Best way to find a rescue dog

[Oceantan]

We would love to take on a rescue, but it seems really hard to actually find one. There are hardly any listed online with the big rescue charities, and the few we have applied for, we were not successful.

Does anyone have any tips on how to go about finding one?

@Oceantan

We would love to take on a rescue, but it seems really hard to actually find one. There are hardly any listed online with the big rescue charities, and the few we have applied for, we were not successful.

Does anyone have any tips on how to go about finding one?

I’m going to PM you (only as giving details that could be outing for me)

It takes a lot of patience. The popular breeds, popular traits (like being able to live with children, or in a flat without a garden, or with other pets) may get tens, even hundreds, of applications. And they could all be wonderful applications.

It is not a quick process, it may take months to find the right match. In the meantime, make sure your home is bang on what a rescue would need - for example any gardens should be extra secure with good fencing/walls etc.

We’ve had our rescue for a year now but it took us 14 months to get her. She’s a mixed breed from dogs trust. We were unsuccessful with two applications - too slow submitting one and just not successful with the other. We were then phoned about a possible match, had phone interview followed by Zoom with behaviourist and dog. Unfortunately we felt we weren’t the best match for the dog (felt she needed more experienced owners) and so turned her down. Thinking we’d have to go back to looking on their website, we were told that many dogs come in that never go onto website as they’ve already had contact with potential owners like ourselves and so are able to match them immediately. We had another zoom and she came to us “on loan” for two weeks. This was during covid so we weren’t able to visit dogs trust to meet beforehand. It’s worked out very well. ddog is amazing and we’re very lucky to have her.

Yeah don’t look online - some of the smaller breed specific rescues do have Facebook pages or groups where they post ever dog they get in, but lots of rescues only put the harder to rehome ones online.

Depends on whether you would classify retired greyhounds as rescues. If you do then there are lots of very good local trusts (rather than national generic ones such as the Dogs Trust, which don't always "get" greyhounds).

What type of dog are you looking for? If you have more specific requirements, e.g. a puppy or a dog that's ok with young children or cats, then it's probably going to take you longer to find one.

Would you consider fostering for the RSPCA? You could then get first refusal for adopting the dog if it is signed over to the RSPCA.

www.hoperescue.org.uk/

therescuehotel.com/

facebook.com/groups/730649700693003?group_view_referrer=search

I can only speak for the rescue I foster, but only a fraction of the dogs who need rehoming go on the website - for a small charity there is a big overhead in updating websites wheras social media can be done instantly by many more people. And before that, a proportion are never advertised as they are rehomed to people who keep in contact or are known to the rescue in some way often as previous rehomers.
So sign up to all their social media, make sure everything is in place (secured garden, house sorted - like cables protected if you are looking for a puppy), have solid answers on the dog sitting /holidays questions etc so you are seen as serious, and keep in contact.
But also recognise that if you want a small breed young dog who is good with cats, children and without behavioural issues, you are going to be waiting a while.