How do you know what you are getting?

[sit,stay]

My own personal rule of thumb is waiting at least 4 weeks before letting a foster dog leave my care for their new home. And during those 4 weeks, I expose them to a whole lot. My goal is to have that dog leave and never, ever come back.

I don't believe that you can get a very good idea of true temperament and personality in less time, and even then there is a lot of room for error. It has very much been my experience that most of the dogs that I have fostered have been allowed to live without any manners at all. Taking the time to put basic obedience skills on them is another important step that helps put the dog in the best position possible to find and stay in their new home.

We should be just as demanding of rescues as we are of breeders.
Sheilah

[shepherdmom]

Originally Posted by JakodaCD OA

Shepmom>I'm sorry your having such a hard time finding an adoptee There are so many out there, just maybe not in your area right now? (which is likely a good thing, not for you but for the dogs

It may be a good thing for us as well. After all that I've read on here recently I'm thinking maybe hubby is right and we should go with a pup. We've raised 4 Shepherds and 2 others dogs from puppies and even our least social one still didn't have the kinds of problems I've read about here recently. Honestly I'm still hurting from the loss of Shadow and the thought of a cute little shepherd puppy just breaks my heart (I miss him so much) but maybe if we go for a different breed.... The dogs we've rescued especially our Akita were the most wonderful loving members of the family but I'm thinking maybe we just got lucky.

[JeanKBBMMMAAN]

Originally Posted by Jack's Dad

Thanks for the responses.

I wonder what percentage of rescues have long term fosters?

People who spend enough time to know the things you mentioned, Sheilah.

Other than color most people who want pets are hoping for many of the same things they would want from a breeder.

Dogs free from major health issues, good temperament, safe around children. Free from complex human or dog aggression.

Beyond this some may have individual needs.

No one wants dogs to just keep moving down the line. Finding a good fit seems very important.

That link with the list of what to look for in a reputable rescue that you read - that is one of the things a rescue is supposed to do, as it seems to be a best practice.

The rescue I am fostering for right now has a minimum 3 week hold. That minimum is generally not even an issue because by the time the dog gets on the website, an adopter sees them, and the process goes forward, it's going to be longer than 3 weeks. Generally you see a new dog at 3 weeks and again at 3 months. I do everything I can to make sure that the dog emerging at those points is better than the one they came in as, by using NILIF and lots of patience.

As far as health, we can't guarantee lifelong health. We can say the dog is currently healthy (or not - I had an EPI foster adopt out) and that we know what their health status was during their time in foster and sometimes before (example Muppet Rosa was almost a failure to thrive puppy which was important for her people to know). But we can help people set up an environment for good possibilities of long-term health: good food, safe containment at all times, exercise, etc.

My last 2 adult fosters were with me for 10 months, then 12 months. So I knew them well. In my environment, with me. In a new environment, with different people, they are going to pop some different behaviors. Because both my adult fosters were quirky (not aggressive), I had to find adopters who were open to quirk. So that is where that match comes in.

I typically don't get/take dogs that are able to be good family pets. Like Robin says, that is the job with the most stress. A non family dog can be in a kennel, by themselves all day, take them out to do work on something in dog sport, put the dog back in and that dog is done. A family dog is under constant pressure. I do not adopt to families with children because my fosters are not exposed to them 24/7 so I have no idea if they could tolerate that kind of work. There are other foster homes with kids who can vouch for the dogs' kid tolerances. My current foster, non GSD, is great with kids, but far too busy to be able to sit idly by with them moving around. She's adorable.

I am pretty sure there are other GSD rescues: VAGSR and GSRNE come to mind as having that info on their websites for reference, that have minimum hold requirements. Match is huge. Anyone who places dogs needs to be able to see not only the dog clearly, but the people clearly as well. And not all fosters are good at both. The rescue I am with, has weekly meet/greets so that foster dogs are seen by a lot of people in the rescue and it's a good time to ask for feedback on behaviors we see.

It's not a simple thing at all! Definitely room for human error whenever anyone tries to match 2 living beings together.

[PaddyD]

Originally Posted by Jack's Dad

I read the lenghtly one by sapphire and skimmed the rest.

Based on that, I have never seen a reputable rescue.

That is not to imply they are not there but just that I've not seen one.

Most that I know of move dogs too fast for them to know much about the dogs. There is another one near us that is the opposite. It would be easier to adopt a child from China than a dog from them.

I had the same experience. It was easier (and not much more expensive) to go to a breeder and 'rescue' one of her pups.
Then there is another rescue nearby that charges $425 and you STILL don't really know what you are getting because they are
mostly from the streets of Puerto Rico or some other foreign land.

[Remo]

It is really difficult for the breed rescues to hit that perfect zone of not being careful enough, to the opposite end of the spectrum and get accused of being too difficult to work with.

When we created our forms, we scrutinized the forms for the well established, well respected rescues, and tried to put together something comprehensive, yet not overwhelming.

Some groups required very little information, others had eight page applications that wanted your employment history. Yikes!

We temperament test our dogs from nose to tail and also make every effort to get a nose-to-nose test with another dog. We don't have many fosters that do not have other dogs in the home so dogs that are dog aggressive usually cannot be taken into our rescue program. Our group uses established/documented procedures when we evaluate a dog. Some of our folks in the Tidewater area even videotape the tests and make them available to the fosters for viewing.

You can always ask a rescue to provide references - we can provide references from adopters as well as a number of local veterinarians.

You can also look through the "Happy Tales" section of our web site and see some of the stories that have been submitted by our adopters. Now that we have been in business for ten years, quite a few of our placements are made with folks who have adopted from us previously. That is the highest compliment we can receive - when someone comes back to us to adopt another dog.

We are honest about the dogs, because if the adoption is not successful, the dog MUST be returned to our rescue. We would rather have folks prepared for behavioral situations rather than be surprised by them. If something is a deal-breaker with a prospective applicant, I would rather be upfront about the issue and not waste anyone's time.

We are not claiming to be anything near perfection, but we sure do give it one heck of an effort!!!!

[Jack's Dad]

Good information.

I now have another question though.

If a rescue takes in a dog that turns out to be HA or DA, what do they do with it? I have a hard time believing most would PTS but it should be unethical to adopt it out. Certainly not without full disclosure.

Would they have any liability for passing a known DA or HA dog on to an adoptee.

[msvette2u]

I can only speak to our own rescue.
It depends on the level of DA/HA.
If you get a nippy small breed that's different than an 80lb. dog who bites people for the littlest of infractions.

In my rescue, actual "Human aggression" is quite rare. Defensive small dogs are different. I have been bitten once, deliberately and very hard, by a BC mix and she was put to sleep. I knew why she bit, but to find a home who would guarantee she'd never be exposed to that situation (taking her by the back of the collar) was next to impossible.

Dog aggression - if it's over-the-top, where they cannot be safe around other dogs, we seek advice from our vet and make a collective decision as a rule, usually PTS, because it is a liability plus reduces that dog's chances of finding a decent home, ever. We PTS a Lab mix who tried, quite literally, to kill our cat. I'd never seen that level of cat aggression before, but it also transferred to small dogs and while at the vet awaiting our visit, he became very aggressive to a small dog in the waiting room (everyone was leashed, thank God) then even a poster on the wall. Upon seeing that, our vet even concurred, too dangerous to adopt this dog out.

We recently had a Dachshund that attacked another dog - however, it was just that particular dog, and we adopted him out. He was fine with other dogs, just not that one dog -the dog he bit had some neurological deficits and it was decided the Dachshund sensed that - from then on he was not allowed contact with that particular dog. It was not a big deal, no cause to put him down and he got a wonderful home.

[Jack's Dad]

Thanks, msevette2u.

Along the same lines is there a point where rescues decide medical care is just too costly?

I saw on the other thread that a surgery was done that cost $1500.00 and I know there are much more costly treatments than that.

If rescues want to continue to operate don't they have to take medical costs into consideration? Also the dogs age and potential for adoptability?

Or once a dog is rescued are they there regardless? In other words for better or worse.

I admit that I would not want to decide which dogs lived or died but isn't there a realistic, practical side to it. It's impossible to save them all.

[msvette2u]

It depends on the dog and how much "adoptability", and the illness involved.
We recently had to euth. a very nice, pretty little Chihuahua as her spleen was so huge it took up her whole abdomen. The problem was, all bloodwork pointed to autoimmune. She was around 8yrs. old and the particular autoimmune disease she was felt to have is a very bad one with lots of relapses. Her "adoptability" plummeted because of the fact nobody is going to want to take on this costly health issue. Very sad case
We had her PTS because even if we could cure the exacerbation (her spleen - take it out, treat with prednisone) we can't ask someone to take that on plus the treatment is worse than the illness.

However we did save a puppy who needed a pin placed in his leg (Caliber, on our page) and fundraised minimally to do that. We're using a vastly cheaper (but very good) vet, a "country type" I hear so much about, he did the pin and if it becomes necessary to amputate, won't charge more for that.

Anyway - there's so many factors that go into it, in our case anyway (some rescues would have fund-raised for the Chihuahua too) that it's hard to say, each case is just different.

I feel like, if we cannot improve a dog's life and in fact it will make it worse, to treat the dog (prednisone is HE-LL on dogs!!!) I won't do it. I don't care if it's a cute, fuzzy "fund raising" opportunity, I won't make the dog's life worse treating it.