Dogs from overseas. Have you adopted one.

[Itsmeandhim]

We have been searching for the right dog to adopt for nearly 4 months. And are prepared to wait as long as is needed. We'd prefer a dog or bitch between 1-5 years old.
We want a small dog that will get on with our sons dog who we have a couple of times a week.
I've noticed that a few dogs are from Romania and even China.
Has anyone else ever adopted a dog from overseas.
If they are a couple of years old what about the language.
How do the rescuers know the dogs history.

Or the ex breeders. Pages and pages of british dogs used for breeding. Not good with people or housetrained as kept mainly in sheds repeatedly impregnated till too old.

Or another boisterous adolescent dog that the owners offload when not a cute puppy anymore and they havent trained it.

Or its bitten and they cant face to pts so they pass the issue on to someone else.

Im not obliged to fix other peoples problems. I wont support the puppy industry, yet i dont want to have to try and undo some fuckin idiots catastrophe of a dog that they havent trained. The vast majority of foreign rescue dogs ive met have had great social skills with other dogs as theyve had to learn that as strays.

I see it from the other side. I’m in Portugal and litters of newborn pups and kittens are often abandoned. There are neutering programmes and education, and lots of TNR especially for cats (we do this too). But still it happens, I have bottle fed dozens over the years, they are then either homed here or in the U.K./Germany/Holland

Not bred to order. Healthy and assessed. Any not suitable for re-homing stay in rescue centres here.

We adopted a pointer from Cyprus Pointer rescue, in July. We were home checked, and given plenty of advice, and Bella has settled in really well.

The rescue were very good - they assessed the dogs carefully, and they tested Bella with cats, to make sure she would be OK with our cat - affectionately known as CatBastard.

The various rescues on Cyprus have a flight going out once a month - at the moment, with covid, they fly to Germany and the dogs are couriered onwards in purpose made vans with air on and comfy kennels - and we met the courier at a service station on the M8 near Edinburgh where she was handed over.

The rescue did all the paperwork and vet checks so she had her pet passport and all the necessary papers.

I have seen plenty of others who have rescued dogs through the same organisation and the dogs and their new owners all seem very happy.

A number of friends have done this. With two exceptions, the dogs have all had behavioural issues. Zero recall, escaping from the garden, significant reactivity, resource guarding...

The owners all love them hugely and have invested significant time, energy, and money in behaviourists.

None were fully informed about the potential issues before adopting.

When it works, it works well. When it goes wrong, it can go badly wrong.

If you want to go down this route I would suggest as a bare minimum a rescue that fosters in the UK, so you get an idea of how this dog is in a home rather than in a pound. The two can be hugely different. And research your rescue thoroughly, in particular what backup they give if there are issues.

There are plenty of overseas rescues in UK shelters because they were bought over here, placed in an unsuitable or inexperienced home, and then the rescue would not help when the dog needed to be removed from that home. That's a lousy ending for everyone, including the dog.

To answer your questions:

If they are a couple of years old what about the language.

Not an issue. Assume you'll be training from scratch, anyway, as most of these dogs will have had very limited 'being a good pet' training, so you'll be starting from puppy level regardless.

How do the rescuers know the dogs history.

They don't, by and large. That's why I say go for one who fosters in the UK, so you get as full a picture as possible.

I've got a rescue from Cyprus, she's the best dog I've ever met. Calm, very sweet, incredibly clever. Fully vaccinated and health checked before she came. All the rescues near me had staffys or greyhounds with dubious histories of reactivity who couldn't be homed with children under 12.

I wanted a small, young dog under 2 years old. I contacted a rescue, told them what i wanted and they matched me with the dog. My dog was dumped at the pound at 5 weeks of age so most of her background was known. I did a video of my home, and then had a 1.5hour long video interview with them where they grilled me on the sort of home i would provide for the dog and how i planned to train her and look after her. They provide full backup, my dogs sister came over on the same flight and couldn't settle with the resident dog, the rescue worked really hard with her new owners to make it work.

My dog is utterly fabulous. I couldn't have hand-picked a better one. I would have adopted a dog from the uk, if i had been able to find one that was a good match and who would actually rehome to me. There's no reason why the right dog and the right children can't live together but a blanket rule of no children just means that plenty of great homes have to look elsewhere for their dog. I disagree (obviously) that it's unethical to adopt from abroad. The places these dogs come from aren't like Battersea dogs home. They're run on a shoestring by volunteers in places without animal welfare laws. People can just dump a dog at a pound and walk away. If there's no space at the pound is entirely likely that a dog will be starved, shot, beaten or just left to stray. By taking my dog from there it frees up a space and it means another very needy dog can be saved from probable death.

Op just choose your rescue very carefully. If they're anything other than completely open about the dog you're interested in but also grilling you to make sure you're the right home for their dog - walk away!

A number of friends have done this. With two exceptions, the dogs have all had behavioural issues. Zero recall, escaping from the garden, significant reactivity, resource guarding

None of those things are unique to foreign rescues.

@Swisscheeseleaves yes, indeed. And all can happen with a puppy you've had from 8 weeks, too.

But usually, if homing from a UK rescue, you'll get an honest description of the dog and good back up if you need it. Those can be a bit hit and and miss with overseas rescues in my experience.

Hence why I say that, particularly with overseas rescues, it's really important to research the rescue thoroughly to increase the chance of a successful match, and to have back up if the dog turns out to be unsuitable.

I've done it 3 times
Absolutely the best thing I've ever done
Cyprus dog was 1 hour away from being PTS before we secured her .
They are amazing and I wouldn't be without them

We have a little Romanian terrier who has been an absolute joy to have. Yes it took time for her to settle but she is the sweetest, kindest, cheekiest, most loving dog. The only behavioural issue is barking in the garden but that's slowly getting better (oh and teaching my other dog to dig the lawn )

We got her from a Uk foster based rescue, with full back up if needed, a signed contract and they will take her back if for whatever reason we can no longer keep her.

No we didn't know her background and she had no training but we didn't with our other uk rescue dog either. She's been easy to train and super intelligent. For a dog that was caught off the streets by the dog catcher, put into the public kill shelter and treated god knows how badly her capacity to forgive and trust is astounding. I'm so glad we made the decision to foster her.

Go for it op, but do your research and don't expect a perfect dog, time, patience and love do that.

Rehoming from abroad is a bit like getting a puppy from Pets4Home, with an added risk of introducing novel parasites and diseases to the UK.

You really have to do your due diligence. You can find some very good litters on P4H, and you can find overseas rescues that foster and do full health checks. And P4H is infested with chancers advertising puppy-farmed litters, and overseas rescues sometimes (not always) are run by people with good intentions but no clue all.

The overseas rescues I have come across are a very mixed bag. Bolters who cannot go off-lead, dog aggressive so cannot go off-lead, major project dog who is still a project a couple of years in (nice dog but has issues), one dog who was entirely unsuitable for the family he was homed with (large young dog to a couple with mobility/health issues; lasted 6 weeks) and a couple of really lovely dogs who were a great fit (most of those from breed/ type specific rescues to a family with breed experience).

Proceed with caution.

It's interesting that everyone who actually has a dog from an overseas rescue is so positive about it and the naysayers are the ones who "come across" dogs from abroad but actually don't have very much hands on experience. You probably come across plenty of badly behaved dogs that are from UK rescues or bought as puppies too but then that doesn't give you the opportunity to knock something you don't really know much about.

My mother adopted a Romanian rescue.

I have massive issues with this as we have enough dogs of our own in shelters and if you can't adopt from there is because you are not suitable for a rescue (which sometimes need more work than puppies (once puppies are grown at least)).

Many of these dogs do next to no assessment of the dog or the home.
My mothers dog is extreme fear reactive to dogs and she lives in the city. Poor thing can't be walked at all as too many dogs around. A very rural home would have been fine for her as she's very good and quiet in other respects and a proper assessment would have flagged this issue.

We have one but through a UK rescue that we have one of our others from.
I would not have done it had he not been fostered first. The foster family knew him really well and we were able to meet and walk him with our own before adopting. Mind you, most of our rescues have come from fosters and I massively prefer it to straight from kennels as you get so much more individual detail about the dog.
Ours is a happy, gobby little mongrel who was a stray then spent time in the pound. He travelled over as a sort of extra with our UK breed specific rescue. They take the breed from other countries when there is space.
He’s currently fast asleep between us on our bed. 🤣

I have a friend who has a Romanian dog. She is out at work all day everyday and often leaves the dog crated for hours on end. She also has 6 cats and the house is really really messy. A UK rescue completing home checks would absolutely not let her adopt a dog for very good reason, but the Romanian one had no such issue (the money was the only check needed). I think it's dreadful to be honest. Bringing more dogs into this country when there's dogs here already is beyond ridiculous. If you are turned down, there is probably a good reason.

Having dogs really helps children to be confident around them...sadly my sons has many friends who are 8+ and terrified of dogs because they've not had any exposure to them.

Believe it or not, for many people this really isn't a priority.

But as you're both retired with no resident DC, you should have absolutely no issues re-homing in this country. I would much rather adopt from here than risk adopting for overseas, personally.

Depends on the age of the OP. Once you're over 70 or 75 it can be really hard to find a rescue that will let you adopt, because what they don't want is to hand over a dog that then ends up back in their care three years later, because the owner has become to unwell/infirm to meet to care for it. My DPs came up against this, but they asked around everyone they knew and adopted a lovely dog from the elderly lady who was going into a nursing home. Have you got the word out OP among your friends/neighbours/etc?

We have a Romanian rescue dog that we got via a U.K. charity and he had been fostered in the U.K. so we felt any issues would have become apparent by the time we got him and indeed he doesn't have any problems that aren't just normal puppy stuff (he is 6mo- 1 yr old exact age and breed unknown)

We had wanted a U.K. rescue dog but also were not allowed one. There are actually not thousands of U.K. dogs needing rehoming. On all the charity websites we looked at there were rather few. We phoned around all the local charities too and we were not fussy in the kind of dog.

We thought we would be good candidates as we have an enclosed garden, an adult at home, no other pets and secondary aged children but all the rescues wanted us to basically live on a farm, have another dog already or have had dogs before which we haven't because we were waiting until our kids were older to rescue one.
Honestly you can't win with U.K. rescues

And I actually think they were probably right. Having a puppy is like having a baby. You think you now what you are getting into and that it will be a challenge but it's still more than you bargained for. We have enough trouble managing his normal puppy chewing, jumping up and are really grateful he doesn't resource guard, bark excessively or have issues with other dogs.
They would not let us have the GSD mix we liked the look of and indeed I doubt we would have been able to manage her.

I think a lot of dogs that need rehoming in the U.K. are not your average family dog sadly. We did look at a rescue greyhound but we wanted a dog to go on hikes with, that can enjoy training and we were out off that a greyhound will not be able to be off leash.

Cyprus dog was 1 hour away from being PTS before we secured her

You fell for that

We have. We tried rescues for 18 months (pre pandemic). Experienced owners, work from home / part time, no preference as to breed or size, able and willing to travel. But we have kids (8&10) who’ve always lived with dogs, and a cat. Not one single suitable dog became available in those 18 months.

I think the idea that U.K. rescues are full of dogs suitable for families is a fallacy. We, and our wider family have had uk rescues over the years and they have, without exception, had issues and been incredibly hard work. Which is why I understand the no kids policy lots of rescues have. It’s very sensible.

Anyway our Cyprus rescue is wonderful.

Echo all the comments above about using a rescue that has dogs in foster (preferably here) before rehoming. We were handed ours straight off the transport. The whole of her litter turned out to have complex issues. We ended up rehoming to an adult only home after a very difficult period with absolutely no support from the rescue (whose only advice for a traumatised 4 month old dog that would not sleep and constantly went for us at night was to put a her into a crate in the kitchen and ignore her til morning). Another is on her third home and the rest of the owners have gone very quiet when asked how they are getting on so not even sure the dogs remain in their original homes.

We ended up with our DDog now by fostering ourselves for one of our local rescues. She stole our hearts and after not settling once rehomed ended up back with us permanently. That may be a good way in and also allows you to test how supportive the rescue is (in our case, worlds apart from the shower that was importing dogs and pocketing cash with no regard for whether they were well matched). We were very naive first time around and I do have a new found respect for why rescues here are so stringent with their checks.

We've adopted five dogs from Romania (and two from the UK) and are very happy. Key is to choose a reputable rescue organisation and speak to them about the type of dog you are looking for.

Anyone saying that it is easy to adopt from UK rescues doesn't know what they are talking about. There are many UK dogs needing a home, but many organisations are unnecessarily strict in their criteria, or often the dogs have behavioural issues and are therefore unsuitable for many prospective adopters.

To say that adopting from abroad is unethical is ridiculous. Buying from puppy farms however certainly is unethical.

Why do all these dogs come from a small range of countries- Cyprus, Romania often seem to be mentioned. It’s a really odd industry, exporting dogs. My opinion (and I know it’s controversial) is that if these countries have such a problem they should be addressing it at the root of the cause - dog licences, mandatory chipping, neutering and putting strays that can’t be rehomed domestically to sleep. Sending them abroad to satisfy the demand for dogs with a bit of a virtue signalling glow to them in the uk seems so odd to me, kind of a ‘white saviour thing’. When I was a teenager people used to go to Romania to adopt so called orphans too. I would love to see an investigation of these organisations- is anyone drawing a salary from them? Do you pay for the dogs? I think the uk homes are right to be cautious in who they give dogs to, if you’ve been turned down think about why?

@Sittinginthesand

Why do all these dogs come from a small range of countries- Cyprus, Romania often seem to be mentioned. It’s a really odd industry, exporting dogs. My opinion (and I know it’s controversial) is that if these countries have such a problem they should be addressing it at the root of the cause - dog licences, mandatory chipping, neutering and putting strays that can’t be rehomed domestically to sleep. Sending them abroad to satisfy the demand for dogs with a bit of a virtue signalling glow to them in the uk seems so odd to me, kind of a ‘white saviour thing’. When I was a teenager people used to go to Romania to adopt so called orphans too. I would love to see an investigation of these organisations- is anyone drawing a salary from them? Do you pay for the dogs? I think the uk homes are right to be cautious in who they give dogs to, if you’ve been turned down think about why?

They often come from european countries mainly where dog lovers, often from the uk see the appalling situation with dogs and decide to move there and devote their lives to rescuing them. The rescue fees dont even tend to cover it. Its definitely a labour of love for a lot of these people and its hard graft. I think its more like they plough life savings into it than it being big business that they make their fortunes from. They do tend to be involved in neutering programmes too. I follow a fb page for the spanish breed that my dog is, and theres lots of spanish people doing this domestically in Spain and mainland europe too, and then theres a few that try and rehome to the UK too. Theres not a huge availability of rescue puppies in the UK, so I think its nice that if i decided i ever wanted a puppy, i could at least rescue it from spain rather than support the breeding for profit industry. Its completely bonkers that this has now been likened to the phenomenon of white saviours adopting foreign orphan children. These are rescue dogs we are talking about. Not children fgs. There is zero profit in this

We adopted a Spanish Podenco and she is amazing. She was fostered in Spain with children and cats so we had a good idea what she was like. I still WhatsApp her foster mum with updates.
We have rescue back up and a written contract and the rescue were incredibly thorough. Our friends then also rescued a pod from them.

Many of these dogs do next to no assessment of the dog or the home.
My mothers dog is extreme fear reactive to dogs and she lives in the city. Poor thing can't be walked at all as too many dogs around. A very rural home would have been fine for her as she's very good and quiet in other respects and a proper assessment would have flagged this issue.

Your mum should have asked many many more questions about the dog.

I always wonder if the people saying we shouldn't rescue foreign dogs are the same ones objecting to refugees coming here. Same kind of language. We are full, look after our own homeless first, the foreigners just cause trouble.

I've just had a look at the website of my most local rescue centre. Here's what they've got: Staffy needing adult only home, no other pets. Lurcher which has been beaten, needs experienced adult only home. Terrier pair, could maybe be homed with teenagers. Rottie with a history of reactivity and biting. Nervous collie x, not to be homed with men. A French bulldog, no children and no other pets. Territorial greyhound, breed experience required. They all say need socialising.

The uk rescue centres are not overflowing with good family dogs. They're overflowing with nervous, reactive, territorial dogs with issues who are not safe to be around children.

So i can't offer any of them a home regardless, should i buy a puppy from a puppy farmer instead?

Swiss, I think about animals and people differently. I think we should prioritise refugees and asylum seekers and then animals. It baffles me that people invest time and money into moving dogs around when there are children dying in the English Channel. All those dogs listed in the uk should be pts imo. They don’t sound happy, they don’t sound safe, what’s the point in keeping them in a rescue centre for ages?
There is a mid point between rescues and puppy farms, we are waiting for a puppy ourselves. We know several people with good dogs who might have a litter - because they want another dog from that bitch themselves, not because they want the money. We will wait for one of those puppies.