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 have a Romanian rescue and she’s absolutely adorable. She’s the bees knees she’s just such a sweet soul and lovely natured. We were told she was a poodle cross but on investigating her I think she’s a ‘Pumi’. She’s a bit barky but so intelligent and great to train. I just love her , our lives are complete. She’s about the size of a miniature poodle and black. We got her from the group Spaniel Setter and retriever adoption international (Facebook group), they were brilliant and the lady that runs it is so knowledgeable. I don’t regret it one bit and adore my little dog.

I’ve heard a few horror stories, a good friend has one, she was a first time dog owner, was told one of those ones that are obviously some sort of livestock guardian type would be the perfect dog for her… it’s been honestly a nightmare, they were basically housebound by the dog for a year, and it’s better now but they still can’t go on holiday as no one will look after him, professional or otherwise and he’s far too dog and stranger aggressive to go to kennels.

I’ve known two cases where they’ve killed a cat almost instantly after being told that they were cat tested

Ive heard of dogs being told they’d be fine with children and they are absolutely maniacal resource guarders or just terrified of children.

There are a lot of Romanian rescues in U.K. rescues after failed adoption because the aftercare from these organisations is often non existent.

Also you might just not like the dog, I went to meet a rescue a couple of times that on paper was the perfect match, exactly what I was looking for and me and DP were a good fit too. And honestly, I just didn’t like him when I met him. He was a sweet boy but I had this weirdly strong gut feeling that he was not my dog.

We adopted from Romania and our dog arrived in the UK when she was almost 6 months old. She was born in the shelter so had never been a "Street" dog but had learnt traits from her mum I guess. She had never lived in a house before so everything was new and she was totally fascinated by things like the TV. She was extremely food orientated and I'll be honest had to learn manners from our resident dog. Shes been with us 3 years now and we would not be without her.

We had the same trouble with UK rescue centres. Even before covid, it was impossible to get a dog. We went to Battersea, and were shown about 5 dogs. I know that there are more than that on the premises. I get that it stresses the dogs out to have hoards of people filing past the kennels so they don't do that anymore, however to only allow us to see 5 was ridiculous.

It was a similar story with all the other rescues, you have to reserve online. As far as I'm concerned, a dog has to speak to you, so you need to meet it to know.

That said, you are not able to meet the Romanian one before adopting. I have heard successful stories, and less successful stories. Please keep in mind that the likelihood is that it will have been wandering the streets scavenging, so you'll have all of that behaviour to deal with. It won't know a word of English (not necessarily an issue), and it will likely have health issues. None of this is necessarily an issue as you could get one like that from a rescue centre here too.

We got lucky and heard about someone who knew someone who knew someone etc. So we met them and saw the boy in his home environment. Apart from having no training, we had a complete result.

Good luck.

Well, we've taken the plunge and our matched dog is arriving from Romania on 10 November. I appreciate all the comments (apart from the one that suggested I was a UK rescue reject 🙄). We're prepared for a long process of decompression, socialisation and training.

"Our" dog has been in foster care for about seven months so is well tested with people, children and cats.

Aww congrats op. I wish you all many happy years together

Hard no. Ask any vet.

We did actually ask two vets and they gave us some balanced advice.

Have you at least made sure pup has been tested for brucella ?

What advice did they give you? As I don’t know any vets in favour of Romanian imports. (In the industry)

We have a Bulgarian rescue who we adopted aged one and is now five. He's a Danish-Swedish farm dog mix so is best suited to a rural lifestyle. He was born on the streets but spent a year in a free running rescue before we adopted him. He can be timid in certain situations but is a very loyal protective companion and we would definitely not hesitate to get another rescue from the same shelter.

@disappearingfish Congratulations! How exciting - wishing you many years of happiness together. 😊

Congratulations and I hope it works out well for you.

It has worked out fairly well for us despite us being pretty naive and doing it all wrong. Our boy isn't the easiest dog anyone ever had but he's not the worst either and I don't think we've had hugely more issues than we might have done with a U.K. dog. I certainly know worse behaved pedigree dogs.

We didn't intend to import a dog. We actually tried to get a U.K. rescue dog but wound up with a Romanian one who had been brought over by a U.K. charity and was in a U.K. foster home. None of our local charities actually had any 'home grown' rescue dogs available to adopt at all. This was despite us having a secure garden, someone at home, no other pets and older kids and being open to pretty much any dog. We weren't getting turned down just told there were no dogs available. A lot of people seemed to be selling their lockdown pups on Gumtree rather than rehoming them via charity at that point.

We weren't really very alive to the importance of where he'd originally come from or the breed.
We were just told he was 'large mixed breed' and he is gorgeous and floofy and we fell in love with him but, as far as anyone can tell, he is likely a Mioritic shepherd which is indeed a flock guardian breed. He does alert bark loudly at the postie and delivery people and he is rather 'independently minded' aka stubborn. He isn't a calm bombproof pub dog. However he is friendly to people we invite into our house and to other dogs and people we meet in the street and he will obey a lot of commands if he is in the mood or if you have sausage. One big plus is he came fully toilet trained and has never ever had an accident in the house. He also has no separation anxiety, has always slept through the night on his own downstairs and is unbothered about being left for a few hours especially if he gets access to the sofa. His only major issue now really is that he is insanely reactive to motor bikes which we are finding hard to make much headway with.
Admittedly he is not as soft and trainable as a lab or a golden retriever but I don't think he is any more unsuitable as a family pet than a German shepherd which lots of people have. There's people on my suburban housing estate with pointers, Vislas, Weimaranas and Dobermans who are a lot more reactive and badly behaved than my terrifying livestock guardian breed.

He was tested for Brucella and vaccinated against rabies as well as all the usual vaccinations before he came to the U.K. and he has a passport with all that info on so I don't accept that he posed a threat to health. We didn't have any issue getting him insurance or getting a vet to register him. The rescue provide behaviour support and would take him back if we asked them to. We signed a contract not to breed from him and to get him neutered and we have done.

All that is to say that it is certainly possible to own a foreign rescue dog responsibly and I will still always maintain that it was the right thing for us to rescue a dog regardless of where he came from rather than to have bought a puppy regardless of how responsible the breeder was. Any dog can have a health or behavioural issue and any dog takes time, money and patience so why not expend that on a dog that already exists rather than encourage more to be bred.

Yes, this is where the focus should be, on preventing the stray population growing ever more.

I'm a total dog lover and owner but every RR I've met has had issues. The most recent ones:

1. Friendly with people but extremely dog reactive to the point she could only be exercised in private hired field despite trying for months with behaviourists etc

1. Difficulty house training, very nervous, not affectionate, snappy, food guarding issues.

1. Sadly was discovered to be very unwell and pts within a couple of months of arrival.

We've had one for 5 years. He's honestly perfect. Perfect with our cats. Perfect with our 4 year old daughter. Perfect with other dogs - even dogs who don't like other dogs like him!

We struggled to get a uk rescue that was a breed we're experienced with (germns shepherd/collies) that they would adopt with cats. With Romanian rescues, or the ones I support, the vets can cat test them.

Every one I know has back up if it doesn't work out..

Congratulations!
We have a Spanish rescue and he's a dream. You'll have to get the dog tested again for brucella after 3 months of being here FYI.

I have a Romanian rescue, she’s now coming up to 3 years old and is the easiest dog I have ever had.
I tried 17 different uk rescues and finally gave up. The RSPCA won’t let you have a dog if you’ve had an animal put to sleep (big notices stating this in five centres we visited), a number of rescues wanted you to already have a resident dog and I didn’t want a staffie/Alsatian/ problem animal.
My dog came from a kill shelter at 4.5 months old, she’s a poppet 😍

These overseas rescues need to be banned IMO.

If these do-gooders care so much about dog welfare then they will channel their energy into improving it in the countries they’re “rescuing” these dogs from, instead of making money by importing these same dogs into the UK where many of them will end up in our own overcrowded rescues or being PTS due to their behaviour.

The reason why s many of these dogs are pts abroad is because they’re simply not suitable for rehoming having come from the streets. Sometimes there are worse fates than being pts.

The issue of overseas dogs needs to be dealt with far closer to home than simply shipping the problem to the UK.

And similarly the UK rescues need to start looking at their own rehoming criteria. Firstly turning down people because they work for a couple of hours/don’t work/because there’s an r in their house name (I’m being flippant there but some of the reasons are ridiculous) needs to be looked at.

And dogs which are so traumatised that they will either never be able to be rehomed or will need just the right kind of home which may never be found should be pts. Honestly none of these shelters keeping hundreds of dogs permanently in kennels in the name of no-kill are doing these poor animals any favour. And none of that has welfare at the heart of it.

And we need to put a stop to being able to profit from the sale of animals thus putting the puppy farming industry out of business overnight.

I paid £140 adoption fee to the rescue I got my dog from. It cost them a hell of a lot more than that to kennel him and do all the health assessments and treatments he needed before he was ready to be adopted. They function exactly the same as a UK rescue and there is no profit motive.

I agree with you WRT UK rescues and selling puppies though.

Yes, tested for brucella. And not a pup, an adult dog. They told us it was illegal to bring dogs in under 6 months and to avoid anyone who tried that.

Vets were pretty relaxed. They have Romanian dogs as patients and are fine. One vet goes abroad every year to spay strays and came home with one herself (can't remember what country, possibly Cyprus).

Our vet has a Spanish rescue too 🤷🏼‍♀️ unless the vets are lying none of them have ever been surprised or disapproving of our overseas rescue.

What? That's insane - the RSPCA rule I mean. We've had both a cat and a dog PTS, because they were very old and in pain and the vet recommended it due to lack of quality of life. That shows a deep love of and compassion for your animals, IMO, because you're putting their needs ahead of your own desire to keep them when they're ready to go.

Oh, and good luck with your new dog @disappearingfish. I hope you bring each other years of love and joy.

My experience with UK rescues was similar. The main barrier was that they want people to meet the dogs over several weeks and bringing them home. Completely fine except we live 1.5 hours drive from the nearest centre.

The other problem was their restrictions the dogs had - no children even visiting the house; no living near other people 😒; never leaving the dog for a second etc. etc.