So often, rescues and rehoming organisations find themselves being accused of ‘being impossible to adopt from’. We would like to explain why and how we select the right home for our dogs and why getting the process right is so important.
Probably the first thing to bear in mind at all times is that to our dogs, we are all they have. We are their safety net. It is our duty to these dogs to endeavour to find the right home for them. In turn, if we get it right for the dog, then it's usually a given that it's right for the home too.
It is also important to recognise that every dog is an individual, and the dog we home may mentally grow and develop with love and security over time, beyond recognition. The dog we are homing may not be the dog you have after 6 months, 12 months, and more. They will be heavily influenced by your decisions in their care once they leave us.
Please also appreciate that we can only ever take a dog so far on its life journey with us – we are not providing you with the ‘finished product’. Your input, support, and security will allow the dog to continue to flourish.
Importantly, please always contact us if you want help understanding your dog and what may be positive courses of action to take as they adjust to their new life after homing or at times when your situation changes and you would like guidance in helping your dog adjust to those changes.
New Dogs Coming to Us and Why We Don’t Home Dogs as They Arrive
Unless the dog is already known to us, the first step with any new dog is to allow it to decompress. Coming into a new situation is never a good time to judge what sort of home is right for the dog. In the spirit of putting the dog first, it is extremely rare that the right move is to immediately place that dog into a home other than an experienced foster home. The dog needs a few days, weeks, or even months on occasion, to unpack and allow us to start to build a relationship with the dog. We need to understand the dog's temperament, triggers, likes, and fears – they can only show that when comfortable in their environment.
Moving an unassessed, unsettled dog into another new environment within days can set it up to fail. The dog goes into that environment loaded with stress, and the next thing it does is defend its space, food, or toys, and then gets labelled. Or worse, a nip or bite to a human occurs – the dog then has a bigger label. We have then failed that dog.
Homing with Children
We are happy to home dogs in homes with children, BUT as you will see as a recurring theme, it has to be the right dog. Not all dogs – regardless of being a rescue or acquired as a pup – will want to live in a home with children, particularly young children. Of course, some dogs would love it! Some would tolerate it, but there are plenty who would actively choose to avoid young children or for whom young children can be overstimulating. In which case, putting that dog into the wrong situation is setting it up to fail and being let down again.
It is important to give us a fair indication on your application form of how busy or active your home is, in fairness to you and the potential dog. It is also very important that the children in the home are taught to respect the dog, its space, its toys, and its food – which should be a life skill applied to ALL dogs the children come across. We are not suppliers of an amusement item for a bored child; the dog is to be part of the family and is being adopted by the adults in the home for the dog's life – not to be packed off outside when a child is bored, loses interest, etc., and no one wants to walk the dog. But the right dog in a busy family is a joy and a great result for us – we love it!
Homing Around Work Commitments
Many in our community will often level accusations at us that we are unreasonable because we won’t home to working homes. This principle, as with all others, comes from the viewpoint of putting the dog first. Dogs are pack animals; it is not a natural environment for them to spend 7, 8, 9, or more hours a day on their own. So if you were in our shoes and the dog in front of you was your priority, would you choose to take it from its kennels with us, surrounded by the rest of their pack, and then put them into an empty house?
Consider how hard it is for a dog to understand how the home can be busy and active for 2 or 3 days a week and then be left isolated for the other days of the week. It is not fair for a dog to be expected to be all things to everyone all the time. Again, it is setting the dog up to fail – the dog will get bored and shred, destruct, or toilet in the house, or it will be super stressed and do the same things. Its adopters coming in from a long day at work and finding ‘mess’ only adds to the dog’s stress load, and the situation perpetuates itself. Is that a dog happy in its home? No, it's a deeply unhappy dog, and we have failed it. So why would we put the dog into that scenario in the first place? Even worse for us would be the thought of the same bored or stressed dog being hoisted into some little pen in the garden to bark or whine itself into oblivion, ending up with the dog living outside 24 hours a day.
As with many situations, there are occasions where a dog can cope and be perfectly happy in this situation with input from the home, i.e. adjusting their work schedules over a period of time to allow a dog to adjust to what is expected of it. But as a general rule, it is a big ask of a dog, and truthfully, we are always going to favour a home that can provide the most fulfilment.
Many will state that they ‘will go and buy a puppy then’ because some homing groups won’t home to them. And sadly, they can. Some will make it work, and fair play to them, but the majority won’t. It makes us sad for the puppy that people only view them as a means to fulfil their entitlement.
Using Doggie Daycare
Again, there is no ‘hard and fast’ rule here – some dogs would greatly enjoy a good, well-run doggie daycare scenario, and some will hate it. Some homes will look towards using doggie daycare even if they are in a ‘work from home’ situation as a means to give the dog additional stimulation, and that can be a really positive thing – IF it's something the dog enjoys! Other dogs would actually prefer to stay at home, even if you can’t give them as much attention as you might like during the day on work from home days.
Secure Fencing
On many occasions, when we post profiles of dogs looking for homes and request secure gardens or fencing, it can usually be relied upon that a few comments will appear stating that it is unreasonable or unachievable, particularly in rural situations.
Here is why we ask for it: In most cases, our dogs come to us with minimal known past history. They all have different stories; however, one thing that is constant is that they now only have us to look out for them. It is our responsibility to place them in an environment with as low a risk as possible of being exposed to injury, straying, theft, and getting into inappropriate behaviour like stock worrying, chasing bikes or cars, or nipping passing dogs or, worse, people. We are not perfect; we do not always get it right – but you can be assured we do everything possible to ensure we get the match of the right home for our dogs right!
So for the cries of our unreasonable expectations – imagine how our kennel team would feel if one of their precious dogs was placed in a home without secure fencing, was let out to toilet, and wandered onto the road and was killed, or trundled into a field of sheep to be shot. With the best will in the world, no one can or will watch a dog outside all the time; that is not a realistic expectation either.
How would we be viewed if we homed a dog knowingly to an insecure garden for that dog to run out and nip someone or something? A dog is then labelled as a biter. We are then responsible for knowingly setting a dog up to fail. Or what if the dog wandered off or got stolen while wandering? Pet lost and found pages are full of these sorts of scenarios.
So What Do We Look For?
The main criteria is an area the dog can be let out into for toilet breaks, etc., that does not require someone to take the dog out on a lead, that is immediately accessible from the home. Not a run at the end of the garden where he or she is going to be left, but generally, it is an area immediately off the back door – so at any time of the day, the house door can be opened or left open in nice weather, and the dog can toilet, sunbathe, play, etc., without fear of it running off. (Unless it's an apartment home, then a very specific dog would be required anyway for an apartment home and assessed accordingly.)
Acceptable Boundaries
We look for ‘hard’ fencing, i.e. posts with wire mesh of an acceptable height, solid walls of an acceptable height (dependent on the dog), and solid or near-solid wooden or composite fence panels. Any gateways in the boundary also need to be secure and of similar or equivalent construction. If your boundary is hedging, it needs to have wire mesh through it or on one side; otherwise, any hedging will have gaps at its base that a dog can push through. We do not condone the use of electric collar fencing systems and will not accept the use of these.
When You Send in an Application Form, Points to Remember:
A) If you are applying for a particularly popular dog, we only have ONE dog! Our Kennel Manager can only pick one application to progress with. It does not mean we have ‘rejected’ you or that you aren’t ‘good enough’ – it simply means we only have one dog.
B) You may be the most wonderful home, but we might have asked for something specific for a particular dog – maybe it needs to be an only dog, for example, and you have “two other lovely souls” and “you are sure they will all be fine.” We will have specified what we need for a reason, not just on a whim. Please do not take the fact this application doesn’t go further on this occasion as a slight. We are working with what we know of our dog at that moment in time – it is not about you; it is about our dog. Yes, a dog where we ask for an only dog situation may, in time, go on to be perfectly happy living with other dogs. But what we know of it at this moment in time is why we put something specific in the requirements list.