling, not sitting and the not eating I wouldn't worry too much about. My dd ate practically nothing for the 1st week. Had the runs and was sick a bit. Now eating like a little horse. Best advice I think on here was CALM IT DOWN AND TAKE IT SLOW. It's a huge adjustment for her. Don't bombard her with too much new all in one go. Let her chill. Try and be calm around her.maybe she would like a crate to chill in. How many children do you have? How old? My ds I older 13 but I imagine younger excited children can be overwhelming. My dd 1st growled at me when I tried to get him off the settee. He really scared me. We tried not to let him on and that's made him a little better. Are you able to distance her a little from the children for now and take it slower? Basically because dd was a rescue, new and heaven knows what he'd been through my main concern was not to set him up to fail. Not to put him on a situation where he might stress and growl.

Hi there - thank you for the replies - I'm not usually on mumsnet so early in the morning but I wanted to check for replies.

Last night the growling started again, and when we went to bed she whined and barked, and I can't let her disturb the neighbours so I got a duvet and went down and spent the night with her on the sofa which she has chosen. :(
So not a lot of sleep last night...

Not really interested in food but ate a bit last night- I mixed some rice and real turkey in last - and her poo was better this morning.

We went out for a walk at 7 this morning, and yes she pulled badly, but you know, I really enjoyed being out walking. it was the same last night - under the stars, it as beautiful. So there is a benefit :-)

Yeah cocker spaniel man also advocated biting her ear....

But my stomach is in knots about the growling. My kids are not young - the youngest is 11, I have also 14, 17, and 19 and DH. ( who isnt here this week) We all went to meet her at the kennels, they wanted to see her with us, and it was fine. Infact she seems to be fine with them outside the house - on walks, but inside the house the growling starts, and barking at them. She had never barked before ( let alone growled!) - and we have been visiting her for over two weeks.

I did wonder about the teenage boy thing - she started growling and barking at one of their ring tones - not the house phone, it's fine - a specific make of phone ring tone.

She is now curled up at my feet on my dressing gown, which I left on the floor when I got dressed downstairs.

Morning Lemony. I'm not experienced enough to give you advice but stay on here. There's a lot of wise peeps on here. I'm relieved your children are older. Not little ones who could be at risk. Hopefully you can all work together. Here it's. Only me and ds but he had 2 more sleepover at the weekend which I wasn't over keen on doing as harder to have a calm atmosphere. I was glad when the went home! Growling - I've told ds. It's his only way of saying I'm not comfortable with something here and to listen to dd. Otherwise he could escalate and bite instead. It's very early days with your DD. She's got a lot to get used to. Are your sons calm around her?

We had a few disturbed nights too. Also worried about neighbours
are yours nice? I've spoken to both sides and they said they hadn't heard a peep ,😊 I felt it important to get them for on side early. Promise I'll pick up poo straight away, he won't be outside barking etc so dog won't be a problem for them. Also so they know him in case he does a runner!

It is very early days, but I can understand why you are anxious, my dog had no problem with with my dc at all but she did quickly realise they are always eating and she could get food from them, maybe try and find a treat she likes, cheese, custard creams, sausages not cheap ones so she associates the children with something good. It may take time if she isn't into food yet though.

I really hope she is just scared and settles, it took my dog a good 6 months to totally relax and realise she wasn't going anywhere!

Is she definitely not in any pain after her spay? Dogs are good at masking pain and would explain grumpy behaviour. Of course it could just be early days. Take it really slow and low pressure as she settles in. Growls aren't bad, it's good a dog warns you if they're uncomfortable. As others have said it's hard to know if they're warning Growls too for a new dog; our rescue has been here 7 months and I know now she growls and air snaps when she wants to play. But at first I was wary! She also growls when happy to see me.

Also food has a huge impact on behaviour. Our dog is on Applaws and although it looks expensive, it has worked out cheaper given how little we have to feed. The allaboutdogfood website is good for information. Be aware she'll probably have an upset tummy initially when you change it. Good luck.

Likewise, I have no expertise, but the fact that she was ok with your children at the centre and when outside seems hopeful.
I remember years ago a family I knew rehomed a dog who was terrified of men, and it took a long time of the man of the house calmly ignoring her for her to eventually realise he wasn't going to hurt her.
They can change the ringtone if it's a particular association.
I wonder if it would help if the children put her food bowl down for her, calmly, no fuss.
Calmness and consistency is essential and lots of exercise. My dogs have always responded well to routine. Rewards whenever she behaves well. As others have said, some sessions with a trainer/behaviourist should help. Ignore what I say if anyone with more knowledge comes along and contradicts! It's not an exact science, unfortunately.

Thankyou for all your kind words. I phoned them and they said I was to bring her back - growling is too much of a warning. They took all the information about the situations and said if they had known they wouldn't have placed her with us, she hadn't growled before. I agreed and said she had been fine when we visited, absolutely lovely and docile but playful. I feel an utter failure that it didn't work out. After only one day. But the kids were scared of her. I know you guys are probably going to castigate me for wasting the centre's time and upsetting a dog even more, and giving up, and I feel it. I feel awful.

Absolutely not, it's very unfortunate because it will have shattered your confidence in rehoming another dog. You had prepared for her more than most, with visits and walks, and your children are not small, so you did everything you could.

It may have worked out well in the end but I totally understand that you can't have growling and frightening them.

Please keep an open mind about rehoming and consider it again when you've recovered.

Thank you MaynJune. That means a lot.

Oh Lemony I'm so sorry I could cry for you. I'm sure lovely dd will find a different home where she'll settle. I don't blame you. That night when our DD growled at me (ds was asleep) my heart sank. I was very scared and thought that was it. I didn't tell ds how scared I was as didn't want to scare him. If your dss are scared of her it's not going to work. 😞 That's animals for you, whether they're from rescues or not. You can't predict these things. Don't let this sad experience put you off. You sound lovely and the perfect family to rehome a dog who's right for you. Sending lots of love ❤ xxx

Not all dogs get on with all family's , it's best to involve the rescue centre, better than your child being bitten and the dog then PTS

You have done the responsible thing by calling the and they have made the call on what to do.

When you return her discuss with them about any other dogs they might feel are suitable to fit in with your family.

Please don't give up on rehoming a rescue, your just having teething problems

Let them try and place another dog with you guys, there is so many unwanted dogs. It would be lovely if one sorry soul gets a happy life with you guys

No one will flame you, you've taken the rescue's advice which is definitely the right thing to do. Hope you find the right dog in the future.

You absolutely did the right thing, for you and the dog. Hopefully the rescue can reassess her and make sure she only goes to people with no kids.

It was better to do it after one day than after a week, or a month, or a year...

Growling is different with different dogs and the rescue are right not to want to take a risk. You had no way of knowing this was going to happen and should in no way blame yourself. I had no hesitation taking back the dog that went for one of my sons (luckily he had fast reactions and got out of its way). And I felt some righteous anger towards the breed rescue who knew the history and hadn't told me it. Of course, I was naive enough not to realise I should have delved a bit deeper to find the history - so I blamed myself and rightly so. But in your case, nothing you could have done about this.

Staffies - therefore staffy crosses - are unusually good at adapting to new situations quickly because they were originally bred as fighting dogs that would have to change hands for high sums of money, at the drop of a hat, so they often are probably a bit less upset by a change of ownership, than others.

Maybe when you feel upto it, you could offer to foster for the rescue - fostering an 'easy', straightforward dog with no known problems and then keep the dog after a trial period? Sometimes it's a good idea to adopt a dog that has been fostered for some time in a similar family to your's, so this kind of issue has had a chance to rear its ugly head.

Love to you. You won't get flamed here. Your enthusiasm was very touching, and you did a Good Thing.

Hi lemony, was reading your thread because we had to send our rescue dog back this week also :(

We had her for two weeks and were so excited, but there were behaviours that emerged at home that they had no idea about (or didn't tell us about) at the rescue place - namely she was aggressive with visitors (although brilliant with us), and with parents/young children coming to the house we couldn't afford to take the time to work on it.

It was awful, the children (and DH, surprisingly!) were devastated, but I know we made the right decision. We learnt a lot from the experience, including that we definitely want a dog (early morning walks were my favourite bit). We also know that we need to know history, or at the very least how a dog has acted in a home environment, before proceeding.

Don't give up! We are back to the rescue dog search, which is draining - we either miss the perfect dog (the dreaded "reserved" label), or are ineligible due to young children. But one day we will have a lovely doggy family member :)

not, good luck with your search!

I want to say thank you to everyone who has replied with kind words. and to notatschool too. It's been a bit emotional for everyone here in my house - the boys all reacted in different ways, and I just feel so incredibly foolishly naive that I thought it would be as simple as bringing a dog home and just fitting in. I think if we had more time, she would have settled - but I just couldn't risk it. There are times when the boys would be alone with the dog - when my shifts don't quite sync completetly with the school day - ok, it's only a couple of hours ( I work 3 hour rolling shifts), but I just couldn't have gone to work knowing the boys were coming home from school to a growling dog. I just couldn't risk it.

Also as you say notatschool - the thought of the kids friends coming round and not knowing how the dog would react - it would be horrible if she had to be kept away from their friends - even at first.

So I know she will go to a lovely home, with more experience of dogs, rescue dogs even. She was a lovely dog. And I miss her like crazy - I actually dreamt about her, that the inspectors brought her back round because they couldn't believe that she growled, only to see her do it - and then they said ok, we understand now....so I totally blame myself for being so unprepared for any issues which arose.

I really do want a doggy family member too, notatschool. And again, thank you to everyone who has patted me gently over this. thanks.

I've read this thread with interest Lemony as we've been looking to adopt a dog for a while now. We have 3 kids, 11, 9 & 5. We think we may have found one, he is 5 and has just had the one home previously with one child the same age as my youngest. He is coming to us for the day this Friday then, providing all goes well, he'll do an overnight then come to us permanently, again all being well. He wasn't mistreated in his previous home, just not given the attention he needed/deserved. I'm really hoping it all works out as the kids are so excited but, reading your story, I have some reticence too. Sorry to hear about your experience, I've realised pretty quickly how difficult it is to adopt a dog when you have kids but, given that yours are older, it must have been such a surprise and disappointment when it didn't work out. Good luck to you in eventually finding the right dog for your family and don't feel bad, you did your best and your kids come first. Fingers crossed our adoption goes ok, time will tell....

lemony how is your dog hunt going?