Rescue applications rejected - where am I going wrong?

[Dogdesperate]

We have been looking for a Dog to join our loving family for a few Months now. We lost our DDog earlier in the Year so are experienced owners, my DH WFH and I'm part time (one day!) we have a large 3 bedroom house in a quiet leafy area of Surrey with a medium fenced in Garden.
Have found a lot of Dogs we've liked on the Dogs Trust Website but every single application has been rejected. We do have 2 primary school aged Children, could that be a factor? (would like to think not )
I just don't understand why we keep being rejected, my applications are detailed and honest, loving and hopeful! I did call to discuss but the Centre simply said they have lots of applicants for every single dog. Would really like to Rescue instead of just going to buy a Puppy! Just can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

Actually, while I have a knowledgeable person here to ask: are our fences the problem? They are mostly 5ft but only 4ft at the gates (our previous dog was not athletic). If that's the key issue, I'll get them raised while we keep looking.

It will reduce the number of dogs suitable but plenty of foster homes have all sorts of furries. Great the cat is dog savvy though🤣. Feel free to pm me

@CatonmyKeyboard

They will do a homecheck and let you know if the fences are an issue. Tbf most spanners will jump anything so if you can I would. we have 6ft and we're approved so can't really compare.

Would echo what a PP said about insurance. Congratulations on your new pup OP, hope she has a long and healthy life.
Spaniel aid is one I tried repeatedly to adopt from - for context we are very experienced with spaniels and working dogs, live in The country with a big garden and lots of good stimulation and exercise. Dog would be on its own max 1/2 hours. We train ours and they are worked through shooting season. They live in the house and spend short periods in a heated kennel after walks and if we are out. 3 other dogs for company and I was open to anything up to 4/5.
BUT
We have one (very very dog savvy and mean) cat. And a teenager (who works the dogs/trains them etc and is very dog savvy too).
Not suitable apparently!

My spaniels have never jumped out! They know better than that 😂

@VinoEsmeralda I never heard anything back from SpanielAid either. I think I applied for five or six dogs over the course of a year. Any you have to write every single application from scratch so it takes a lot of time! It's frustrating when months later you see the dog still on the "available" list but you haven't heard anything back. I appreciate you are all volunteers and are doing your absolute best for the dogs.

@OrlandointheWilderness I have two teenagers too although at Uni most of the time. When did you last try as the overflow of dogs ( cost of living & covid) is terrible an I don't think we would have been approved as I work full-time and DH mostly from home. You kids sound awesome, could do with help on recall, lead walking at moment😉

I fosterered a showcocker, she was tiny, but she could climb onto& into fencing, jumped stairgates with no space for running up to it, she nearly broke me🤣. She had this, game on, you have given me a challenge face. If she outsmarted us on a Friday we called it Fuck it got you Friday face

I'm afraid I bought a puppy about a year and a half ago!

I copied my answers into a Word doc after the first few tries!

But I suspect it's at least partly our fences. We must have had the world's least adventurous spaniel previously.

@disappearingfish I'm sorry to read that!

I tried to rescue. We have a cat. Looked at a well known rescue site. 270 dogs up for adoption
Filter : Can live with cats - just 7 dogs.
A one eyed 12 year old Yorkshire terrier ( sorry but no, looking for a bigger active dog)
2 farm bred collies that needed quiet rural home with no traffic ( we live near a town)
A reactive Rottweiler who needs an owner with experience of big reactive dogs ( which we don't have)
And the other 3 said "must be only pet in the home " ??
So we bought a puppy 🤔
( researched breeder extensively to avoid puppy farms but still would have preferred to rescue)

I'm starting to think that all of our cats have colluded and are giving backhanders to dog rescue orgs to keep their dogs out of our houses...

I appreciate the rescue are trying to do their best but something is obviously very wrong.

A lot of dogs are signed over with no history of being around small animals, or a negative history of being around small animals including cats, including killing small animals and cats and that being the reason for handover.

When a dog has no history, "cat testing" is incredibly tricky. No one wants to put an actual cat in harms way just to cat test. Rescues will also need to blanket swap with the two animal's scents, so if you live hours away that's going to be impossible. Also, if there is a dog-savvy cat in the vicinity and this particular dog is ok with that cat, it doesn't mean it will be ok with ALL cats. A lot of dogs sadly get returned to kennels soon after adoption because that dog may have got on with a cat previously, but the new owner's cat is completely different and is therefore getting chased or worse.

Mixing rescue dogs with resident cats is extremely hard.

Our cat is an idiot who learnt to play-bow to our old girl and then flirt away at half-speed, going 'Ooh, ooh, the bad dog chased me!'

She also liked to use her as a footwarmer.

Hmm, maybe it's not fair to subject a rescue dog to her wicked ways.

Actually because I mentioned him, gratuitous pic of said puppy who is now coming up two...!

@bunnygeek I think you make some really good points and I totally get the potential problems.
I guess it's not so much rescues won't give you a dog, more that if your circumstances don't fit you have no choice but to get a puppy. And you shouldn't be condemned as a terrible person for doing so ( as I have been by a few so-called friends)
We can't all have no other pets, no cats or small furries and 6' high fending all around, and yet we can still provide a dog with a fantastic home for life.

...and yet we can still provide a dog with a fantastic home for life.

I don't doubt that, @Sunflowers098, it's the pup's parents I worry about.

And there's always a choice. People who buy pups are supporting the breeding of dogs. I realise not all pups come from puppy farms and some breeding dogs are looked after better than others but, however good the breeder, there is always a price to pay for the bitch and dog who produced the pup for people to buy.