Rescue Roulette: Dogs from Abroad

Clodagh said:
Last night at 9.26 you had been considering a UK rescue I presume?

2.14 today… ‘If I hadn't seen him I wouldn't have got anything either UK or breeder’

Sorry I should have multi quoted but these comments are contradictory?
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nit picking somewhat. CBA to go back and read them again. However to clarify for you (as it seems so important but I'm really not sure why) I was home checked having told the rescue which dog I wanted. The home checker asked if I would have a GSD which they very much wanted me to have (this was one particular dog). I said no, my chosen Rommie or nothing. If that had failed and he had failed APHA I wouldn't be having any dog, UK, Romanian, rescue or breeder. None.

I was not taking a Romanian rescue when I could have taken a UK one and reduced their numbers. It was one particular dog full stop. Didn't care where he came from, just him.
Hopefully that is clear? if not I will attempt to clarify further. :D
 
I'm Dun said:
Then redo your research because there is a "bias" for a damn good reason.
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:D:D


just to cheer you up my dogs arrived in England this afternoon. Cleared customs/border control along with 60 of their mates. All APHA negative. many negative. for the 2nd time in a month. These were the "guinea pigs" for the new Romanian testing, the first lots of dogs in since the ruling. Worked perfectly.
 
I got my Ginger Dog from "Saving Souls" (used to be another name) who take dogs from Cyprus.

They foster dogs over her to UK fosterers and then potential re-homers can get to know the dog having seen them in a "home" situation.

I had tried to adopt a dog when we lost our old gal from a UK charity. Blue Cross said oh yes you'd be a nice country home, we'll be in touch. Never heard from them again. Dogs Trust expected me to travel nearly 2hrs to their nearest rehoming centre just to fill in a rehoming form - and then drive all the way back again. This was without being able to actually meet-and-greet any of the dogs. And ohh noohh it couldn't possibly be done on-line, I had to go there in-person.

The Cyprus charity gave me every help and support in rehoming Ginge; they were supportive, and I was allowed a "trial day" with her in my home with the other dog and the cats (which bless her she passed with flying colours).
 
My mum had a Romanian dog.

Died a year or so ago from osteosarcoma.

Was handed to her in a service station car park, from a van filled with equally terrified dogs.

The dog was completely overwhelmed and shut down.

Got him in the house and he didnt move from the spot on the sofa that he was placed on. Had to be physically dragged outside to go to the toilet, otherwise he did not move from the spot on the sofa. It was a number of days before he braved moving.

He adapted to his family eventually and was a happy house pet, but not without considerable hang ups.

No home check. No consideration given to if the new home was suitable for such a shut down animal with no prior experience of having lived in a home.

It's baffling.
 
paddy555 said:
very simply because I wasn't intending to rehome anything at all. Then, purely by chance I saw a dog that I fell in love with. (video of him) I had no idea he came from Romania. I knew he wasn't pedigree on a breed site but thought he was merely a cross breed. Advised them I would like him and then it dawned on me he came from Romania (they didn't hide the fact) Went ahead with it, passed the home check etc etc (it was done in person and around our property)
I also checked out the rescue, got good responses about everything eg BC etc.
Then as I was going to get a Rommie (this was the beg. of Sept) decided I had better learn a bit about them so have spent the last 2 months getting educated. Then I read some of the stuff on here and realised the bias against Rommie rescues which is unfounded IMO. (and other foreign rescues)

If I hadn't seen him I wouldn't have got anything either UK or breeder. If I hadn't chosen him then there would have been any number of people who would have.. That UK based rescue has no problems in rehoming Rommies as well as UK dogs.

For the 2nd dog (which was never even under consideration) the rescue thanks to the defra fiasco ended up with a lot of incoming dogs all at once and needed fosters. I offered to take some for a few days (they have to stay where they arrive at for 48 hours for Defra to check) and they sent me a pic of a dog and asked if I would foster and assess her. OH and I took one look at her pic and she was going nowhere. We were supplied info about her, pics in her harness (she is lead trained) her temperament was known.
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Appreciate your response. I think most of us can appreciate the just fell in love thing.
I asked in part because there were a couple of passing comments in your previous post that give the impression of exactly the things that worry people/me. The fun little "Rommie" club vibe I do find concerning.
Anyway, hope your new dogs bring you and OH lots of joy.
 
paddy555 said:
:D:D


just to cheer you up my dogs arrived in England this afternoon. Cleared customs/border control along with 60 of their mates. All APHA negative. many negative. for the 2nd time in a month. These were the "guinea pigs" for the new Romanian testing, the first lots of dogs in since the ruling. Worked perfectly.
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62 in one van load. I’m sorry but that’s just appalling. I hope it works well for you but can you imagine the conditions in the van? 🤢
 
Clodagh said:
62 in one van load. I’m sorry but that’s just appalling. I hope it works well for you but can you imagine the conditions in the van? 🤢
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I'm sure @paddy555 will correct me if I'm wrong, but the van conditions are strictly regulated as are the rules for stops etc. The only difference I can see is that they will have had a longer journey once they reached the UK as there would be more drop offs
 
Lady Jane said:
I'm sure @paddy555 will correct me if I'm wrong, but the van conditions are strictly regulated as are the rules for stops etc. The only difference I can see is that they will have had a longer journey once they reached the UK as there would be more drop offs
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How would you water and pee 62 dogs (presumably many of which are feral and most are terrified)?
 
Sounds a bit industrial. As I've said many times before, I've shared a ferry with a van full of dogs which did not get out for 15 hours (the toilet breaks were on a strict schedule and we all had to come down at the same time to that deck).
 
I live relatively close to Paddy and Google maps tells me it’s a 28 hour drive to Romania. Those dogs will have been travelling for a couple of days I imagine, factoring in ferries and drop offs.
 
There are a frightening amount of overseas rescues lost round here , nearly all of which are described as very nervous . The most recent was caught just yesterday after several days running loose .
 
Tiddlypom said:
These dogs are being imported just as it comes up to Bonfire Night?

Whizz bangs and fireworks are not going to help new imports settle in, are they. Someone (lots of someones) have not thought this through. At all.
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not sure whether to laugh or cry at your comment. People have thought this through in greater detail than you can ever imagine. Those people (and I can only speak for Romanian dogs) are DEFRA. You cannot just bring a dog in from Romania now whenever you wish. You have to bring it in within a strict time limit. That time limit is that it has to be in the UK within 30 days of drawing blood which is done in Romania. After that it has to be sent to APHA, tested, the results sent back, transport sorted, all the various checks and everything else that needs to be done to get the paperwork in order. That is a very short time frame. It is very dependent upon the speed that APHA deal with the blood analysis. it is not like in the UK where you pop along to the vet, blood goes to the lab that day, results in the next etc. Transport is not a case that you get the car out and drive down the road. Transport takes time to arrange. It is not just 2 or 3 dogs,

many of the dogs that came in today had already been AHPA tested on a voluntary basis by the rescues. Mine had already been tested and were negative for BC. This is both on SAT and iELISA. However with the new Defra ruling they could not come in as they would have missed out on the 30 day rule (due to how the rule was introduced on 7/10) they only missed out by a few days but rules are rules and when they were first tested the rules were not in place so there was no rush to get them in within the 30 days. So they had to be retested to comply with the rules. So they were sat in Romania through no fault of their own waiting.

That is the reason why they came in today. Bonfire night is way down the list when you are trying to comply with Defra rules.

I am surprised that you didn't take all of these time limits into account before commenting.
 
Clodagh said:
62 in one van load. I’m sorry but that’s just appalling. I hope it works well for you but can you imagine the conditions in the van? 🤢
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They came in 3 buses. I can totally imagine the conditions in the buses the reason being that we had regular updates by either photos or videos of all the dogs. The videos showed all the dogs not just ours. So we had a good view of every one over the 3 vehicles. We were all on a talk group with the organisers so we were continually asking questions, being given info and peering at GPS.
I remember commenting (after they had been travelling 24 hours) as to how clean the beds were. There were immaculate so they were regularly cleaned. I would have put any animal in one of those cages it was so clean. The dogs had water in containers attached to the cages and we watched them being fed this morning. Tray food similar to forthglade and some dried food.
The dogs didnt look dirty. I am currently watching clips of dogs being delivered and being held by their new owners. I cannot imagine that they are covered in shit and soaking. They certainly don't look it and there is no indication from their new owners that this is the case.

The transport I have to say amazed me. Of course it took time and that cannot be avoided. However to exchange life there for life here then it is nothing. These dogs are rescues, in the same way as UK rescues. They are just dogs needing a home not the monsters most of you are making them out to be.
If you consider transporting animals can we justify putting a horse on a plane and transporting it to the other side of the world so it can jump a few fences, win some medals and then have to repeat the journey. All of which is for our amusement and pleasure. The horse gets no benefit yet most people see happy to justify it. We transport breeding stock in from the likes of Aus etc. Why? surely we have enough horses in this country. 3 days from Romania for what for some is life or death is really not that awful.

As for stress in the dogs travelling then they were fine. We could study them in the cages. We saw them about a couple of hours after they started travelling, all calm, probably a bit shaken but they have been around a lot more and have had to put up with a lot more than our own UK pet pooches. Later on that night we saw them again and fine. After 24 hourss they overnighted at Calais so everyone could sleep. We saw them then, some were just lying down but some had adapted and were starting to get friendly with the organisers. One dog was seriously wanting to play with the staff, a GSD was sitting up quite happily and put out it's paw to the staff in a friendly manner.
This morning was different again. You could see they were adapting to their new lifestyle (albeit only a short one in vanlife) A large number were relaxed, related to the person videoing, eating their food.

as for terrified nervous dogs then I would imagine that even after 1.5 days this morning that the transport staff could have taken 50% of the dogs out of the cages and have sat cuddling them. Plenty of squirming dogs and waggy tails.

I would point out that your comment just jumps to conclusions about the conditions without actually finding out. Many of the adverse comments seem to.
 
rara007 said:
Defra rules are to keep UK animals safe. They’re not there to make sensible choices about timings and arriving into a new home on bonfire night weekend.
I hope you’re just as happy 6 weeks, 6 months and 6 years down the line.
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exactly and I, nor anyone else I don't think, have any problems with the new rules. My comments to SD were in relation as to why they had to be brought in now ie the exact timing and why the consideration of bonfire night was irrelevant.

I have no reason to think I shall be unhappy. I have thoroughly researched what I have done.
 
MurphysMinder said:
There are a frightening amount of overseas rescues lost round here , nearly all of which are described as very nervous . The most recent was caught just yesterday after several days running loose .
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I seem to get endless dogslost and drones stuff come up on FB and there seem to be endless UK dogs lost everywhere. Dogs can only be unloaded with a slip lead and on Monday I shall be measuring up for harnesses for mine, they will be double leaded to keep them safe. Actually they won't be going out of the garden for a long while and even then they will be on long leads in the garden. Most of the rescues have endless lists of instructions about their care, restraining and not losing them etc etc being one aspect.

Jenko109 said:
Was handed to her in a service station car park, from a van filled with equally terrified dogs.

The dog was completely overwhelmed and shut down.

Got him in the house and he didnt move from the spot on the sofa that he was placed on. Had to be physically dragged outside to go to the toilet, otherwise he did not move from the spot on the sofa. It was a number of days before he braved moving.

He adapted to his family eventually and was a happy house pet, but not without considerable hang ups.

No home check. No consideration given to if the new home was suitable for such a shut down animal with no prior experience of having lived in a home.

It's baffling.
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I can't comment on the car park thing and I'm sure some may be. All of these either went to your home or to the rescue groups "home" . I could have insisted mine went to the rescue first and they normally do that and invite you to meet the dog. I simply took mine as the rescue had too many all at once due to the defra time limits. Now that backlog has been sorted I'm sure future dogs will go directly to them. The dogs have to be checked when they are delivered and I (or the rescue) am responsible for checking the chip, passport, health doc and APHA cert. I have no idea if this happened in your car park. I now have to keep my dogs for 48 hours for DEFRA to inspect if they wish then I can move them if I wanted to.

it is very easy to see from the vast amount of info available that some will come in very lost as you describe. I think the general advice I read was 3 days to decompress and to simply sleep. I'm not sure some of the dogs today will have read that instruction, I imagine they will be cuddle dogs wanting to play by tomorrow.


You cannot save people from themselves with horses they cannot cope with, dogs or any other animal but for Rommie rescues there is a whole heap of info available so you know exactly what you are doing if you take the time to study it.
 
Oh! I have another one.

Also my mother :rolleyes:

After that last one died, she imported a pair. I can't recall what country, but these two were supposedly well handled, stable and a pair to be suitable to rehome together.

A few walks in, for which they are seemingly content and walk sweet on a lead etc, they come across another dog walker. They are both on lead.

The smaller of the two starts barking and lunging at this other dog that's across the road. Note, there had been no mention of reactivity.

The larger of the two, then gets frustrated and redirects onto the smaller one! Attacked it bad enough to warrant a vet visit and stitches.

I dispair.
 
I won't try to reply, @paddy has explained very clearly how things work. I'm not sure how rescues can make people do more research which clearly in many cases they is what they should have done. I see cases where people lied on their application and then couldn't cope and returned dogs to the rescue after only a few days.

I adopted a rescue from Greece in August for reasons I have explained much earlier in this thread. I do not have the experience to adopt 'unseen' (I wouldn't buy a horse unseen either), but was fortunate to be able to meet my dog in Greece (this was planned, not spur of the moment). I knew she was a nervous dog and expected this when she arrived. I was concerned she would arrived filthy, she wasn't, but the first thing we did was take her in the garden (on the lead) and there was lots of toiletting. Yes she would have sat curled up and not gone out to start with, but we put her lead on, toilet in garden back in to her safe place. She had read the book on 3/3/3 guidance! By day 4 we took her for a short walk round the next door field and she has gradually improved day on day. We are not at 3 months yet but she is very confident in the house and on walks, she has sat in the pub when it was quiet while we had a drink and is super intelligent, learning fast, keen to please and is a pleasure to have around.

What we haven't totally overcome - fear of strangers particularly men - but if everyone would follow the no touch/look/speak guidance she would be fine with most people once she has had a good sniff.
We haven't let her off the lead yet in public, she is a hound through and through and gets her nose down on goes deaf. If you can get her attention, her recall is great. So we will work on this until its safe to let her loose in public. We have a 30m long line and she can really let off steam in our field.

Would I adopt from abroad again, absolutely if I couldn't find a suitable dog in the UK.
With my new found knowledge what would I do differently:
1. Check the rescue tests for BC through the APHA prior to travel
2. Ensure the dog was delivered to my door and not a meet / collect in a car park
3. Ensure I had UK rescue backup from someone in the UK
4. Be able to ask endless questions about the dog from people who actually know her (not the UK contact who may only have the information they have been given)

I was lucky, the rescue I used did all these things but I now understand more about what can go wrong. The one thing I'm not certain of was they tested via the APHA but she had had 2 tests in Greece due to the length of time she was in rescue

Sorry, I didn't mean to write an essay but I will conclude:
If you are able to find a dog in a UK rescue who will suit you, fantastic.
If you can't (I couldn't) consider rescuing from abroad
 
Amymay Again said:
I think that's pretty obvious.
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Why? I can't imagine a circumstance where the only thing likely to save a dog is transportation to the UK. It might be life or death if the dog doesn't receive vet treatment, or life or death if it doesn't find a home (because otherwise someone will make the decision to PTS), but life or death specifically because it doesn't come to the UK??

Tbh, with every post Paddy writes I am more convinced of the saviour complex knocking around in this "Rommie" community
 
DabDab said:
Why? I can't imagine a circumstance where the only thing likely to save a dog is transportation to the UK. It might be life or death if the dog doesn't receive vet treatment, or life or death if it doesn't find a home (because otherwise someone will make the decision to PTS), but life or death specifically because it doesn't come to the UK??

Tbh, with every post Paddy writes I am more convinced of the saviour complex knocking around in this "Rommie" community
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Yes - they have kill shelters if dogs are not adopted after a period of time.

And I'n not actually sure what you mean by your last sentence?
 
Jenko109 said:
My mum had a Romanian dog.

Died a year or so ago from osteosarcoma.

Was handed to her in a service station car park, from a van filled with equally terrified dogs.

The dog was completely overwhelmed and shut down.

Got him in the house and he didnt move from the spot on the sofa that he was placed on. Had to be physically dragged outside to go to the toilet, otherwise he did not move from the spot on the sofa. It was a number of days before he braved moving.

He adapted to his family eventually and was a happy house pet, but not without considerable hang ups.

No home check. No consideration given to if the new home was suitable for such a shut down animal with no prior experience of having lived in a home.

It's baffling.
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That rescue is not doing a good job, plenty are. Do the research
 
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