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

We got a greyhound from a rescue. I know some MN users are waiting for a poster to mention greyhounds.

Breed specific rescues are often less fussy, I suspect because they know the breed and it's traits.

Ours is a non-racer with no prey drive. She's fine around cats, albeit a little scared of them after one took a swipe at her.

She's great with small children, needs 1 walk a day, doesn't shed and doesn't smell. People don't know we have a dog when they walk in the door.

She loves a run but loves the sofa more (hence the username)

She was less than 2 when we got her and didn't know how to be a pet but we were patient and she's pretty perfect now.

She walks well on the lead, loves going out in the car, hasn't had many toilet accidents and we can leave her for a couple of hours. The longest was 5 hours, unintentionally and she was fine.

I asked at the rescue for a small quiet female and that's what I got.

I didn't know about greyhounds til I looked on MN. I looked at rescues for ages but didn't want a bull breed and none would home where there are young children.

The dog and DS are best friends. He knows not to go into her corner as that's her space, and not to take anything off her.

Feel free to pm

"For popular dogs it will often be first come, first serve if you fit the bill, and you might be one of 30 plus perfect homes that have applied."

So on the one hand people are saying the middle of the road dogs never make it to a website then others are saying rescues aren't considering a list of people who've registered their details with them. How do you get to be first come first served if the dogs are never advertised?

sillysmiles

I agree with you about expectations of dogs. They have their own personality like any other animal, and to some extent you just have to go with it. And any new dog will need training, even if only to recognise your voice and your way of doing commands. Most resuces will need a lot more training than that (took me 5 months to train our little darling to walk loose lead)

I also think people have very unrealistic expectations of what they have to do.
Most dogs need walking, and not just 20 minutes round the block. So many issues would be helped by good exercise routine, and mental stimulation.
And so many people think they can have a dog and leave it all day, and are surprised that they need to pay for dog day care or a dog walker.
And don't get me started on dogs treated like babies and over cuddled and fed rubbish and kids allowed to sit on them etc etc.

I love my dog, but I recognise that he is a DOG and he needs to be allowed to be a dog.

speedycouchpotato
interesting that you have a greyhound with no prey drive.

I have never considered them because we have a cat and because I want to be able to walk off lead.
Nice to know it is a possibility.

I do some volunteering at a local dog's shelter. The dogs they have in for any length of time have serious issues and unfortunately most wouldn't be safe/suitable to be in a family home. Any dogs without apparent issues are snapped up as there's a long waiting list of people who have already had a home check completed and are ready to go.

My dog is an ex pound dog - no rescue or rescue support involved. He now lives with 2 cats and happily ignores them.
However he will chase external cats.

Had he come through a shelter they would have to have listed him as cat unfriendly.

This wouldn't have been the shelters fault - but dogs behave (imo) differently in a home than in a shelter and it is really hard for a rescue to predict that.

Agree with you other than I think rescues do occasionally have child friendly dogs/puppies that never make it as far as the website because they are relatively easy to place for obvious reasons

Imm a similar predicament, want a rescue but have kids so it’s looking difficult.

Don’t want a fancy pedigree.

Yes could go for a random advert, cross fingers and pay but seems very tricky to be sure you’re not buying for a puppy farm in this case.

OP have you looked at The Greyhound Gap? They specialise in sighthounds but have other breeds too. They rehome UK wide, have dogs in kennels & foster homes, rehome to families with kids, cats etc & you can still be working.

They take each rehome on a case by case basis so there are fewer blanket rules. You can't tend to pick who you want with them, they do it the correct way. They match the dog to the family.

There are rescues out there but I do think there are more rules now for adopters than there were even 10 years ago

@speedycouchpotato

What a nice story.

that's interesting sillysmiles

When we fostered steppedog they told us he was cat friendly.
He tried to chase steppecat on the first night. We stopped him, and rewarded him for sitting while dh walked past with steppecat to safety.
He has never chased him again.
It took steppecat a while, but they ignore each other quite well, on different sofas in front of the fire.

But out doors, he chased cats for about 2 years, gradually getting less as we trained him out of it.
never been able to train him out of chasing birds though, and he is a springer, so that is in his genes.

As you've mentioned greyhounds I'm putting this on from a greyhound rescue - this is why the rescues try so hard to match things up - only to be let down by people - 'I’M JUST NOT READY FOR A DOG’ Please read
– That’s the heart breaking reason we’ve been given when no less than FOUR of our greyhounds were returned to kennels recently after spending short periods of time, in what we hoped was their forever home. The dogs were blameless, their prospective adopters had just decided that they weren’t ready for a dog.
That’s after much hard work had been put into each dog enabling them to make a smooth transition from their former lives as racing greyhounds to a much loved family pet. Hard work put in by our team of VOLUNTEERS - home checkers, daily dog walkers, admin. volunteers, kennel helpers, fundraisers - in fact everyone on our team that truly believe these dogs deserve more, so much more.
Please BEFORE you apply to adopt one of our hounds ensure that EVERY ONE in the household is on board with having a dog in their life. Know that dogs will change your life, you will always have to put their needs in front of your own. A lot of time and effort will be required on your part when you do adopt a dog. Be honest. Ask to come along and walk the greyhounds to get used to the breed, do your research, ask around, speak to other greyhound owners.
But most of all don’t let our dogs down, they don’t deserve it

That's all well and good but until you've had a dog you don't realise how much work they are and how they change your life - especially a rescue dog. It's really not that surprising that some people won't be able to cope with the reality of dog ownership. Far better that they are honest and give the dog back without being vilified for it

Aww thanks.

If you get one that hasn't raced then they are much less likely to have a prey drive. Before we got ours, I spoke to someone with a non racer who has a cat and a disabled house rabbit.

The only thing she's ever chased are squirrels and so did every other dog there, regardless of breed!

@steppemum I've never tried to train him out of chasing strange cats because it helps protect our garden from large stray/feral males that terrify our smaller cat. I'd rather a lab "protected" our cats territory than have her (at 3.5kg and 12yrs old) try protect it from 5kg feral males!
We recently took in a stray male kitten. DDog tried chasing him for the first few days, but once he realised that DKitten was inside the house - no more chasing. It's bizarre and fascinating to watch how they interact.

(Apologies for the thread derailment)

[quote sillysmiles]@steppemum I've never tried to train him out of chasing strange cats because it helps protect our garden from large stray/feral males that terrify our smaller cat. I'd rather a lab "protected" our cats territory than have her (at 3.5kg and 12yrs old) try protect it from 5kg feral males!
We recently took in a stray male kitten. DDog tried chasing him for the first few days, but once he realised that DKitten was inside the house - no more chasing. It's bizarre and fascinating to watch how they interact.

(Apologies for the thread derailment)[/quote]
yes our garden is amazingly cat free!

It is actually sighthounds that we want! Don't care what breed/mix. I'm going to contact our closest rescue to see about volunteering with the dogs for us. @speedycouchpotato I may pm later when I've time to sit and collect my thoughts, thanks.

And locally, I've seen foxes and feral cats take down squirrels- surely that's normal?

@haba

It is actually sighthounds that we want! Don't care what breed/mix. I'm going to contact our closest rescue to see about volunteering with the dogs for us. *@speedycouchpotato* I may pm later when I've time to sit and collect my thoughts, thanks.

on the site that someone upthread recommended, the greyhound gap there is a pair looking for adoption. Just saying...

We rescued our dog last year after fostering her. We have kids (9 and 12) and other pets.
They currently have 15 dogs on the books waiting for foster homes. Some are under 1 and are being given up for being too boisterous and too much of a handful.
Others due to a change in circumstance.
This is a UK dog charity rehoming dogs from the UK. It is breed specific.

@MrsWinters yes agree - if we needed to adopt our dog for any reason and known families had been exhausted I would use something like spaniel rescue to seek a new home for her. If you go on those websites there are a lot of very lovely looking spaniels who don’t have so many restrictions. It might just be those big main rescue charities that get the dogs that have had a much harder life?

We are starting to consider adopting a dog and I found that breed specific rescues had much more nuanced approaches and relied on foster report of dogs. The flip side is breed specific health issues but that would potentially be the case with any dog.
I’ve not owned dogs before but have lived with them so I’m considering now what our lifestyle will need to be to accommodate a dog.

[quote piney07]@MrsWinters yes agree - if we needed to adopt our dog for any reason and known families had been exhausted I would use something like spaniel rescue to seek a new home for her. If you go on those websites there are a lot of very lovely looking spaniels who don’t have so many restrictions. It might just be those big main rescue charities that get the dogs that have had a much harder life?[/quote]
that's interesting, because steppedog is a springer and so I went to one of the spaniel rescue sites yesterday.

Most of the dogs available had quite restrictive adoption requirements and as I read through, a surprising amount of them had bitten someone and that was why they were being rehomed.

That was a bit sobering. The one issue I wouldn't take is a biter, too dangerous.

actually, I only looked at the springers, they had lots of others spaniels, but that was what I was interested in.

We were on rehoming waiting lists for nearly 2 years. Experience dog owners . Children 10+ big fenced garden and I was home all day..

We were finally offered an overseas dog with MANY health issues + transport cost and adoption fees... We choose to buy a well bred puppy instead.
I would have much preferred to rescue , but no one could say why we were not offered any dogs we applied for Or when we would get to top of the lists.

@steppemum ahh I guess my explanation doesn’t explain it then! To be fair the last time I looked was pre Covid so maybe that’s the reason (although as you say, according to the news there should be tonnes of 1 year old nice adolescent dogs whose families are just sick of them)