dogs homes, home and abroad?

[JulesRules]

What Varkie wrote, could have been written by me. We looked at lots of UK Rescues and could not find a suitable dog.

Our little smasher came over from Spain and I wouldn't swap her for the world.

I would rather rescue a dog suitable for rehoming from abroad. I do think there are a lot of dogs in UK rescues that would be better pts.

What we really need is licencing together with legislation to say that all dogs are neutered unless they are specifically licenced for breeding.

All UK rescues are bursting with bull breeds that nobody wants, yet look on Preloved at how many people are advertising sbt x puppies for sale. I just want to reply to the ads to say STOP! No more puppies that will probably end up in Rescues in a year or two.

 

[dornrose]

I used to think dogs should never be brought in from abroad too. And even now, I have some very mixed feelings on it. But most recently I did bring one in from abroad, which hasn't helped my mixed feelings! Lol!

It's not as simple an issue as you'd first think though. It isn't as simple as 'there are loads of dogs in this country'. It's true, there are endless dogs in rescue that need homes - more than there are homes to take them. But it's also true that many of our dogs in this country are of particular types - I went through many rescues trying to find a dog. Most of the rescue dogs I found were either staffies, lurchers/greyhounds, or terriers - not everyone wants one of those breeds. Of the many rescue dogs that weren't, many are then not suitable with cats or children or other dogs - often they are being asked to be rehomed where there are no other animals. Many rescues I looked at turned down families with children under 10. Once you work through all these points that narrow your choices down, you can then take into account age of dog you want, sex of dog, type, etc - and you suddenly find that your options are very limited.

For us, I didn't necessarily set out to specifically rescue from abroad - I actually had grave reservations about the possibility, and was aware that it could be a real risk. For us, it was about finding the right dog at the right time. And I have NO regrets. Our little dogs is just amazing - we couldn't have been luckier. I am so glad we got her - wherever she came from.

Echo this completely. I have a dog rescued from abroad and I have also rescued dogs in this country and hand on heart the foreign rescue has been less trouble and easier to train than the English ones. I had grave concerns apart from anything else you know nothing about the dog and was worried about what would happen if the rescue went wrong, but I can't find fault with him (or the rescue at all) we were possibly lucky in that he was only about 5/6 months old when he arrived rather than an older dog.

I wish there was an easier way of controlling the dog population abroad, castration isn't widely popular in many countries, but dragging dogs of the streets and poisoning them is seen as a better option.