How do you know what you are getting?

[Jack's Dad]

I've seen a quote or something like it many times, that goes something like this.

"You know what you are getting when you adopt an adult dog."

How do you know? Unless a dog has a long term foster family that can be with it for some period of time to know it's behavior I think it's a crap shoot just like picking breeders.

I've had dogs from, breeders, BYB's, Pet Store, Animal Control, Humane Society, People re-homing and as gifts.

My only experience with a rescue was not good. The dog was HA and was not a good experience. I realize that the rescue was not a good one. The foster people may have had good hearts but they were the equivilent of a puppy mill. They saved dogs who were facing being PTS at shelters and re-homed as fast as possible. So whatever problems the dog had could easily be overooked or passed on to someone else.

There was another large rescue in the Los Angeles area I watched for awhile because we were considering a rescue some time ago. It is supposed to be reputable. What I noticed though was that they rarely ever said anything negative about any dogs. I had a hard time believing that all the dogs going through their rescue were problem free. We gave up and decided to go with a puppy.

I've said before and mean it that I respect and admire those who do rescue. So this is not anti rescue.

I'm just wondering how a person can tell what they are likely getting with so many unknowns.

How does one check out rescues for being responsible and reputable?

A person could go to animal control and pick out the best pet they may ever have but a lot of it is luck.

How does one scrutinize a rescue the same as they would a breeder?

[BowWowMeow]

How to distinguish reputable rescue's from others

[Emoore]

Originally Posted by Jack's Dad

How do you know? Unless a dog has a long term foster family that can be with it for some period of time to know it's behavior I think it's a crap shoot just like picking breeders.

I agree with this. If the dog has been with a foster family for a while and they can talk to you honestly, what you see is pretty much what you'll get. With a dog that hasn't been in the foster family for very long, or with a dog that's in a shelter, it's a total crapshoot.

I've been guilty of saying "With an adult dog you know what you're getting" but I think I walk around with the misconception that most rescues are like AGSDR and that most foster homes are like mine.

Ideally you want to see a dog that's in a family foster home environment without a whole crap-ton of dogs. In my home, for example, you've got the foster and two other dogs. The foster dog lives in my house with me, my husband, and my dogs. You want the foster to be able to talk at length about the dog's personality and temperament and you want them to interview you extensively as well. I've definitely turned down adopters that I thought were not a good match for my foster dogs. I don't have kids or cats and none of my friends do either, so I'll tell adopters up front that I don't know how they'll do around them. Basically you want to evaluate the foster home the same way you'd evaluate a breeder. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of people fall in love with the picture of the dog on a website and don't do their homework, but I guess that's the case with puppies too.

[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.

[meldleistikow]

My husband adopted a yellow lab 5 years ago who was fostered. They said that he was 5 and a wonderful dog that had no issues. Well, he was perfect in the house, but once you took him out of the house, he turned into a nut job. He pulled horrifically on the leash. Gentle leaders, prong collars, nothing ever worked. In the car he would bark constantly, as well as poop and vomit. A whole 4 hour car ride to our cabin with nonstop barking. When people came over he would lick them and everything else uncontrollably. My husband tried to take him back to the rescue, but all of the sudden he was not five years old, but 7 and they guilted him into keeping him. The main reason he wanted to take him back was because of the car rides. My husband was always going to the cabin.

My husband did keep him, but we always had to drug him heavily in the car and lock him up when people came over (people that didn't like the licking). He was a sweetheart and we just recently had to put him to sleep. We loved him but he was a lot of work. The rescue lied about Tank because they wanted to find him a home.

On the good side. We have a cattle dog/jack russell mix that we rescued last year. He was 7 months old when we got him and is everything that they said he was. We are very happy with that rescue group.

I think that it is important to check references on rescues just like you would for breeders.

[RebelGSD]

We had three dogs in our rescue from top breeders. One was from working lines, imported as green dog from Germany by a police department in MI. He had EPI, pannus ( completely blind in one eye) and diabetes insipidus when I rescued him from a gassing shelter.

Another one was from a very well known local breeder frequently recommended on this board. She had skin issues and was terribly itchy in spite of treatment and raw diet. Everybody wanted to adopt her because of her glowing pedigree, in spite of the health issues. We notified the breeder but they did not have space to take her back. We had wonderful, healthy no-name dogs, everybody wanted the one with papers. A year after the adoption the owners put her down, she lost all her hair and they could not control the itch. And they blamed the rescue, of course. We refunded the adoption fee and offered to take the dog back many times, but they just preferred to hate rescues. The dog was evaluated by their vet before adoption and the adoption was done with the support of their vet. The breeder was not blamed or hated, the vet was not blamed or hated, the rescue was.

Third case, very famous breeder, dog placed well in the Sieger show as young dog, temperament timid, skin problems, ear problems and hip dysplasia.

Go ahead, blame it all on rescue.

I would suggest that if someone is looking for the perfect dog, they should go to a breeder.

I someone wants to give a rescue dog a true second chance and help the animal with the problems that may arise on the way, they should rescue.

[Jack's Dad]

There are plenty of posts about dogs from so called reputable breeders with all manner of health and temperament problems.

There are no guarantees no matter where you get a dog.

I do think if you could find a good reputable rescue then chances would be greater to not keep passing problem dogs on down the line.

The woman that I got the HA dog from at the rescue was someone who could not tolerate the idea of any dog being PTS so she passed the problem on. That's just as bad as a breeder selling dogs with geneticaly weak temperament or bad hips.

I don't think rescue people should be defensive though.

Breeders aren't perfect nor are all rescues and certainly not all owners or potential owners.

[RebelGSD]

Well, rescues and rescuers on this board are constantly under attack and used to it. I think that people who have bad experience with rescue should go with a breeder. Easy. And, nothing prevents the owner putting down the aggressive dog or returning it the rescue. Or, if they don't want to watch dying (same as the rescue did not) then they can take the dog to the pound.

Please, please, if you don't want to rescue an animal, don't. It is easy.

[Jack's Dad]

Originally Posted by RebelGSD

Well, rescues and rescuers on this board are constantly under attack and used to it. I think that people who have bad experience with rescue should go with a breeder. Easy. And, nothing prevents the owner putting down the aggressive dog or returning it the rescue. Or, if they don't want to watch dying (same as the rescue did not) then they can take the dog to the pound.

Please, please, if you don't want to rescue an animal, don't. It is easy.

I wasn't aware that rescues and rescuers were under constant attack on this board. However if your last response was typical I could understand why.

I chose to manage the dog as best as I could. He bit two different people and I was constantly worried about him. If I was dumb enough to wind up with another one like that I would euthanize the dog.
We had two behaviorist and several trainers all to no avail. The dog was damaged before we got him and was passed on to us. So excuse me for not feeling like that particular rescue was a responsible one.

My original question was a legitimate how would one know? Not an anti-rescue attack.

[RebelGSD]

Any rescue you chose now will be "punished" for what the previous one did to you. I suggest that you go to a reputable breeder this time. Just my advice, you are welcome to disregard it :-)