Dogs from Romania - Your thoughts/experiences?

[skyblu]

We are looking to get a dog, but would like an older/steadier dog, rather than a puppy.
I have found a website of an organisation that does amazing work rescuing dogs from Romania. They have kennels out there, work with the dogs to assess behaviours/characters. Neuter, de-flea, worm them, socialise, walk & play with them and get them ready & all paperwork sorted for travel. Some come to the UK to foster home first, but most do not.
So this means in many cases you do not actually meet the dog. You go all through the adoption process, have homecheck, can speak on phone to the rescuers etc....then once all in place, doggy flys over and is yours.
There are some truely beautiful dogs & because they are crossbreeds, far more choice for my size requirements etc.
Just feels such a massive decision to rescue one without meeting it at all & going by someone else's word & description over the phone. And such a big deal to put puppy through (flying over, new country, environment everything). For me, once commitment made, Thats IT. Doggy is mine for life. I would never decide no & give it back to rescue, that's not an option after putting it through travel/change etc. It would HAVE to work no matter what.
So, is it a brave/ridiculous/crazy thing to do? People must do it as the charity has been going a while! Any experiences of anyone doing this? Is it better for very experienced dog owners only?
(Not saying I'm going to do this, I'm just exploring all options/doing my research).

Thanks so much for all the replies, your thoughts, experiences & opinions.

The majority have been very, very helpful - on both sides of the argument.
It's really interesting and has definitely helped me.
Thanks to those that have suggested specific sites/places to look too.

We adopted a 6 month old Romanian rescue a year ago. We searched high and low in local (and bigger) UK rescues but cat, small furries and kid friendly dogs without separation anxiety were hard to find and were snapped up so quickly. We registered and had to call weekly or even daily and still were missing out..

In the end on a recommendation we got in touch with a rescue in Romania and came across our gorgeous pup who was in a uk foster home. Luckily for her she was never a street dog so being in a home environment was no problem.

She's taken some training and is very excitable but I put that down to having got her when she was a teenager! All in all she's a complete joy and fits in perfectly in our home. She certainly has her foibles but I've yet to meet a dog (or a cat) that doesn't.

I would say try and find one who has been properly assessed in a home environment (preferably in a foster home) but then I'd say that should apply regardless of the country they come from!

Here is our beautiful girl.

I've been reading this thread with interest as I am currently looking into adopting a Romanian dog.

It wasn't something I'd even thought about- I was planning on getting a puppy and then a friend fostered the most beautiful pup. We are currently going through the process to see if we can have her.

I checked out many uk rescues- large national ones and smaller local ones, most of their rescue dogs either can't be rehomed with children under 10 or with cats and I have both.
The friend who is currently fostering the pup has 2 children under 10, cats and 2 dogs and she has been fine with all. She appears to be pretty good on a lead, is crate trained and is puppy pad trained although she is nervous of loud cars etc.

Buying a furry is a risk wherever you get it from- not all puppy breeders are good people, there is one breeder I can think of local to me who has sold puppies and they've been found to have awful things wrong with them and have had to be pts by their new owners.

I am under no illusion that this will be an easy ride but I am quietly hopeful.

Good luck Ladycsparkles

My rescue has really settled down in the last week and is doing really well. That's her been here a month and she's really coming along nicely.

My sister got a puppy from what she thought was a good breeder, it was a puppy farm and the puppy has a lot of health issues

One of my dogs is a Spanish (stray) rescue that was in a UK shelter. We've had her pushing two years and she is still terrified of men and still hates my partner! There is no aggression in her at all just fear- she cowers and barks/ low growl at men.

She's taken a huge amount of work to get this far. She's great for me and she loves my DC but I have to be really careful with her with other dogs as she will pin them down.

Unfortunately she is a large, high energy breed so I take her and my other dog to remote places for off lead walking as lead walking would not work for her at all.

I love her to bits but she's not an 'easy' dog.

Many UK rescues have foreign dogs in. I wouldn't want to take a dog in 'blind' as it's such a big leap!

Where are you in the U.K. OP?

A friend of mine has 2 Romanian rescues and they are the most fantastic dogs I know- they've settled into the family environment and can't believe their luck!

We tried it didn't work out. Cut a long story short turned out our rescue was a street dog used to being in a pack. Not house trained, we were led to believe otherwise and seemed to take an instant dislike to my younger ds and mother. She nipped my younger ds and we had to sadly return her only to find out later that we were her 3rd rehoming attempt. We got a rescue cat instead.

I would never do it, but we have children so it just wouldn't be an option. Our neighbour has adopted two together in the last couple of weeks. The older of the two bit my daughter the first time we met them. DD is very dog-savvy and very respectful of their space but the dogs just weren't used to children and the dog lunged for DD's hand snarling and snapping - it was an altogether frightening experience for us, and I suspect for the dogs.

They are evidently not used to being in a house, or on a lead. It seems an extremely stressful experience for both our neighbours and the dogs and not one I'd wish to replicate.

We came back into our house after the incident and looked with great love and affection at our adorable retired greyhound who has been the easiest rescue you could ever ever wish for. They are not beautiful (until you've got one and then you'll never go back to anything non-pointy) and they are occasionally shocking at recall, but they are SO calm, lovely and affectionate.

I've got a Romanian rescue dog and he is the sweetest most gentle boy ever.
I've had him 7 weeks and although he was very shy and timid, he is now much more confident. He was with a foster home in Romania before he came to the UK and his foster mum lead trained him. He walks beautifully on a loose lead after a few difficulties when he first came home. I have a 12yo DS with SN and he is lovely with him.
The rescue centre where I adopted him has regular influxes of dogs from Romania, Cyprus and Spain but some if them are more traumatised than others. The dog that I originally applied for seemed lovely and the meet and greet went well but he began showing signs of aggression towards children so the rescue centre and I felt that he wasn't the right dog for me.

I wouldn't recommend adopting a dog that you haven't met. You need to get to know each other on a few meet and greets first and take your children as well if you have any. Dogs can sometimes take an instant dislike to certain people for no apparent reason and a meet and greet will hopefully show if you and the dog are incompatible. My dog absolutely hates my ex and growls at him. No idea why because my ex is a doggy person but they just don't get on.

My dog wasn't part of a pack in Romania so I don't know if that has made him more people friendly as he used to hang around a building site for food. He is scared of other dogs though and has only just started to be brave enough to walk past other dogs without flopping to the floor and playing dead.

People will criticise you for getting a foreign dog but I spent ages looking for a UK dog at Rspca, dogs trust and local rescues. Most turned me down because I work or the dogs couldn't be housed with children.
If my dog hadn't been rescued he would have died a horrible death as he had heart worms.
If you pm me I can give you the name of the lady who brought my dog to the UK. She might know somewhere local to you where you could visit a dog before adopting.

I came close to adopting a Romanian rescue last year - she had been in foster in the UK and looked lovely. But I was put off in the end by the fact that the rescue organisation wouldn't let us visit her before we adopted her - they did a home check but then it was literally 'come and pick her up next week' when we had never even met her. I'm afraid I backed out as I was too worried that she might be not be right for us and it would be too late. Also when they did the home check they woman who came round brought her own Romanian rescue and he snarled at me for no obvious reason which really was the decider. I'm still considering a rescue though and have been looking at Many Tears and Heathlands, both of which seem to do more to match up people to dogs and don't then just leave them to it..

I work with veterinaray pathologists as part of my job. They tell me that we are seeing more and more diseases that they have rarely seen in this country due to these imported dogs from EasternEurope. I wouldn't touch one.

Please please don't use paw prints to freedom they do not check if the dogs r safe around children. We took one on and it but my four year old in the face. At midnight. Next day I messaged them to get the dog collected. Dear god the abuse I got. That I'd lied on my form that I should separate on them that I was at fault. They took her that night. I'm disabled in bed asleep on morphing at that point. My 12 yr old held her while hubby found her passport. Next day I got more abusuve messages claiming I'd lied that the child was a girl my daughter and not bit. That I was a bad mother. Now, I have my old dog abs their dog had repeatly attafyked her too. I was home checked first, told my home was fine, that the dog would be fine with kids and other dogs. The dog turned up at midnight no food no lead nothing and stinking. They dumped it on the door a left without checking again. They spent days and days texting and messaging me trying to get he to adopt as they wanted the £255. Please don't use them.

This subject really gives me the rage.

It is true that dogs in these countries are treated appallingly, the way the Spanish treat the galgos is sickening, yes in Romania the shelters are more left to rot than kill.
However.
The answer to the problem is NOT to ship these dogs to the UK.

Sending them to the UK does nothing to address the problem of strays.
It does nothing to stop those strays having puppies.
It does nothing to stop people thinking it is okay to abuse them.
It does nothing to improve the conditions inside the shelters.

Every year in the UK we get cruelty cases just as bad, if not worse than what foreign dogs have suffered.
We get dogs here in the UK that have been beaten, set on fire, poisoned, stabbed, strangled/hanged, starved, pitted as bait dogs..

Just because UK rescues provide basic care does not mean they are humane.
They are anything but.
Virtually all the dogs in there are under IMMENSE stress.
Some of them literally have a breakdown.
Some of them stay in their kennel for years.
Some die in there.
Suffering.

The overwhelming majority of foreign rescues are unable to offer adequate support should it go wrong.
What then?
The dog is euthanised or it goes to rescue that are already stretched to breaking point.

You say it’s yours for life.
A huge proportion of these have SERIOUS trauma from their experiences.
Serious trauma that most people aren’t able to fix.
Off the scale, uncontrollable prey drive for example, extreme dog aggression, extreme resource guarding to the point of causing serious injury, human aggression....

Yes there are many people who got lucky with their foreign dogs.
But there are many more who did not.
There was a thread on here in fact just the other day with a poster seriously struggling with a Romanian adoption gone wrong.

You also need to consider disease risk.
These countries have serious diseases as yet not present in the UK.
Our vets are seeing more and more of these serious diseases in the UK due to these foreign dogs being shipped over whilst unknowingly harbouring disease.
Some of these diseases are zoonotic, that is they are transmittable to people.

I think is amazingly irresponsible to rehome one of these dogs.
Amazingly irresponsible.

Afuna "remember dogs are animals they can never be fully trusted" Really - just like human beings then!!

And, as pp’s have mentioned.
Thousands of UK dogs are killed every year for simple lack of homes!
This is not unique to Eastern Europe!

In the UK, a stray has 7 days.

Before it is either claimed by its owner, given a rescue space or destroyed.

The pounds in the UK aren’t like the warm toasty battersea cells either, they are cold concrete cages outside.

Personally, I think all strays should be destroyed if a foster is not available due to the immense stress dogs suffer in rescue.
But don’t claim that overseas rescue is a good thing because the dogs die otherwise because they do here.
In their thousands!

Im sorry but why are greyhounds getting dislike on this thread? They are wonderful dogs, known for being placid and quite and also are good with children- plus so many of them need homes due to the racing industry. Bull breeds have also been known to make good family dogs, i dont think people should let assumptions and stereotypes get in the way.

Anyways i dont think i could adopt a dog without meeting them first especially when we have so many needing homes in the UK

My friend fosters and adopts grey hounds. She took one from Romania and whilst he is a lovely dog it was quickly evident he was very poorly.
The rescue organisers said he was just travel sick but he actually had cancer. She spent a fortune making his last weeks more comfortable and doesn't regret helping him but she couldn't get health insurance for him.

so just because the dog was unfortunate enough to have been born in Romania it shouldnt have a chance of a good life in this country. I rescued from Cyprus I hadnt seen him he is my world I totally love him. 2 people I know in my village have rescued from Romania both dogs are totally wonderful = do it - a reputable rescue will have backup should anything go wrong.

doggy doggy doggy couldnt disagree more scaremongering

How is scare mongering?
Which bits exactly?

Do you believe that shipping the dogs abroad fixes the problem?
By that I mean, do you believe shipping out dogs stops more dogs been born, beaten and abused?
You are talking many thousands of dogs and puppies.
Are you going to ship ALL of them over?!

Is the bit where I said UK rescues are cruel scare mongering or false?
I suggest you take a good look around and study the body language of the dogs.
They are suffering.

Are the very many posters all over mumsnet, Facebook etc lying then when they claim there was no back up whatsoever when it went wrong?

How exactly do these ‘rescues’ offer back up when the new owner doesn’t even get to meet their dog beforehand, when they are dropped off from a van?

I’m really pleased that your dogs have no issues and have settled in well, but again, are you suggesting the very many adopters of dogs with serious issues are lying?
These are dogs that have been beaten, starved, poisoned, never really experienced interaction from humans in a positive way, had to fight for every scrap of food.
What dog wouldn’t have serious issues after that?
The are many threads all over mumsnet complaining of serious behavioural issues in overseas rescues dogs ranging from cat killing to serious unprovoked aggression to people and everything in between.

Disease is a very real worry!
It is not scaremongering at all.
Many of these dogs are incubating diseases that are (currently) rare here.
Some of them very serious.
Expensive to treat.
A risk to British dogs and transmittable to people.
Ask any vet and see what they tell you.

Have you seen a UK pound?
Are they cozy and homely to you?
Are you denying that thousands of healthy dogs are euthanised for lack of homes in the UK?
Battersea alone kills over a thousand every year!
And they only operate for London!

No, there is no way it can be seen as anything but irresponsible.
Nothing I wrote is faked or scare mongering, the other posts alone on this thread and multiple other threads on mumsnet confirm that.

This thread has been very interesting to read, as I always look at dogsblog and see their long list of romanian/cypriot rescue dogs.
I hadn't actually realised that British strays are also pts after a week, I assumed they all went to rescue .

I hadn't actually realised that British strays are also pts after a week, I assumed they all went to rescue

From the Blue Cross website:

" What happens when dogs are found as strays?
More than 100,000 dogs are picked up as strays by local authorities every year. They are usually taken to the local pound or, if the council doesn’t have one, private holding kennels where they stay for seven days while the authorities wait to see if their owner will come and reclaim them.

Dog or animal wardens are legally responsible for stray dogs and must, by law, hold on to them for seven days before they can rehome them.

If the dog is poorly, they will get veterinary help for the dog, but they are still legally responsible during this time.

If a dog isn’t claimed after seven days, the authorities have to decide whether to put them to sleep.

During the waiting period, council dog wardens may send a list of unclaimed stray dogs to charities across the UK and we take as many as we possibly can.

But charities have a limited number of spaces and don’t have room for the thousands of dogs that are found stray and abandoned by their owners. Sadly, if no home can be found for these dogs, they are put to sleep."

I would never personally choose to import a dog for adoption. Setting aside issues of behaviour and health, there are just too many dogs already waiting for homes in the UK.

If you wanted to help strays in eastern Europe a donation would go further there than here. I have a friend in Bulgaria who acts as a contact between those in the UK offering support and a local rural/street dog neutering project.

It's a real lottery getting a dog from a rescue abroad. You're also not contributing to the stray dog problem in Romania, rather creating an import/export market for them. I've heard of puppy farms and fake rescues setting up in eastern Europe to fuel this demand.

Yes there are a lot of Greyhounds, Lurchers and bully breeds in rescue, but tons more. Yes you need to be in the door early and visit your nearest rescues regularly to get some of the more unusual breeds. There's also plenty of breed rescues listed on the Kennel Club website.

I love me some Pinterest and pin UK rescue pups on boards here:
www.pinterest.co.uk/rescuemebunny/
Collies, Shepherds, Labradors, Jack Russells, Shih Tzus and Huskies are pretty darned common too.

I've rescued 2 dogs (separately) from Romania, didnt meet them before hand but spoke to the people who ran the organisations/charities I got them through a lot.
Both dogs have been amazing, completely different to how I expected (but then I've had 3 pedigree dogs from puppies before, and they all had their own characters too which you wouldn't know about when you get a puppy, even though the breeder was my aunt so I knew the mother).
When I say they have been different to my except actions, they have been amazing, better manners than a lot of dogs I know, and no issues at all. They have their quirks and temperaments ( they are very different) but I could easily rehoming them if I ever needed to and would have no worries about how well adjusted they are. Both are good with my old cat ( although one will chase squirrels all day if she could) and no problems with other dogs. My vet says that they are often lovely dogs (talking about smaller dogs specifically as mine are) because they learn to be sweet to people to get treats and rewards, they also socialise with a lot of dogs on the street and so can be confident and friendly.
It's definitely a risk, but it paid off twice for me.
I looked at UK rescues but I wanted a small, pretty female, good with everything etc....so basically that dog that has 1000 people in the queue for it.
I didn't want to wait forever as my previous dog had died and I was heartbroken and needed something to look forward to (although it did take me 6 months trawling through rescues on Facebook, uk & abroad to get a dog all in all, but only 2 weeks after I found the one I wanted).
I recommend the process, but I have been very lucky with the organisations I found and the dogs themselves.
I don't give a shit if I give a dog in this country a better life or one from Europe, it's all the same to me.
I don't have young children at home and can afford behaviourists/training if needed, plus I've had dogs most of my life and am a pretty confident owner/person so I can take more risks than some.