Rescue Centre experience

ktj1891

ktj1891

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I recently showed my Mum a dog that was looking for a home through a local dog rescue and we both really liked the look of her so we enquired. We were told to fill in an application form which we did and then about a week later a home checker came out for a visit. I wasn't there but apparently she asked my Mum a number of questions which is fine and also things like how she would teach a dog to sit, which my Mum demonstrated by pushing one of our dogs bums down.

Anyway the girl said she could see no major problems and that the manager would be in contact. This brings us to tonight where the manager rang us and stated

1st point- that our female Yorkie was nervous of new people (she is to a certain extent INITIALLY but shes just silly she will come over and lick you and run away if you put your hands towards her, but hardly terrified as she wouldn't come anywhere near you if she was that scared) our other dog is fine with new people. I don't know what this has to do with our ability or reflection of us rehoming a dog.

2nd point- was that my Mum mentioned I train the dogs which she was concerned no one else does. Well, I have taught our JRT tricks and both of them to walk beside me on the lead. My Mum doesn't do training in those terms but the dog in question wouldn't NEED training as such.

3rd point- that my Mum and I like watching Cesar Millan and as such they do not agree with his method and follow Victoria Stilwell and it came across that she was implying we have used methods like CM on our Yorkie and that's why shes nervous. Once again I do not know how that relates to us rehoming a dog.

Yes I do like watching Cesar Millan and I do believe in things he teaches, but I haven't actually done it with our dogs as I don't need to. The only thing I have adopted is using a slip lead for our JRT to stop her pulling- not exactly a method only CM uses! I also use food to distract and for tricks etc hardly physical or psychological abuse!!

So this has left me and my Mum feeling rather like we have done something terrible wrong and bad dog owners. The message we got was that we are incompetent and that anyone who follows CM or even likes him will not be able to rehome a dog!!

I thought regular worming, de-fleaing, vaccs, vet checks, insurance, food, water, grooming as needed, and exercise would be their main priority when taking into consideration possible homes - all of which listed our dogs and cats have and are upto date with plus both my parents being retired and at home majority of the day!


I can't believe it and we both feel very upset at the situation and downgraded!
 
How silly! So many dogs needing good 'stay at home' homes!
I'd request a meeting with the manager in person to understand the issues - if you want to take it further.
Good luck!
 
Fools Motto said:
How silly! So many dogs needing good 'stay at home' homes!
I'd request a meeting with the manager in person to understand the issues - if you want to take it further.
Good luck!
Click to expand...

It was the manager who rang tonight and said she would come out herself and look but to be frank the whole situation has now put us both off and we feel **** about the whole insinuations! Shame we had a very good home to offer, also a massive field right out the back of our house we come and go in with a back door out of our garden to use daily for walks, suitable for a little dog - the one we showed interest in. Actually being a cross breed Yorkie which we have experience of owning!
 
what a shame, some of the rescue employees dont seem to use common sense and seem to feel that keeping dogs in kennels is preferable to them being in a family home....i also have watched cm and dont feel he is cruel, the dogs that are shown are usually with him as a last resort and not the normal average family pet. i tried to rehome a lurcher many years ago and the rescue centre wouldnt let me have him as i had guinea pigs indoors(in cages not loose). they would however consider me for one of the terriers or collie crosses...as far as i am concerned if they felt i was that much of an idiot to allow the lurcher to eat my pigs, why wouldnt i let the other breeds...i ended up buying a lurcher puppy and i managed to keep my piggies safe till they died of old age....why not try a different rescue centre, im sure they cant all be as bad..
 
splashgirl45 said:
what a shame, some of the rescue employees dont seem to use common sense and seem to feel that keeping dogs in kennels is preferable to them being in a family home....i also have watched cm and dont feel he is cruel, the dogs that are shown are usually with him as a last resort and not the normal average family pet. i tried to rehome a lurcher many years ago and the rescue centre wouldnt let me have him as i had guinea pigs indoors(in cages not loose). they would however consider me for one of the terriers or collie crosses...as far as i am concerned if they felt i was that much of an idiot to allow the lurcher to eat my pigs, why wouldnt i let the other breeds...i ended up buying a lurcher puppy and i managed to keep my piggies safe till they died of old age....why not try a different rescue centre, im sure they cant all be as bad..
Click to expand...

Yeah- its not as if we were even out of our depth with the dog we wanted. We have 4 animals in the house already so of course the dog would have to fit in and on the dogs description it said she was good with children, cats and dogs, which was great as we have 2 dogs and 2 cats and also she was a small dog which we were after.

Apparently pushing our dogs bum down to sit was wrong and she should have held a treat up to push her back (which I know I have taught her many tricks) but again what does teaching your dog to sit, paw, lay, roll over 'correctly', have anything to do with your ability to rehome a dog and give it a good life!

Its completely left us bowled over and stunned to be honest!
 
I'd be inclined to reply that clearly the dogs at the rescue centre are all so well provided for that they don't need rehoming, and that I had decided to find one that did instead...
 
These people are nuts .
My SIL an experienced owner with a dog already and a lovely enclosed garden was turned down by some nutter because she helped at the primary school at the top of the street one hour a day during term time .
I mean how to they think dog owners go shopping.
Because of this they stopped an unwanted dog getting a great home and SIL bought a puppy .
When I got interviewed for a cat I was tempted to ask if they thought I was going to make him into gloves the experience was bizarre , I mean over twenty acres of garden fields and woods stables and a house to live in what more did they think a cat needed .
If it had not been for his little face I would told them to take a hike .
 
I can only say..not all rescues are as ridiculous quite frankly. Dont let it put you off. As someonecsuggested maybe they do such a fantastic job they should just keep the dogs. I wonder wherevthey one of these exceptionally "well funded rescues".
 
I was told by the RSPCA I couldn't re home one of their dogs because I was outside all day and that wouldn't be fair on a dog. I was after the biggest bounciest dog they had, not a chihuahua!
As my secure yard and 10 acres was not suitable I took on a friends Dane she couldn't cope with who lived very happily in the fresh air all day, and passed away age 11, so I'm fairly sure it didn't do him any harm.
Sadly after the rude treatment I got from them I've either bought dogs or re homed through word of mouth instead.Too many rescues seem to think the animals are better off in kennels than homes!
 
I had this issue so just went to another rescue (blue cross) who were understanding about my work situation, as in I have a job and will leave the house and dog can have a dog walker.

Another tip, in my book, be honest to the rescue, but with a filter they don't need to know every aspect of your life :)
 
The more I think about it the more I'm like that's unbelievable. Just because we don't train they say they do! Makes us sound abusive. My poor mum she does even train them and if she asks our dogs to do things like sit etc she just has to tell them verbally. What a joke!!
 
Some of the newer trainers give up if their method doesn't work rather than working out what suits the dog.
There is nothing abusive about positioning a dog by hand and I've had dogs in "trained" using treats that were unreliable at best and needed starting again using a different command set to get consistent behaviour for rehoming.

As an example - one that had been trained to sit by the treat in the hand method would only sit for a treat. He would walk backwards if you put a hand out, look for the treat & then just ignore you.
I see a lot of "rescues" that have silly rules - some of which put the dogs in danger but they are being so nice & the dogs will be so grateful & so rewarding. There is a whole industry setting up on the back of poor training & incompetant rehoming.
 
We didn't even get to the home visit!

We saw a dog like you and your mum, and off my parents went to look at the doggie in question (a french mastiff) but on the website stated that he was used/good with young families blah blah.. the usual.

Anyway i was at the stables i get a call and i was sooo excited that it might have been parents saying we were in the next stage, but no apparently my parents haven't got the experience (both had dogs through out their childhoods, Airedales, Collies were the main breeds) and he wasn't suitable for a family with kids... So why say it on the website?!?!?!

Anyway we left it but i always felt bad for the dog in the kennel as he would have had a great time with us.. but we found a rescue only for DDB (French mastiffs (Dad really wanted a DDB)) spoke on the phone for weeks about a dog called ''Belle'', a 6 month bitch, and our arrangements ect, planned to meet her!
Had a big discussion on what we should name her! (she didn't know the name Belle and was pretty much a blank canvas) and then we went to meet her a few weeks later, next thing we signed the paper work, and she was in the car on her way home! :)

But the first rescue we went to was a commercial one and i don't think they actually wanted to let the dogs go as i know a few people who had problems with them!
 
OP I sympathise completely. I saw a lovely dog in a rescue near to us, filled out all the forms etc, went to visit her on a walk and brought my dog. My dog snapped at her, didn't attack her just snapped but we agreed with her fosterer that maybe they wouldn't get on if they lived together. Went home and was going to contact the rescue to see if they had anything else suitable. Anyway that evening I got a phonecall off one of the nazis from the rescue, absolutely spitting chips at me, swearing loads and basically said that we could NEVER have one of their dogs due to my 'aggressive' dog and we'd never be able to get another dog in our house until she was dead. This woman wasn't even present at the meeting, she'd made out like Ruby had killed this poor rescue dog. :rolleyes3:

I honestly don't know where they find the people to work in these rescues, you'd think with the amount of desperate doggies looking for a home they wouldn't be so rude.
 
It really is unbelieveable. I am glad that I am not the only one that this has happened to. So much for the 'Don't buy a puppy, rehome a dog instead' mantra!
 
As in all walks of life their are good and bad rehoming centres.
I'm a home checker for Scrupples Whippet Rescue and they certainly dont behave as described above.
Love it when asked to do a home check for someone who already has a dog. All I really need to do is look at the dog and make sure its healthy and happy. Much more difficult when people dont currenly own a dog.
On the other hand wife, myself and kids went to large rehomeing centre to get a greyhound. We were refused on the basis that greyhound can jump up and might injure the kids (10 & 12 at the time). Sounds reasonable except that we had brought along our own two greyhounds to make sure they go on with any potential new dog. Still couldn't change the rehomers opinion.
 
As others have said try another rescue, some homecheckers are just unbelievable and expect perfection and take their responsibilities to a different level. Some smaller rescues use outside people not connected to the rescue to do their home-check so this is worth checking as well.

But the sad fact of the matter is people lie,( Im not saying you op) Ive done homechecks and have found a different set-up to the one described in the pre adoption form, when these people are turned down they bad mouth and lie about the rescue to justify this.

Most good rescue just want the best for the dog, the right home not just any home, they have to be really careful, the dog may be great in a foster home but in a new home with less experienced owners might exhibit behaviours never seen before. It is a huge responsibility but unless anyone was training with really cruel methods I would not be put off from anyone using different training methods to myself if they have good results.
 
I sympathise with you. I recently tried to rescue and had such a negative experience from a couple of places that it put me off completely. One of them was a specialist terrier type rescue and they were so unpleasant, it was upsetting. I was grilled for 50 minutes over the phone and despite had dogs all my life and experience with terriers, they kept trying to put me off. It seemed that they were actively looking for ways to refuse me. I wanted an older rescue, not a cuddly puppy!

In the end I found a dog by chance. However, there was one rescue who were brilliant - border collie trust in Stafford. Really refreshing to speak to, I would highly recommend them. Really helpful.

Good luck with your search.
 
s4sugar said:
Some of the newer trainers give up if their method doesn't work rather than working out what suits the dog.
There is nothing abusive about positioning a dog by hand and I've had dogs in "trained" using treats that were unreliable at best and needed starting again using a different command set to get consistent behaviour for rehoming.

As an example - one that had been trained to sit by the treat in the hand method would only sit for a treat. He would walk backwards if you put a hand out, look for the treat & then just ignore you.
I see a lot of "rescues" that have silly rules - some of which put the dogs in danger but they are being so nice & the dogs will be so grateful & so rewarding. There is a whole industry setting up on the back of poor training & incompetant rehoming.
Click to expand...


^^^What s4s said and how ridiculous of them to tell you which trainer they prefer and enforce that upon you, after all if you do use the VS method that's all good but once you have taught sit/down and take a sausage where do you go from there? as thats all I have seen from this trainer is the basics covered and nothing overly taxing, but then if the rescue have worked so well and followed their style of trainer you are going to get a dog trained to with an inch of its life... clearly eh!!:p I can only imagine the rescue are very well funded to be so picky and demanding. Don't get me wrong sometimes I do look at the posts where rescues have turned down and understand why they have but in this scenario it's absurd.
 
I haven't read the whole thread, sorry, but I did read the first few . . . I've had mixed experiences with rescue centres . . . we have adopted three dogs from one lovely rescue centre who have become part of our lives . . . and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to both potential adopters and people needing to rehome their pets. This rescue is realistic, fair but also very picky about who they home their animals with . . . but it isn't cheap to adopt a dog from them.

On the other hand, we have had less than stellar experiences with other (i.e., bigger) rescue centres who have rejected us out of hand, despite our track record of adopting and caring for three lovely dogs. The two we currently have aren't necessarily easy (well, one is - one isn't) . . . both collie crosses, one laid back and easy-going, the other quite neurotic . . . we manage and care for them both very well and they are both beautifully behaved/obedient . . . but some of the larger rescue/rehoming centres turned us down for adoption.

I would still much prefer to adopt a dog rather than buy, but I understand that some rescues/shelters make it hard work. I get that they want to ensure the very best home for the animals in their care, but I do think they could take a slightly less cookie-cutter, box-ticking approach.

P
 
We were turned down twice. Once about 25 years ago but mum and I actually found a dog that had been dumped. 17 years we had her. So when she died went for another rescue and got turned down. So unsuitable dog owners with a 17 year old dog because we worked, could afford vets bills but the woman on benefits she got a dog can't afford the vets bills would have to go to the charity for those. Dogs adapt to your lifestyle and why on earth you wouldn't give a dog a chance with an owner that has owned a dog for 17 years and clearly knows how to look after one?
 
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