Loving home waiting for rescue dog - Help me decide who they are

[Veronyca]

In the new year I'll be actively seeking to adopt a dog via an animal sanctuary. Its just me, home most of the time - out of the house 3 hours max on a couple of days pw. I'm kind and patient and have had nervous / shy dogs in the past. Have a secure garden & lots of love to offer.

Realistically I would be out walking the dog for 45 mins morning and evening, probably more at the weekends.

I would like a dog that would walk nicely on the lead and would not need to go off lead regularly when out (as the likes of spaniels, collies etc would) as there's nowhere local to do this.

I'd like a small or medium dog, not yappy, and am attracted to the crossbreeds rather than prettier designer dogs.

Who would I be best suited to?

I agree with this and I have a dog that spends most of his walk off lead (Labrador from working lines) not every dog has high exercise needs and no, dogs don’t all need to ‘socialise’
My puppy gets extremely overly excited when other dogs are near and I’ve had a few owners make a point of walking their dogs over to him when it’s clear I am trying to train him to be calm around them.

Depends a bit on how well the rescue assess dogs

but with things like energy levels and barking (which is what’s mentioned) - they’re more likely to present worse than they are in a rescue centre than in a home anyway.

and narrowing it by breed isn’t going to make any difference at all to how well a rescue has assessed them. 🤷‍♀️

Like obviously if you contact them going, I want a smallish companion type dog that’s not too high energy and that doesn’t bark and they suggest a husky - run the other way 😂

But if you’ve got a really narrow criteria of only specific breeds, it’s going to take much much longer to find a dog and you’ll probably have ignored several dogs that would have suited you really well.

Get a border terrier OP.

My 10yo grey has absolutely zero recall - I adopted him back in May knowing this, so he is always on lead. He is more than happy to be on lead, we take him to a secure field every now and then for zoomies but he tends to just sniff (typical greyhound behaviour!) his way around the field and then wait at the gate to go home

Have a nice lurcher. A rescue like EGLR have all of theirs in foster homes and are careful to find the right person for each dog. I'm currently fostering what will be a smaller lurcher (and btw they weigh much less than you'd think - my fairly big lurcher weighs the same as a friends french bulldog as they are all legs and lungs) who on current performance would love your setup

What kind of problems? None of my three are purebred, and they’re all ridiculously healthy.

Omg he’s adorable!

If you want your dog to play with other dogs you need to either have 2 dogs or a friend who has a dog and wants it to play with yours.

Most sensible dog owners do NOT want random dogs 'playing' with theirs.

It’s hard to explain about dogs but you just click with them. We adore our Samoyed and wouldn’t want a different breed now, they’re medium, can be woofie, some aren’t great off lead, strong prey drive, but for they’re great fun and intelligent. We also can’t go anywhere without new adoring fans (they are the most beautiful of all dogs) 😉
good luck with whatever you chose

We have never had any health issues with crossbreeds but my last pedigree didn’t live very long at all. I would happily take on a mixed breed.

Wanting to rehome this beautiful 😍 pup

Another recommendation for a greyhound here - and as others have said, females can be quite small, or medium sized, at any rate.

The general advice is to keep them on lead except in secure fields, partly because of prey drive and partly because they can be like cats - instructions are often treated like suggestions. That said, recall for our previous boy and current one was/is decent so off lead was possible. Socialising on and off lead has always been a thing.