Rescuing a dog

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We are finally ready to rescue a dog and have started our search. Most of the big places like blue cross, Battersea and dogs trust won’t let us rescue as we have 2 cats and a toddler. I’ve tried a couple of local places but they don’t have a dog right for us either and a google search keeps bringing up gumtree and preloved
Can anyone recommend rescue centres for us? We are in Kent but willing to travel. We are ideally looking for a dog (not bitch) of medium size and the breed or age doesn’t matter

Black Retriever X Rescue assess each potential adopter on their own merits, and each dog. Cat testing is definitely part of the process, MinnieeCat has helped with this several times.

@doggydoggydoggy I agree up to a point. I would not have tried to rehome a retired greyhound for example, they have spent their life chasing small furry things round a track (thats a whole different thread!) But a young sighthound can absolutely be fine with cats - as mine is - and I feel sorry for dogs in Dogs Trust who languish in the kennels when they could have nice homes. Dogs Trust would not even consider a home check for me as I have cats. My wonderful Podenco gets on brilliantly with my 3 cats.

Plenty of retired racers (even very successful ones) live with cats, obviously they need to be assessed by rescue properly & adopter will likely need to follow some introduction training. For some rescues its ignorance or just easier for them to suggest that all sighthounds can't live with other animals but often they don't have a way of testing the dogs enough to be sure.

Tbh I would wait till for child to be bit older but smaller rescues that are often able to consider individual adopters situations. My foster dog was advertised on oldies club although 7 was still an active dog, a good source to find other rescues to contact too.

I got knocked back by Dogs Trust for having cats (I wanted a sighthound and apparently they cant live with cats - this is nonsense)
I presume you got knocked back simply because they didn’t have a sighthound that they could suitably assess the prey drive of. Depends entirely on the circumstances of the dog being in their care in the first place. We adopted an ex racer greyhound three weeks ago from Dog’s Trust. Because she’d come from a home (owner passed away sadly) on their canine care card scheme they knew she was fine with cats, very low prey drive, and indeed she is absolutely fine with cats, and squirrels, though I’m hoping to train her to chase off the parakeets before I lose all my flipping cherries to them yet again 😂 OP, if you’re in Kent, you could try LRRSE (Labrador Retreiver Rescue labrador-rescue.org.uk ). We’ve had two lovely rescue labs from there. They are asssessed well and lots of their dogs come from homes where they have lived happily with very young children but where the owners circumstances have changed and so need to rehome. They have way more dogs available than those on the website and they assess your details and match dogs to you.

My ex racer greyhound lives with two cats. It took us ages to train her to live with them, though, but three years on they all live in harmony. I think next time I'd get an older ex racer as ours was retired young and was very energetic. She's chilled out a lot age 5+.

Toddlers are another issue though. She really doesn't like them (noise and space invasion), so I have to lock her in another room or put her in kennels if I have toddlers visiting. I think my grey is very much at the highly strung end of the breed, though. My friends greyhounds all seem super chill around other pets and toddlers in the home. The prey drive usually only kicks in outside.

They are lovely dogs, by and large. I will have rescue greys for life.