Rescue Centres …….. discuss.

That's the thing, some places are advertising completely inappropriate types for first time dog owners. These dogs can have issues which even the most experienced owners would have difficulty with. Some of these dogs have never been in a house or a car and or on a lead and have just been through a gruelling car and ferry journey or a flight, which can be stressful even for well-adjusted pet animals.
Look at the imported rescue dogs go missing. They are terrified. They are not interested in how much 'love' someone wants to give them. They just want to run/escape from all the stress.

There is a lot of confusion about what is and isn't a rescue also. A pound is a pound. Stray or unwanted dogs are picked up by the council/dog warden and kept in their own facilities or they are contracted out to boarding kennels or actual rescues. When their time is up they are rehomed, sold, returned to owners, relinquished to the rescue or PTS.
No council employee or subcontractor has the time to individually assess or rehabilitate every dog that comes in. You pay your money and you take your choice.

A few years back it was very trendy to guilt-trip people into rescuing from Ireland because the dogs were being terribly badly treated and abused. Now Spain, gosh, they are horrible to their dogs there too. If anyone has been in either of those countries, they will know like in every other developed country, there are people who really look after their dogs and a small minority of scumbags who don't.
The UK has it's fair share of puppy farms and dog abusers and people who think it is fine to shoot their dogs and throw them in the river once they are no longer of any use.
I can't speak for Romania as I have never been there but surely it is better to spay and neuter or humanely PTS than drag them across Europe and expect them to fit seamlessly into a pet home?

Some rescues do an absolutely great job and the greyhound and lurcher places in particular really seem to have their heads screwed on.
 
Dogs Trust Worldwide, The Mayhew and other UK-based charities with international arms are doing catch-neuter-release projects in various countries in Europe and beyond. That brings the population down naturally without the "shoot to kill" methods some countries have adopted instead.

I've not been to Romania but my dad worked there a few times, said dogs were everywhere and very savvy around cars too, would wait to cross busy roads. The site he was working on had a resident cat and dog that lived in the shrubs outside. The guards on the site fed them.

I did hear a story about a dog, I think it was in Thailand, that had lived on a beach resort scrounging around the beach restaurants his whole life. A well-meaning family decided to take the dog into their family and moved the dog to their home several hours drive away. The dog didn't settle and escaped and ran, was found back on "his" beach several days later, happy as larry!
 
Many charities not just animal charities are big businesses and everyone knows that, but not all animal charities are the same.

I volunteer for a horse charity who are very small and for every pound donated 95p goes directly to the animals. This is achieved by keeping overheads down by running corporate days, having the help of a big team of volunteers who do the marketing, fundraising, run the visitors centre, tack sales, looking after the animals the list goes on. They keep wage bills down to a minimum and don't have massive management wages to pay. This place is also a vital community resource educating people on how to look after animals, as well as rescuing them. It also takes their animals to visit care homes, schools, libraries and community groups.
 
But without the big charities, like Dogs Trust, Battersea, World Horse Welfare etc etc. The ones who have staff and admin fees as well as glossy set ups, those smaller volunteer-only or low-staff charities would be thoroughly overwhelmed and completely fail. There would be stray horses, dogs, cats etc everywhere and nothing in the press other than a few regional things to help educate buyers. Small charities and volunteer-led charities often don't have the PR expertise to do that. The big charities can afford to employ big brains and get the most out of them. An experienced PR person, or an experienced Director, or an experienced dog handler, or indeed an experienced groom, can't work for free or just minimum wage.

The bigger the charity, the more their finances are under constant scrutiny too. Mismanagement of funds is more likely to happen in smaller charities, especially if they're not reporting to the Charity Commission as a registered charity.

I have volunteered for small charities, and worked for big charities. Without the big taking up the slack, the small can't function. I've seen so many volunteer-led tiny animal charities have to shut up shop entirely due to mental health strains and, as it turns out, relying on just volunteers isn't that reliable - especially in the winter, during the holidays or when it raining.
 
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catxx said:
But without the big charities, like Dogs Trust, Battersea, World Horse Welfare etc etc. The ones who have staff and admin fees as well as glossy set ups, those smaller volunteer-only or low-staff charities would be thoroughly overwhelmed and completely fail. …….. .
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That state has already been reached with the larger recycling centres turning animals away.

If we had no safety net, no charitable bodies, then owners would be forced to approach a vet and request humane destruction. The animal is the responsibility of it's owner and perhaps when the costs of destruction and disposal are considered further, perhaps fewer will take on animals, on a whim and as with the drying up of any market, so the breeders will do what we have done, and retire their broodmares and brood-bitches.

The last 3 litters of Working Cockers which I bred proved difficult to sell, despite the fact that they had serious Trialling breeding from their immediate parents. I would only sell them to working, or at least, active homes but the market simply wasn't there. With no 'rescue' centres, so owners will be deprived of their free disposal service, they'll perhaps think first before buying and then may be the breeders will learn, as I have, that they are en-route to losing money.

When all the rescue centres are full, the answer is NOT to open up a raft more, the answer is to deal with the problem at source.

Alec.
 
There will always be a need for rescue centres, there are genuine reasons people can no longer keep dogs. Such as serious health issues, death, being made homeless (and that last one is even more common in the current economic climate, we're all only 2-3 pay slips away from it). There will always be a need for rescue. The bigger charities though are using their influence to try and educate buyers, it's not an easy job. And bigger centres also offer other facilities such as training, outreach such as school education, there's the project that was on the news for Dogs Trust a few months ago which offers dog fostering for victims of domestic violence. It's fab that smaller charities can also offer outreach and support for their communities too. It's not just take in a dog, rehome a dog any more.

The good breeders already know. It's the bad breeders that are the problem. The ones doing it for a quick buck, I read somewhere of someone who had heard on the school parent grapevine of another mother getting two French Bulldogs with the sole intention to breed them for cash. When you get upwards of £10k for a litter of Frenchies, regardless of KC registration, you see what they were thinking.

It's a multi-pronged attack needed to sort out the dog ownership and doggy buying issues in this country.
 
catxx said:
…….. . The bigger charities though are using their influence to try and educate buyers, it's not an easy job. And bigger centres also offer other facilities such as training, outreach such as school education, there's the project that was on the news for Dogs Trust a few months ago which offers dog fostering for victims of domestic violence. It's fab that smaller charities can also offer outreach and support for their communities too. It's not just take in a dog, rehome a dog any more.

…….. .
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Would anyone claim that it's working, considering that we have a worsening situation? It's the very presence of the Rescue Centres which are propping up and supporting those who start the ball rolling by producing the pups — do you not see that?

Alec.
 
Alec Swan said:
Would anyone claim that it's working, considering that we have a worsening situation? It's the very presence of the Rescue Centres which are propping up and supporting those who start the ball rolling by producing the pups — do you not see that?

Alec.
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I don't think it is worsening, it's changing definitely thanks to the internet, but compare it to other countries with serious stray dog problems, you would rarely see loose dogs here now.

Unless everyone wakes up tomorrow and decides they don't want or like dogs anymore, there's always going to be a demand for dogs. People want puppies. People want dogs. The big rescues are all successfully rehoming around 100 dogs a month. The demand for dogs is there. To argue that their existence fuels the demand is false, the demand exists whether rescues are there or not.

If someone can't get them from rescues, they'll go somewhere else, whether that be Gumtree or otherwise. There are over 1,400 "wanted" dog adverts on Preloved right now. All those people could go to rescues, but they're not, they're fishing online for dogs.
 
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