As many know we lost our Australian Shepherd mix Blue about a month ago at age 15. Like many of our great players and coaches, Blue came from Ohio. We rescued him from a shelter back in 2005.
We feel Blue lived a wonderful life with a family that loved him. Our family and friends would concur. However, I'm finding the process to rescue, not buy from a breeder, to be overly difficult, and frankly intrusive and irrational.
As someone who has had dogs almost my entire life I understand and appreciate the need to vet the people adopting the dogs. Too many people don't understand the commitment and responsibilities and some people have I'll intentions, or would be cruel to the pet.
The first thing that is preventing things from moving forward is not having a fenced in yard. We have a nice big corner lot but live in a sub that doesn't have or allow fences. We like that. It also was never an issue for an extremely active breed in Blue, nor was it an issue for the 90lb Rot Lab mix Blue that lived here for half of his 12 years. We walk and exercise our dogs faithfully, took them to dog parks or the local school after hours when nobody was around to run them around.
We found one dog at a local shelter Furever Home and fell in love with the picture and description. He's an Aussir mix like our Blue and we love the breed. We called on it and I understand they are probably strained because of the virus but the woman was flat out rude. It wasn't the questions about our marital status, age of kids, what vet we use etc. I get that. Whenshe asked if we have a fenced in yard the woman practically yelled at us that it's a requirement and it said so in that he ad. It didnt. When we tried to explain how it wasn't an issue with our previous dogs she literally hung up on us. I thought maybe she's having a bad day and sent an heartfelt email about the wonderful life our Blue had lived, how the fence wasn't an issue and even sent pictures of him. Not only was there no response, she took the dog off her site and the other pet sites.
So, we said oh well and kept looking. Found another dog in Ohio and again inquired about him. We get a generic email back with an apllication again asking a lot of questions I understand but now ramping it up to three non family references, asking for a detailed description of our training "protocol", and methods of training. You also have to agree to someone from the shelter or local animal rescue visiting your home from time to time during its lifetime. They also have the right to take the pet back at any time?!
The last one took the cake, because if affords none of us any guarantees, in the event of an unfortunate event we have to have an agreement with an alternate caregiver and provide that information to them.
This wasn't just one rescue. I've done a lot of research and many/most demand a fenced in yard and/or have a list of what I believe to be ridiculous demands.
Has anyone else gone through this?
Again, I understand a careful vetting process but their first priority needs to be to get these pets with loving families.
We feel Blue lived a wonderful life with a family that loved him. Our family and friends would concur. However, I'm finding the process to rescue, not buy from a breeder, to be overly difficult, and frankly intrusive and irrational.
As someone who has had dogs almost my entire life I understand and appreciate the need to vet the people adopting the dogs. Too many people don't understand the commitment and responsibilities and some people have I'll intentions, or would be cruel to the pet.
The first thing that is preventing things from moving forward is not having a fenced in yard. We have a nice big corner lot but live in a sub that doesn't have or allow fences. We like that. It also was never an issue for an extremely active breed in Blue, nor was it an issue for the 90lb Rot Lab mix Blue that lived here for half of his 12 years. We walk and exercise our dogs faithfully, took them to dog parks or the local school after hours when nobody was around to run them around.
We found one dog at a local shelter Furever Home and fell in love with the picture and description. He's an Aussir mix like our Blue and we love the breed. We called on it and I understand they are probably strained because of the virus but the woman was flat out rude. It wasn't the questions about our marital status, age of kids, what vet we use etc. I get that. Whenshe asked if we have a fenced in yard the woman practically yelled at us that it's a requirement and it said so in that he ad. It didnt. When we tried to explain how it wasn't an issue with our previous dogs she literally hung up on us. I thought maybe she's having a bad day and sent an heartfelt email about the wonderful life our Blue had lived, how the fence wasn't an issue and even sent pictures of him. Not only was there no response, she took the dog off her site and the other pet sites.
So, we said oh well and kept looking. Found another dog in Ohio and again inquired about him. We get a generic email back with an apllication again asking a lot of questions I understand but now ramping it up to three non family references, asking for a detailed description of our training "protocol", and methods of training. You also have to agree to someone from the shelter or local animal rescue visiting your home from time to time during its lifetime. They also have the right to take the pet back at any time?!
The last one took the cake, because if affords none of us any guarantees, in the event of an unfortunate event we have to have an agreement with an alternate caregiver and provide that information to them.
This wasn't just one rescue. I've done a lot of research and many/most demand a fenced in yard and/or have a list of what I believe to be ridiculous demands.
Has anyone else gone through this?
Again, I understand a careful vetting process but their first priority needs to be to get these pets with loving families.
