There are no rescue dogs out there

[steppemum]

so, steppedog is ill (although he may have months yet) and yesterday dd asked if we would get another dog. Dh and I were stumped. We had never intended to get this one , and I really didn't know the answer (apart form the fact he is still here and I am not ready to say goodbye yet)

So in an idle moment yesterday, out of curiosity I started looked at local rescue dogs. I got dragged into a rabbit hole of all dogs available at the moment in UK, because I was so struck my what I was seeing.

We got steppedog from a local rescue. We were fostering for them, we fostered 3-4 lovely dogs, all suitable for families, albeit with their own needs (eg one was a 1 year old great dane with zero training. She was lovely, gentle, nice dog, but a bouncy great dane is a handful, so anyone taking her on need space and to be prepared to do lots of training) Steppedog was our next foster, and we kept him.

For all the rescue dogs out there now though, the profile looks a bit like this:

Doggie is lovely, he needs a home which is:

1. adult only
2. rural/semi rural as he is nervous of noise
3. only pet in the house
4. house with few visitors and no visiting children.
5. needs someone home all day

then there will be one or two of the following:
he cannot be walked near other dogs; needs to always be on lead; wears a muzzle; resource guards; has seperation anxiety; expensive medical needs.

Now, this is a slight exaggeration, but for every single rescue, if you filter for teenage kids (ie not adult only) and for can live with a cat, the results are zero.

I just think that they are looking for rainbows. How many rural houses with only adults and no other pets, and someone home all day actually exist? They must be very few and far between.

The only dogs who look vaguely possible, are in English run shelters in Bulgaria, you agree to adopt and then they ship them over. I wouldn't touch those with a barge pole.

Is this a result of lockdown?
I was under the impression that lots of lockdown puppies were being rehomed, but no evidence of them in the rescues.
Are they just unrealistic about rehoming these dogs?

be interested to know what others think

Do you think perhaps because people spend so much money in dogs these days they are trying to resell them rather than give them to a rescue?

good point, maybe.

I guess fosters we had were all rehoming due to change of circumstances. Thise people may also now be trying to sell.

We found our dog from a charity that brings dogs over from a shelter in Cyprus. There are still home checks of course but the criteria is not quite so strict. You still have full rescue back up should anything go wrong though.

Rescues have become a lot stricter over the last few years and then wonder why people shop instead of adopt.

That’s because you won’t let us adopt.

It’s impossible for every home to have someone at home 24 hours a day, no children, no other pets and lives in the middle of no where with no other dogs near by.

Personally I would rather a rescue was extremely cautious about rehoming a dog than rehomed it to the wrong home.

Why risk it if they aren’t 1000% confident that’s the dog can cope. There’s almost always a reason those stipulations are put on there. There’s no benefit to a rescue having a dog in kennels longer than it needs to be so I’m not sure why people would think they don’t want to rehome the dogs.

And I have no words for foreign rescues who bring over dogs that have never lived in a home and place them with families or people with other pets. Shockingly irresponsible.

Disclaimer- I work with rescue dogs. I don’t disagree with rescuing any pet but I think the majority of people need to be more careful and more realistic when considering taking on any pet especially when they have children.

@minnimiss

We found our dog from a charity that brings dogs over from a shelter in Cyprus. There are still home checks of course but the criteria is not quite so strict. You still have full rescue back up should anything go wrong though.

I'm glad you found a dog and that worked for you.

Personally I will not adopt an imported dog, as I don't agree with it.

I used to work at a rescue kennels.

There was no blanket rules on the dogs and they were assessed on a case by case basis.

Dogs that genuinely didn’t do well with cats/dogs/kids were labelled as such.

The rest were given the chance to prove they were a good fit for the family.

Try Pro Dogs direct x

Absolutely, it's been like this for a decade in my experience.

Ddog1 came from Gumtree as a resale at age 9mths. We were her third home.
DDog2 came from Romania, but was in a Foster home just down the road so we could meet her and introduce the dogs etc before we committed to adopting her.

We got lucky - both dogs have their issues, but both are very loving and gentle, DDog1 learned to live with my elderly cat in a few months, LOVES kids, eats everything, is a total nutter and loveds life.

Ddog2 is scared of the cat, appears to have food allergies we're working on, is terrified of the world because she's literally still learning how to be a pet dog instead of a street dog but has discovered that humans can be nice and that being brushed is the BEST THING EVER. She loves cuddles and paws you for more and more and more attention.

3ormoredogs

I do agree with you. But I guess in the past I thought rescues had these hard to place dogs, plus a lot of more middle of the road dogs.

Just not sure where the middle of the road dogs have gone.

My youngest is 14. My house is pretty calm, and my 14 year old was the one who did a large chunk of the training for steppedog, she was only 10 at the time. So I am not sure why, with teengaers, we are such a different household to an adult house. There doesn't seem to be any flexibility in that.
(very different with primary age kids)

and some of the rules - rural only. Well, I used to live rurally and I think where I am now (suburbs) is calmer and has better dog walking options than the village I used to live in. And the chances of encountering livestock and off lead dogs is lower.
Again, I find it a blanket rule.

But it is really - where are the middle dogs who don't have mutiple isseus ?

(and I agree about foreign dogs, I was shocked to see how many dogs have 'never lived in a house so will need some help' and yet they are saying they are suitable family dogs!)

Why risk it if they aren’t 1000% confident that’s the dog can cope.

I understand the need for certain stipulations but you can't be be 100% about anything, so refusing to rehome until you've met an unreachable and unattainable goal is ridiculous.

Op I know of 4 families / couples who have tried to adopt in the last few years, all 4 have been turned down repeatedly, even when someone would have been at home all day. 3 have ended up buying puppies, and one has an overseas dog.

I should add, we are not looking yet.
It was the difference to when we first fostered steppedog that surprised me.

@steppemum I’ve found the smaller or breed specific rescues much more willing to consider people with children.
It’s probably because with a smaller amount of dogs that are likely in foster it’s easier to assess them thoroughly plus dealing with one specific breed means they are much more clued up on each trait that breed may have. It means they can be much more confident that the dog they place should be fine.
For example Blackretrieverx rescue which mainly runs on Facebook seems really good at matching up owners and dogs. There are plenty of others like this.

Personally I would struggle to place a dog in kennels that I’ve seen for a short period of time into a home with children no matter how lovely the dog. Harsh perhaps but for me I don’t want that on my conscience. Even dogs that have previously lived with children aren’t always safe because people lie and minimise behaviour, or simply haven’t got a clue how to read it.

Where are the middle of the road dogs…snapped up probably

@Whinge

Why risk it if they aren’t 1000% confident that’s the dog can cope.

I understand the need for certain stipulations but you can't be be 100% about anything, so refusing to rehome until you've met an unreachable and unattainable goal is ridiculous.

Op I know of 4 families / couples who have tried to adopt in the last few years, all 4 have been turned down repeatedly, even when someone would have been at home all day. 3 have ended up buying puppies, and one has an overseas dog.

A friend of mine lost her dog last year and it took a while for her to be able to adopt her current dog.

Because she worked 5 hours a day and the dog was left alone for that.

She wanted a staffie which are hard to rehome anyway, and was still being told no.

Finally found one and guess what the dog does whilst she works?

Goes back to bed and sleeps

and for most rescues they say - do not apply unless you meet all the criteria for the dog. So there is no place to say - yes we live in a town, but have many green open spaces which are not busy and provide lots of safe walks.

No space for circumstances.

I think there's all sorts of factors coming into play here

• high demand for dogs like the ones you're looking for so they barely spend any time in rescue and may never be listed on the website because they're adopted so quickly
• people selling dogs instead of sending them to rescue
• dogs with behavioural problems brought on by lockdown eg unsocialised puppies, dogs that never learned how to be alone (or who were fine before, got used to having company all day, and didn't cope when that changed).

Talk to the rescues - if your teenagers are a bit older, sensible and dog savvy then they may consider that they are equivalent to adults for dog rehoming purposes, depending on why the dog is listed as adult only.

Rescues don't want to keep dogs in rescue any longer than is necessary, so these requirements will be a reflection of the dog's genuine needs. If I had to rehome my own dog I'd list him as needing a no cats, only dog in the home (fine outside - he resource guards around other dogs though), teenagers or adults only home and preferably in suburbia. And not for a first time dog owner!

I know for the rescue I am involved with that the easy to rehome dogs, even precovid, just never make it to the website. They go on the FB page first as its easy to update, and then only if they take longer will they go on the website. Unfortunatly, what we are getting a lot of currently are dogs who aren't socialised and are very nervous and need a lot of work. But we still get lovely dogs in, and every dog is assessed according to their own needs and what is likely to work long term for that dog and their adopter.

3ormoredogs

but 14 and 16 are not children are they?

I mean legally maybe, but in terms of interacting with a dog, no.

Why would a dog be worse with a calm adult sized 14, who is experienced around dogs (and spends most of their life in their bedroom anyway) than with a actual adult?

good point about never making it to the website.

maybe when the time comes we should just start fostering for our local rescue again, and wait until the right dog comes across our path!

If you buy from a decent breeder they will often have written into the contract that the dog comes back to them should the worst happen.
For instance if something were to happen to me my boy is set to go with family first, then back to the breeder, then a breed specific rescue. He’d never go to RSPCA or something. I think if you want a well adjusted, settled family dog then you are better of contacting these types of places (even if you’re open on breed) because that’s where responsible owners are likely to go to in the first instance to look for a new home for a beloved member of the family. They’ll also be able to point you in the direction of breeders who have had to take pups back if family circumstances have changed

The dogs with minor or no issues who come into my nearest breed rescue go straight out to people on a waiting list. So it's not that the 'middling' dogs aren't being rehomed, they just aren't advertised. In the last few months the rescue announced they would only rehome the majority of dogs to people who had rehomed for them before.
We gave up waiting for a halfway decent young dog and got a puppy. I still support the rescue financially because they do amazing work with dogs the larger shelters/RSPCA would have pts, but until I'm looking for an elderly couch potato of a Lab I've accepted that route isn't for me.

Just to say we have a Romanian rescue, but one that was abandoned in the U.K., so we got him from a U.K. shelter. Know many others that have Romanian, Hungarian or Spanish rescues also etc. He was very nervous being unused to a home, but is a brilliant family dog, indifferent to cats, beautiful with children that he knows etc, and stays away from those that he doesn't. He's absolutely gorgeous and we're so glad we got him. Considering a second and will def look at a foreign rescue from a kill shelter again. But via a U.K. shelter where we can see the dog is a good fit with our current dog and family

We have been unable to find a suitable dog from a rescue, the last one that was homed with us went for my dd so dd is now not keen on having another dog.

All dogs seem to say “can’t live with other pets” and we have a cat, also many seem to have been shipped over from abroad and have never even lived in a house, some of the rescues seem unsure about the dogs personality, many are untrained young dogs that are bouncy and possibly nippy.

We have been looking recently, as my son really wants a dog, but they do all day 'no other pets'. We were looking at two dogs, simply because we were concerned about them being lonely, and wanting a friend/playmate around. We don't currently have any other pets, but i would hate for a singleton to then be wanting for a doggy friend. A human (even one that's home 95% of the time) surely isn't the same?

And yes, my DS is 13, pretty introverted, quiet, thoughtful, and not generally prone to leaping around acting erratically.