Romanian rescues anyone?

[disappearingfish]

We lost our old boy early last summer and are ready to take on another rescue.

We have had a home check with a charity that rescues dogs from Romania and have been matched with a 2 year old dog that looks lovely.

Has anyone been through this? I'm slightly nervous about adopting a dog that you don't meet IRL first. Otherwise the organisation seems great.

We adopted a gorgeous Romanian rescue - we also know the families who adopted all his siblings.
They have all been fantastic family dogs and I've never looked back.
Our ddog was only 4 months when we got him though. He's not keen on strange men, that's the only quirk, but he's fine with men he knows.

He didn't used to be like this until I split with my exh and he took over the protector role.

My twitter feed is full of posts about lost and abandoned dogs in council pounds coming up to the 7 day deadline whereby, if no owner comes foreward or a dog shelter can take them, they are destroyed.
If you are considering importing a dog because otherwise they will be PTS, remember this fact, in the UK a lost or abandoned dog is only given 7 days grace before being killed.

@Georgepaws I've also read this and it's a complete myth. In any case there is no option for members of the public to adopt straight from a council shelter.

And again, those uk shelters didn't reply to any of my enquiries. There's a woman upthread who said she got dozens of applications for each dog she fostered. How can both be true? Because the dogs in the shelters are really troubled or require specific types of homes.

This makes no sense.

Shelters get inundated with applications and enquiries every single day - they don't have the time or manpower to reply to everyone. If you don't fit the criteria they just won't even consider you.

And no, not all dogs in shelters are troubled - some are, of course, but most just need a loving home with someone who is around the majority of the time to love them and provide what they need.

640,000 dogs were imported in to the UK om 2022 - this dogs have not all stayed in the homes they were imported into. Some have ended up in British rescue.

There is no need to be importing that number of dogs into the UK each year.

What is a myth about dogs in pounds? Battersea dogs Home is a pound you adopt from there?

sorry for typos! Blaming cold fingers in a cold field as the reason!

That's an obscene number @IngGenius - especially when you consider how many end up in UK rescue or just bolting off for good.

We have two fantastic dogs from abroad, the people who have criticised us have never rescued in their life and buy dogs from puppy farms here. You need to research the charity as it seems to be a popular trope to brand them as businesses but it’s not cheap to bring the dogs across, neuter them and vaccinate.

Street dogs definitely have specific needs as often will have been poisoned or caught be dog catchers. There are also lots of dumped pets.

The charity that I support gets a lot of ex pats dumping their dogs in Cyprus.

I would join one of the Facebook groups and talk to people who actually have been through the process, not randoms who spout British dogs for British people nonsense 🥱.

Have you got a source for that please? Including the number who end up in ‘pounds’ here?

Have you rescued? What’s your experience? Compared to the people who have and have been over to the rescues? I wonder if some of you have any idea about the cruelty that these dogs go through. Why do you do passionately care?

@PearlsaSwinger please ask your relative to look at this FB page https://www.facebook.com/BrucellaCanisRVN
I don’t think pts is a given anymore. We have a rescue from Cyprus. If you’ve ever lived there you would know why the shelters are so desperate to get the dogs out. If only these countries would enable neutering!

What bit is a complete myth? Euthanasia? It certainly isn’t. Each local area dog warden may have slightly different operating procedures. A lot of council dog warden websites clearly state in black and white that a dog may be euthanised after seven days. Some state they only euthanise for welfare reasons. Most at least try to find a local rescue space, not always possible. And yes, you can adopt direct. Again, different local authorities will differ in their procedure, some clearly state they allow adoption direct from the dog warden. Most of them allow direct adoption to the person who has found the dog as a stray and asked to adopt after the seven day period that is legally required for the original owner to come forward.

Gov UK link on number of dogs imported into UK

That’s puppy farmed dogs that are then sold as family raised puppies on places like gum tree. This is not older rescues dogs brought over by charities. Totally different and misleading.

Responsible rescues with UK links and rescue back up are not what that link is about.

Those puppies are sold online for huge amounts of money and support the drug trade.

‘In September 2020, four beagle puppies were also found in the back of an abandoned vehicle in Greater London. At eight weeks old, they weighed just two kilograms each and were very hungry and dehydrated. They are believed to have been illegally imported from the Republic of Ireland, to be sold onto prospective buyers in the UK. After spending three weeks in the care of the Dogs Trust, they went on to loving new homes’

It does not specify whether puppies or rescue. They all have to come in on the same legislation. It is estimated that a large % of imports are rescue dogs.

The article linked is talking about puppies however as legislation has now changed it is estimated that even more of the imports are rescue as puppies can not be bought over until they are 6 months of age.

There is no figures on the actual number of foreign dogs ending up in rescue but the number of imported dogs is increasing year on year

Imported 2022 640 000
Dogs ending up in rescue 2020 640 000

Not saying they were all foreign rescue but there needs to be discussion on both sets of number

Demand is outstripping need!

@IngGenius 640,000?? Assume that is a typo.

It's not a typo.

"The proportion of dogs acquired from abroad has increased from 4% in August 2020 to 6% in 2021 and 6% in 2022, equating to 640,000 imported dogs in 2022. This increase is largely due to dogs coming from UK rescue centres that are rehoming pets from abroad (1% in August 2020 to 3% in 2022), rescue and rehoming centres based abroad (1% in August 2020 to 2% in 2022) and breeders of multiple breeds who are based abroad (<1% in 2021 to 1% in 2022)."

https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report/paw-report-2022/pet-acquisition#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20dogs%20acquired,640%2C000%20imported%20dogs%20in%202022.

So of the dogs coming from abroad, 5% are due to rehomed rescues and 95% are commercial breeders Seems like the biggest problem is puppy farming then. I read in the same report that this is driven by people who want dogs with mutilations (docked tails and cropped ears).

But the point is that a lot of rescues are puppy farms in disguise.

Even if every single rescue dog from abroad was a farmed puppy in disguise (improbable as the majority are adult dogs) that's still only 5% of all imported dogs....! I'd be asking a lot more questions about the other 95%.

From the same report: vets no.1 concern about the welfare of dogs was exaggerated conformance, i.e. issues with designer breeds.

If anyone is interested, one month on and new dog has settled in beautifully. He's so affectionate and really chilled in the house. We've let him off lead in the back garden and he loves to patrol it for squirrels and pigeons. He's started to know his name and his recall is progressing.

I think he doesn't quite believe that we're his forever people/home yet. Every meal is a major event and he will scavenge anything given the chance. But hopefully that will change as he feels more secure.

I'm so pleased for you! He sounds adorable. Do we get to see a picture?

We adopted a dog who had never lived in a house before in the spring and had a few sessions with a behaviourist. We found it really helpful for understanding his needs and it helped us loads with training and setting up good habits - would recommend!

Our vet has a lovely Romanian rescue dog herself.

The practice also doesn’t insist in testing for BC either. It is not a legal requirement.

It is lovely to read that your doggo is settling in well @disappearingfish .

I have a Romanian princess who is not without her issues (she is loving with us but anxious around other people) and we love her to bits. She was very scared when she arrived but over time has come on so much. We adopted her from a UK rescue 2.5 years ago and they provide full rescue back up. I am sure they don’t make any money after vaccinations, worming, transport, initial UK vet visits and spay and neutering. In fact they only take overseas dogs occasionally due to the costs involved.