Anyone any experience with wags n wet noses dog rescue?

[BettySweaty]

Just that really.

We are supposed to be adopting a dog from them soon, but I've just seen a strange review of them on line. Granted the review is from one man, and all the other stuff about them had seemed fine, but its got me thinking...

Anyone else had any dealings with them?

Also forgot to add that after posting on the rehoming post on facebook that the incident requiring him to be rehomed was the dogs fault my comment was removed and I was stopped from being able to comment.

@TKD7818 Well, if that story isn’t enough to put you off, nothing will be. For the record, I’m referring to their reaction to the issue, not the issue itself. Defensiveness should raise suspicions for everyone, and the fact they re listed the dog without being up front and transparent about a bite history is terrifying.

A million people (well, a million accounts, at least) could post positive experiences and that one story would be enough to make me walk away.

I know I'm resurrecting a dead thread but I'd like to ask the supporters how they explain the attached photos.

I follow the Facebook page for Wags after seeing a post about a dachshund they were rescuing in another group.

They current have a post up about a dog they're claiming is 6 months old. Even in the comments they're implying she's still a puppy, yet there is an album for the sane dog from 2017...

Did you adopt from them? I'm considering using them. I have read about possible link with illegal trafficking of dogs.

I don't know why people are being negative about Wags on here. Have you had any personal experience of contacting them directly or adopting a dog? My rescue dog arrived 2 weeks ago and I can't fault the rescue. Wendy and her team all do this for the love of dogs, not for profit. No, they're not a registered charity, they are a small rescue with a shelter near Budapest so mainly rescue from Hungary.

I don't work for them, I have no affiliation with them other than a first hand experience of adopting. They have so many lovely dogs who deserve a chance so I wanted to talk about my experience as some of the thoughts above are just false!

I'm glad I found this thread. I've just joined mumsnet to join the conversation here. Stay away from them with barge pole. They are shady as hell. They've been giving me the run around since August. Then finally a few days ago, one of their 'volunteers' let slip. They almost always keep going back to their existing adopters and mates when new dogs come. So the dogs you see on their page are the ones none of their mates want. Thats why you'll see pups as young as 3 months old as reserved while simultaneously they claim they dont take applications for a dog till they are 5 months old. Thank you to the genuine posters here who have exposed them.

We did end up adopting from wags. The dog we originally picked, we were told had run away from the shelter after returning from her vet check. But it took me 2 weeks to get this information from them, so we got the dogs sister, or so we were told.

The dogs passport came along with her.

She was a very distressed dog. My partner and I took 2 weeks leave from work as she didn't sleep. At all. We got an animal behaviourist in, who said she was looking for change all the time. It was clearly a very traumatised dog who if it was the UK, would never have been given to our family.

She ended up being rehomed again.

The dog clearly had lived on the streets previously and had no experience of being inside a house.

It was an incredibly difficult experience all round and everyone was upset when she went, but she needed specialist care. It was all so unfair on her.

I've recently given in and boyfriend a pup from the UK with no major trauma issues and it's working well.

I would say be very very careful. I'm sure there are positive stories, just absolutely not in our experience. And I would agree that they are very supportive, right up to the point that things get very difficult. Be careful.

Bought a pup even

Having had very recent dealings with the adoption process I can confirm all is well and good whilst there are no significant problems, but...

We have two young children and took on two dogs, one of which was described as ‘a bombproof family dog who loves children’. 3/4 days in, if the children were even in the same room, said dog started behaving really uncomfortably, taking the hint we removed them from the room as thank god we did as he rapidly became aggressive towards everyone except me and my husband. He bit a tradesman outside our house and began snarling and air snapping (in a way I’ve only seen on horror tv programmes) at a trainer/behaviourist we had brought in to help with forming good habits. She said instantly he was unsafe to be in a home with children without permanent control measures, which I didn’t want for the dogs or us.

I took her report back to the rescue and said I wanted them rehomed as they were unsafe in our home. I was told the behaviourist report was irrelevant and I was accused of a number of things, none of which were true. They posted to get them rehomed and suggested the dog in question was a lovely sweet boy who was nervous. Whilst I don’t disagree it stemmed from fear, I was made out to be someone who gave up at the first sign of trouble, but I was asking for trouble keeping a dog stressed by children in a house with two of them. Not giving all the information to potential new fosters/adopters is irresponsible. Of course everyone judged me based on the false information they had been fed by the rescue. I was then blocked by the group and everyone involved so I had no platform to defend myself.

I feel no guilt, I acted in the best interests of my family and the dogs. I paid for those two dogs to get over here and they are now in new foster homes. It’s no ones fault that they weren’t compatible with our setup. No one could have known he’d respond in that way, but apparently I’m the irresponsible one in all of this.

My only advice is to proceed with caution. All is fine, until it’s not!

From my dealings with wagsn wet noses .
I used to think they did sterling work for doggies . I paid in to various appeals ,sent food etc and made myself available to foster . I was asked to Foster a large dog called louby from a lady who was having to flee an abusive husband. The delivery was arranged and the dog duly arrived one evening. While the dof was en route i recieved a message telling me the dog was in terrible condition ,underweight,neglected,fouls smellin and had worms . Rightly everyone involved was outraged and plans made to help put her right . When she arrived the delivery team were of no help at all and i told them i would sort it out myself . My dog has a crap attitude and barks at everything and the transporters only aggravated the situation. Louby was offered a choice of food and to be honest if sashe was underweight it wasn,t by much . I removed her collar and harness and popped them in the wash and gave louby a quick shower down . I was n't really able to relate the dog i had to the one i had been told about . She'd been sick over her collar /harness and that was the smell and there was no signs of worms . I booked her into a experienced groomer who said she was in rather good shape for a 10 month old puppy Sarplaninac . The dogs owner wsa ripped to bits on facebook by wendy feather and yvonne pearson neither of whom had even seen the poor wee dog but made all sorts of accusations and subjected the owner to some horrid abuse . Any defence or comment she made on the Facebook page was deleted as was my part in the saga completely . Louby was removed from my care at 11.20 pm in a manner akin to that of a snatch team . I made no secret of my having had a stroke and that i'm not in perfect health ......But just ask yourself ..What happened to the 10 month old unspeyed puppy Sarplaninac who happens to have been worth a fortune . I told my point of view to all the admins on the wags team regarding the health of Louby and told them point blank i didn't recognise thier description of her as she seemed to be in rather good condition Mrs Feather was at her house in the south of France and as such cannot have seen the dog or the other one in the office . They lied ....Oh and yes i would be happy to go innto court to say this and i do have videos and pictures of Louby to back it up . I'd steer well clear of this lot .

I was just about to go through the adoption process with this rescue, but having read these experiences I think I'll stay clear...
Spotted what looked like the perfect dog for my household and had some great communication via fb with the rescue. Filled out the application etc and asked a few questions.
However they asked for copies of ID of all adults to be sent via a facebook chat, which they set up with me and 5 of their admin/volunteers. I wondered if anyone else had actually done that or thought it was usual for a rescue to ask for that via social media?
Of course I'd be happy to provide ID in person in usual circumstances in order to rehome a dog.

Got to say some of the hateful mail on here is vile.
Charities???
Have you seen the thieves that run them ???
The CEO's that are paid obscene amounts of money !
They are the ones l'd rather not get involved with.

Another first time poster popped up to support Wags?

Anyone else rolls their eyes when this happens? Not least because the defence of them on this thread just keeps surfacing an old thread with negative experiences of them - it can do nothing at all except hurt them to keep flushing it back up.

I forgot to say that Louby [the dog in my care] was seen by a RSPCA inspector and found no major issues with her at all . No sign of worms ,abuse or being underweight or neglected . The abuse was absolutely unbelievable towards the ex owner and entirely unacceptable in my view.....especially when no one from the rescue had actually seen the dog herself .

I have to agree this is such a illegitimate company, had basically next to none interest in me when I was genuinely keen and Wendy said I ‘hadn’t even thought about it’ and was a ‘novice wiener’... I owned a dog for 15 years mentioned that, and their concerns they mentioned was on my application form aka garden... didn’t it mention it until ages later! So rude. Genuinely not worth the hassle, plus I noticed how they keep updating all the albums from 2017 clamming they’re ‘6 months old’ as well...

I am a first time poster and want to warn you all to AVOID this group.

We had our dog from him, but they did not tell us about an existing illness. Our insurer then refused to pay anything to do with that and it cost us a lot of money. His health was more important, but we were very concerned we had not been told the truth about his health. We chose not to say anything to them.

He had a habit of if the door was open trying to run out, so we always picked him up when the front door was opened.

Today he got into the garage and onto our drive where he then ran down it and sadly into the path of a car. You can imagine how we felt, especially when the vets could do not do anything. I posted a nice photo of him on their facebook page saying what a loss he was and how much we loved him and the nearly 4 years we had with him, and our son has already said he would like another. He is autistic and does not have the same feelings as the rest of us.

We then had private messages telling us it was our fault,, the meningitis which he had before we had him from what the insurers expert said. That karma would get us and that they were devastated ,we should have privately messaged, it was still THIER dog and not put a nice photo and comment on their Facebook page. Most of this was said in CAPS lock. To say this has added to our upset would be an understatement.

Whatever you do, avoid these people and if anything unfortunate does happen, don't then say anything as they react aggressively.

Just tried to adopt a dog with the organisation. September 2021. Wanted no less than 3 videos of my house to be sent to 5 people I have never met. Very suspicious. Also sent funds which were not confirmed as received by the organisation and have yet to be refunded as promised. Extremely rigid in their requirements for information on personal and house circumstances. Certainly treat with caution and do not send information unless certain.

We couldn't be happier with Wags & Wet noses rescue. We rescued our Springer Spaniel Sunshine at the end of 2021 from Hungary and they have been fantastic and we couldn't be happier with her.

They do have kennels in the UK that they bring the rescue dogs over to - there's one in Sheffield and lots of foster carers all over the country as well as adopters. All who work for Wags are volunteers.

I don't think Feedthemflumps has really taken into account the reason why many posters are first time posters and the answer is simple. I have just searched Wags and Wet noses as we are now rescuing a 2nd dog from them and up came this post so apologies that some people don't care enough to bother posting about the really important stuff like "my childs friend is being mean to him/her".

The "cover up" allegation is hilarious though. All of these people willing to cover up what ??? A rescue for abandoned dogs in the Balkans because what exactly ?????????

Think there is enough evidence to question the attitude that this rescue has when adoptions don't run smoothly and also the defensiveness of the organisation. How can a rescue which is not a charity; not a cic nor affiliated with any animal welfare organisation be trusted with donors money

Hi,
I'm a first time poster and made an account just to add to this thread after my horrendous experience with this scam rescue!
I adopted a dog who was advertised as extensively tested with children, safe around young children, very playful and friendly, loving, only on the street 4 days so had no trauma etc. all sounded fab. It was my first experience with a rescue so I fell hook, line and sinker and had absolutely no reason to doubt their authenticity!
However, when the dog came he was the complete opposite. I raised my concerns to Wendy and her team as my dog was food aggressive, he gave me large yellow bruises up and down my arms due to how rough he play bites, he actually went to nip and lunge at me when I was close to him eating his dinner (I didn't go to take his bowl I was just stood close by, had no idea he was food aggressive). He was a VERY anxious dog, scared of outside noises, cars, bikes, he ripped the inside of my boot lining up on a short drive to the beach, constantly destructive in the house etc. Anyway, when I approached Wendy with my concerns as I was quite overwhelmed, I was completely gaslighted by her. She made out that I was unwilling to work on his training, tried to state he was not aggressive, that I expected a fully trained dog etc. Now let me make it clear, I did not expect a fully trained dog. I was willing to work on all of his behaviour issues and I spoke to a professional behaviourist. However, the food aggression was the factor that changed my mind, as I have young step children 2 and 6 and I specifically stated on the forms I won't risk aggression. I was more shocked at how she reacted to my concerns and how different the dog was to the initial description. The behaviourist made me aware that he is increasing dealing with calls for help from fraudulent operations such as this, that advertised family friendly dogs that are the complete opposite. They then deny, deny, deny. He said that food aggression is very difficult to remove and we could only ever manage it and advised me to send the dog back and demand a refund. I was completely heartbroken over this and did not make the decision lightly! I felt so, so sorry for the dog and I completely believe this rescue exploit these dogs and purposely sell them for a profit. Now, I understand his behaviour could of changed since his rescue due to trauma from travel, new environment etc and once I came to Wendy with the advice from the behaviourist and began to question her operation, she COMPLETELY changed her attitude. She started being extremely apologetic, said she would take the dog back and spend 2 months testing him in kennels, she said she would re-advertise him so he found the correct home with adults and the training he needs and that she would keep me fully updated on the process. She also said she would refund me as much as she could once rehomed but that it may be a lot less (around £250). At this point I honestly don't care about my money any more, I care about what she has done to my dog and how she exploits all of these other poor dogs!!
I tried to get my dog in another rescue as I still had doubts as to wether she would find him the correct home, but nobody would take him. She kept telling me how sorry she was that it didn't work out, and yet again, I fell for her lies like the idiot I am!
She collected my dog Sunday just gone and a family member has informed me that she has just re-advertised him for adoption straight away. The post is completely full of lies!! It does not mention AT ALL his food aggression. She has said that he could POTENTIALLY be rehomed with younger kids and is fine with children over 8! I am the only person who has spent longer than 2 weeks with this dog in the UK as he came straight to me from Romania and let me tell you he is NOT suitable around any children. I was in tears on multiple occasions with how hard his 'play biting' is and I have photos of the bruises up my arms to prove it. I have videos of him snarling and biting anything that comes close to him eating. I have videos of the damage he has done to my house and car. This poor, poor dog needs an experienced adult home and she is not looking for that for him. That makes it COMPLETELY clear she is not doing this for the dog - she is doing it for profit. I actually asked her about a post on this thread were the poster stated their dog bit a member of their family on the bum? And she told me that the adopter didn't mention the fact this man the dog bit on the bum had actually hit the dog. I imagine this was a load of lies! She had blocked me and everyone connected to me from her page, so I cannot warn people about the true nature of my dog and he will likely now go to a family home and be passed from pillar to post, or worse, bite or injure someone and risk being put down. This woman is disgusting. Think about it, she gets £650-£750 per dog, constantly asking for donations for food, Go Fund Me pages that raise hundreds, where is all of this money going? Why does she not have a CACS account but instead a personal account for all payment!? All questions I should of asked at the start, but as the behaviourist told me, I could not see the wood for the trees! My dog came over very underweight and they specifically told me AFTERWARDS that they were actually aware he was aggressive around food and had deeply engrained trauma! They don't inform you of this at all! They only put positive things on their posts that you want to hear and it's lies. The post she has put about my dog makes out he needs a few finishing touches and he will be this perfect family dog, she has made all of these untrue claims about him when she doesn't actually know the dog at all, he was in her kennels less than 24 hours and she posted him for adoption. I will be gathering as much evidence as possible and reporting her to as many places as I can. I have since found multiple sources online that hint at fraudulent activity going back years and screenshots of evidence they import the dogs illegally and falsify their paperwork.
And to all the people defending her and having good experiences, I am really glad that your dogs have turned out well and happy! The amount of dogs she imports, of course tbere is going to be success stories! But you haven't experienced the treatment from this so called 'rescue' once you have a problem with your dog. Because if or when you do (I really hope for yours and your dogs sake that you don't) she will gaslight, manipulate and block you!! And it's also the fact she is PURPOSELY misleading people as to the nature of the dogs. She has lied to me and blocked me and LIED about the nature of a dog just to get it adopted, now tell me how that is RESCUING him????

I'm one of the many people with bad experience of this company. I've told the story of my fostering a ssrplaninac puppy. Short version Mrs feather told me the little puppy had worms was badly neglected and severely underweight. They were completely beastly to the young girl who gave her back to look after short term trying to flee domestic abuse. Blocked her from the page. My next door neighbour is an RSPCA officer and declared the dog was not significantly underweight or neglected, didn't have worms and was just 10 months old and all legs and ears. The groups treatment of the girl was reprehensible and quite frankly vile. You are lucky to have found Ms feather here because she's at her rather nice house in the south of France alot of the time. It's not a charity, it's just a business. I did however have a very successful adoption direct from a wags client who was unable to keep her alpine basset. There was no involvement by wags apart from the money they charged me for an introduction to the owner. BTW the lady RSPCA officer stated she was willing to go to court to defend the previous owner over the alleged condition of the 20 month old ssrplaninac puppy.

I wonder if this is the same lady that posted the petition on Change.org to have her dog returned to her after Wags re-adopted him?

Interestingly, I also questioned Wendy on this and she told me this (I will copy and paste her exact words from the chat):

'We took the dog from that owner, because she left her husband for spousal abuse, he had been hitting both her and the dog, and she openly told us that, so we took the dog back when she mentioned to us four weeks later she was going back to him.
there are always two sides to every story
If us taking the dog back from her had been illegal, then think about it logically
the police would have stepped in to make us give her the dog back
but we had evidence showing her conversations with our team, and when asked by the police to show them the evidence, we showed them the chats and they agreed she couldnt have the dog back, for fear that the abusive husband she was returning to, would abuse both her and the dog again
Again Im divulging things here I shouldnt be divulging, they are protected under the data protection act, but Im not giving names, so Im not breaching anything here
but the dog we took back was in a terrible state, abused, and scared, and had been hit and punched and kicked countless times, so am I going to return a dog back to that situation , am I hell no.
There are always two sides to every story, think about it.'

That was her exact response when I questioned her over the Change petition found online. Clearly, another pack of lies!!
I am disgusted to hear how they have treat the young girl in the group chat! It makes me wonder if these admins that she adds to the group chats when you adopt or foster are actually aware of her operation? Or if they are volunteers who are unaware of her true nature? Or is she also telling them lies, I don't know! Either way, there must be something we can do? She needs shutting down the vile human. I now have no idea where the dog I paid to come from abroad is going to end up and what will happen to him, or if he will get the help he needs.

I also find it concerning that she actually charged you for simply introducing you to the owner of the dog you adopted! Now tell me she isn't profiting from this rescue that she claims 'nobody takes a single penny for'. By the looks of it, she has dogs coming over every 2 weeks and there must be around 15-20+ each time. There were around 17 Wags dogs on the 'happy bus' when my pup came. That's at least 11k once all are adopted. Yet I was told there is not enough resources to feed all of the dogs, hence him being really underweight and developing food aggression. I also asked for evidence of payments to the transporters, passports, vaccinations, veterinary treatments etc, which, surprise suprise, she failed to provide.

If the ladies name was Lucy then it could be. The whole story is earlier on in this post I think. I found the whole experience extremely disturbing. The transporters wanted the dog for themselves, they arrived at gone 11pm. The woman in the office ki spoke to was horrid with veiled threats "we can walk in and take your dog back anytime we like". I advised her to bring plenty of effing help as I am a 6ft4 ex boxer. The abuse the young lady was subject to was totally obscene.

Oh here we go again. I do find it quite laughable how so many first time posters give bad reviews on a rescue when they forget just how many positive reviews the rescue has on their own page. Over 4000 positives at the last count when I checked on the Wags Facebook page. I had a far worse experience adopting from the RSPCA some eight years ago. I wont go into it but we were made to feel like second class citizens simply because we had children and wanted to adopt a larger dog. Its like people with children shouldnt be looking at large dogs. How crazy is that I ask you. I found Wags to be very helpful when we adopted our amazing dog Hector, hes huge, but had been fully assessed before he came to us from Romania. A 55kgs bundle of love and submissiveness. I read their write up before we adopted and I also did my own research on them before we adopted. I had so much good feedback from other adopters and fosters on their site that I decided to go ahead. I was also fully aware that they are not a charity, nowhere do they ever say they are a charity. They make it very clear they are an unincorporated assocation run by a group of volunteers, who get no pay whatsoever for the time they put in to help these dogs and rescuers in the balkans. So if anything, it made me have even more respect for the work they do because its all for free. They give up their own time for free, to help dogs in need. The fee we paid to adopt the dog was made very clear to us from the outset that its for the vaccines, blood tests, neutering or spaying, 4d blood tests, brucella test, transport from their kennels in the balkans, and passport and microchip and 2 nights boarding in the holding kennels before transport leaves. Thus we knew already, they made it very clear to us, that if we rejected the dog for any reason, then they couldnt refund that money because it had already gone out to pay for all the things they state in their adoption pack. We had the adoption pack about a month before Hector came over to us, and we had all read it as a family and knew exactly what to expect before our dog arrived. The RSPCA never gave us an adoption pack to read. I can only speak as I find and for us we had a lovely dog whom we have now had for a year, just under and he is everything they said he was. Yes we had some teething issues at the start as you would with any new dog, like toileting on the carpet and pulling on lead on walks, but any new dog bought from a breeder could also come with those issues. It takes work to get any new dog to settle and we, as a family were willing to put in the work because we loved Hector from the moment we saw him. I think just as with any rescue, there will be a few negative reviews here and there, thats only natural but when the overwhelming majority are all positive then I think sometimes people can misinterpret what the rescue is telling them and what they are paying for. Its not the dog they pay for. Its the other things above and that was made very very clear to us. I wouldnt normally comment on something like this, I prefer to not get involved in such matters but when a friend told me about this and what she had read (she too had adopted a little dog from them) then I felt compelled to spring to their defence. Even now we are in touch with their team in messenger chats and we update them regularly about Hector, they seem very keen to get photos and updates, they genuinely seem to enjoy them, which is lovely for us and it shows how much Hector was cared for before he came to us. I know some dogs do rejected occasionally as I have seen them on their page but they always take a dog back into their rescue to be rehomed which I think is a lovely thing to do when so many rescues wont take a dog back. I personally find them helpful, genuine, and real dog lovers, willing to give families with children a chance, with a tested dog. Why should families with children be penalised and unable to adopt from Dogs Trust or RSPCA. To me thats wrong. I know several people who have adopted a dog through them, I have made some very good friends on their supporters page and I would definitely adopt through them again when we are ready for our second dog. We think Hector needs a playmate soon, so we will be going back to them for a second dog we were so happy with the first experience. People can only speak as they find them and from their own experiences but mine and my friends experiences have both been very positive indeed. I would highly recommend them. But as I said, that has been my own personal experience. Im happy for anyone to message me for further information if they need to know more about my experience. I know the ladies who work there fund raise too to help pay for these dogs in boarding that they rescue as we were also involved in a sponsored walk for their rescue, and so many people on their supporters page turned up to do the walk with their adopted dogs. It was a real community effort and not a single adopter I met that had anything negative to say about them. We raised over £1500 that day, all for a good cause and the rescue were more than grateful as it helped their dogs to be cared for. I know they have over 200 in their care at any time, they told us that when we adopted and sent us the profiles of at least 30 suitable dogs for us. They couldnt have been more helpful. I hope this may help more families to think about adopting from Wags N'Wet Noses because we think theyre great. Which is more than I can say of my experience with the RSPCA who were terrible. People really need to read up on what the managers and head people in RSPCA and Dogs Trust get paid. It would make your eyes water. Personally I would always want my donation to their rescue to go towards helping dogs, I certainly wouldnt want my donations to be paying huge salaries of the bosses at RSPCA or Dog Trust. Their CEO's are on absolutely outrageous salaries. Wags staff get paid nothing. They volunteer in their spare time for nothing. They all have real jobs in the real world just like everyone else during the day. I always think its good to have a balanced opinion of any rescue because there are both good and bad out there. I will definitely go back to Wags again for my next dog. Without a doubt.