Mad to rescue a 5 month old pup from Romania?

[Almostalwayshappy]

Has anyone rescued a not-very-young puppy - she's just turned five months? She's in a private shelter in Romania, due to travel later in August. The rescue is reputable and offers back-up with many success stories. We have done our research and been weighing up the decision for two years. We adopted our last rescue, a lab collie x at about the same age and had him PTS just before his 16th birthday. He was a joy, but we feel we got lucky with him. We have a five-year-old rescue cat who is very bonded to me and I know she won't be happy initially. She hadn't lived with a dog before. We'll be crating (not as a punishment) and will have a puppy run and use Feliway for the cat. Both my husband and I mainly work from home and we have good back-up. My main concern is that the puppy will have ingrained behaviours already and that we will have missed vital windows in terms of behaviour and training. Is that the case or am I just scaring myself? So this thread doesn't get derailed...we have done lots of research about rescuing from abroad and also on crate training (which wasn't successful with our last rescue!). Many thanks in advice for any advice you can give me or your experiences, positive and negative about welcoming a dog of this age into your home...

I’m sure if you’ve done your research you’ve read this? Imported dogs 'posing risk to UK', RSPCA warns

Just don't for goodness sakes. The sooner these overseas purchases are banned the better. The dog is likely to be highly stressed as a result of the travel and you have no opportunity to get to know it prior to it being shipped. By buying a puppy from abroad (I know they call it adoption but it is just buying a dog), you are perpetuating cruel puppy farming practices, asking for behavioural problems and potentially bringing in diseases and poor genetics.

Adopt from a rescue centre in the UK. Or at least buy in the UK from a reputable breeder.

Adopt / rescue in the UK. Meet the dog first.

Agree with previous comments.

No. It's a terrible idea to rescue from overseas, because half of those 'positive reviews' are absolute nonsense - and some of these 'rescues' even pay people to write those reviews. Very often you get bugger all support from them when things go wrong. But yes, it will almost certainly come with some pretty terrible behaviours, you'll get no support and you'll be fighting an up-hill battle to fix it.

More importantly, why can't you rescue from the UK? There are thousands of dogs - without issues - in kennels, or being fostered, in the UK. Why does it have to be Romania?

I also have to be honest, I have friends who work in Romania (and most of Central Europe tbh) and they tell horror stories about these rescues. So, even ignoring the above, why would you buy a dog from somewhere that has such an awful track record of animal welfare? You're not 'rescuing', you are buying an abused animal, with issues, and giving the 'rescue' money for the pleasure.

I have a Romanian rescue and got him at around 10 months.

He is an absolute joy, but has taken a lot of work.

We already had a resident dog and 3 teens, so unfortunately couldn't rescue a UK dog.

He came directly from Romania and did need a lot of training as he was very fear reactive to other dogs. He is now brilliant off lead and plays with all dogs.

We definitely got a great dog, but please do your homework. Some dogs are so traumatised that they won't go on a lead/come out from under a table for a long time. It really does take a lot of patience.

I would join a few FB groups that give insight into owning a Rommie.

Haven't seen the BBC doc myself but have heard on the groups that it is very badly researched and one sided.

Unfortunately rescues here are so scared of litigation that getting a dog through them is very difficult.

I love the fact that we took a dog that was terrified in a kill shelter and gave him a great life.

I rescued a dog from Romania at a similar age. If was from a legit rescue who really care about the dogs not a puppy farm, so proper rescues do exist. Some dogs stay there and are
well looked after as they’re not suitable for travel. However the dogs that do come over do have a lot of behavioural issues unfortunately. My dog is sweet and I love her, but does have plenty of issues. They actually now bring dogs over to foster so they can adopters can meet them in the UK as they had so many dogs returned from people who couldn’t manage them. I wouldn’t rescue from Romania/abroad again in the future.

The biggest issue will be no socialisation as you’ve missed that key window - so likely scared of people, maybe other dogs too, and that fear can cause aggression.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post and apologies for not responding to everyone individually. I'm grateful for all the perspectives. It's an emotive subject and I'm well aware of the risks, which is why I posted in the first place. On balance, I think it's unlikely we'll go ahead - mainly because of concerns about the cat. We have been looking unsuccessfully at UK rescues for two years (we work from home, have a big secure garden and no young children) and still haven't had any luck with the type of dog that would suit our lifestyle. I don't think we're even that fussy! We'll persevere - if anyone hears of a cat-friendly, healthy, happy-in-the-car, medium-sized dog looking for love, you know where I am! We're in Surrey...

My dsis rescued a cat friendly dog from the Ukraine.
2 days later it killed her cat.

Madness.

Link in first post nailed it!

I have a now 5 year old Romanian dog who we got when she had just turned 5 months. She’s a lovely dog but I feel like we got lucky and I’m not sure I’d do it again. If you do get a Romanian dog then I’d recommend getting one from a rescue that doesn’t just deliver them direct to your doorstep as that must be enormously stressful for you and the dog. Ours brought dogs over and had them in kennels in the UK to decompress and have behavioural assessments etc before homing them.

Our dog was frightened of even coming in the house when we very first brought her home as she’d been outside her whole life to that point. She was quite reactive to everything and would bark at literally everything - she’s better now but still quite vocal. And she hadn’t learnt any kind of gentle mouth because she’d just been around loads of dogs for her first 5 months, so she still played by biting and she bit HARD. She is smart though and was relatively easy to train. I think the 5 month old puppies tend not to have been exposed to as much potential trauma as some older dogs may have, but they are still puppies or getting into that teenage phase and essentially are untrained so you kind of have a worst of both situation in that it is easier to train a very small puppy rather than one that’s bigger and more boisterous and going through the teenage period.

So, decision made. We'll keep looking in the UK. This is not to knock anyone who has adopted a pet from abroad - I know there are many success stories and I have met a few of them. The thought of bringing a pup we haven't met into our cat's life is just making me too anxious. I know it's the right choice as now I have made it, I feel relieved. I won't post again on this thread. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

OP, have you tried breed-specific rescues in the UK? They seem to be a bit more reasonable than some of the bigger organisations, and often the dogs are fostered so their attitude towards cats, the vet, passers-by etc has been properly evaluated.

And TBH the truly successful adoptions from overseas I've known have almost all been through breed- or type-specific groups. By 'truly successful I mean that the dog was in good shape, and temperamentally and behaviourally sound and suited to the home it went to, rather than being either a long-term project (she did become a lovely dog, but she was a huge project for a very dedicated owner), a bloody nightmare (dog aggressive to the point of upending an entire table at a cafe), very nervous (running off never to be seen again) or just placed in totally the wrong home.

Yes, mad.

There are loads of dogs looking for homes in this country.
Retired greyhounds are the sweetest dogs imagineable.
My neighbour got a Romanian rescue dog which was totally wild, snarled at everyone and attacked other dogs.

Please don't do it.

I’ll look into that - thank you.

My SIL has a rescue dog from Romania. She goes on and on about the fact that she is a wonderful dog and was previously living on the streets until "rescued".

She ignores the fact that it has zero recall and has escaped and run free for hours literally dozens of times and the fact that it caught and killed her neighbours chickens and terrorises all of the local cats. It also hates men and is very scared of anyone who isn't white.

Oh and it is also terrified of the car and so literally howls the whole way through any car journey which has made daily life very difficult.

@Almostalwayshappy we totally struggled to find a rescue in the UK even before covid. It is so frustrating hearing about all these dogs that need homes and not being able to access one, so I completely understand the consideration of a foreign rescue. As PP have said, the risk of Brucella is high, and the foreign rescues often say the dogs have been tested when they haven't.

I would suggest seeing if you can volunteer at a local dog rescue. I have discovered that this is a good way to help the rescue and to get to hear about potentially suitable dogs.

Also, fostering may be an option too?

We have 3 sighthounds and 2 dcats. Our tallest ddog gives dcat a wide berth!! Lots of rescues have dcat tested ddogs. They honestly are the most fantastic family ddog.
Proof if needed..
2 of our ddogs with dcat.

Adopted 1st Romanian 3 years ago, 2nd one 2 years ago, live with 2 established cats - cats are the bosses!! Been so lucky, both are fantastic, Shepherd type (carpathian), large breeds totally different personalities but trust them 100%. Not had a puppy, one was adult and one a teen, no training needed, love them to pieces - don't discount them

Try asking at your vet. Vets know of animals that people are looking to give up and if they're confident you're a good pet owner they can sometimes put you in touch directly. My mum got a young dog that way. Nice dog, but the owners relationship had broken down and she needed to move somewhere unsuitable for dogs.

DDog arrived aged 7 months from Portugal, she was a stray. The easiest dog I have ever had. Wants to please, quite submissive to other dogs but will snap if hassled and her avoidance body language is ignored.

Yesterday a child with special needs grabbed her lead and tried to hit her as I intervened. She just cowered and flinched. No aggressive response, even though it would have - if ever - been justified.

BTW contacted every UK rescue, and didn't even get a response from any of them.

DDog came from small private rescue.