New year, New start, same old same old

Earlier this week the Daily Mail published an article regarding the number of stray dogs and one person's opinions regarding how difficult it was to adopt one. It made me realise that after 10 years my mindset is in "rescue" mode and that no doubt there were many many people out there sharing her opinion so I thought I'd go through some of her gripes and explain them:

First mistake. I called the dogs home to register our interest and was told their policy was never to re-home puppies into families with children younger than eight years old because — and I quote: ‘We can’t guarantee the puppy won’t, at some point in the future, bite one of your children

This is a policy we try very hard not to adopt, but I know that many many rescue centres do. We cannot guarantee that any dog won't bite you or your children in the future but there are many many dogs that need children, especially if they have come out of families with children. It's true that in cases where the history is unknown or we know the dog simply isn't used to small children we won't take the risk either, but there's certainly no blanket ban here. The way I see it is that we won't take any necessary risks but won't rule you out completely if you have kids. Having said that if you talk me into to letting you take a dog listed that can only be placed with kids over 10 and you have a 3 year old that gets bitten you'd soon be on to me screaming and wanting to know why I let that happen!

Hurdle number two was that every member of the family had to visit Albus at the centre 70 miles away. Not just once. Or twice. But several times for ‘bonding’ purposes before they would release the puppy to us.

I'd be interested to hear what they would have done if they hadn't insisted the dog meets everyone and then after getting the dog home realised the dog didn't like one of them? Better to be safe than sorry in my opinion

Hurdle number three was The Home Visit. By then, I was starting to feel more than a little irritated. We had already expended a huge amount of time, money and energy in meeting their re-homing requirements. Sending a warden to assess our home seemed to be an excessive measure.

Sorry, but any responsible person needs to be sure the new family and their environment is suitable, I must admit being "irritated" by a home check sounds a little bizarre to say the least and is definitely not excessive in my opinion

Let’s not forget we are talking about a dog — not a child. We were clearly a nice, middle-class family trying to do the right thing by giving not one, but two, strays a loving future with our family.

I find this statement infuriating - nice middle class families are just as likely to be unsuitable as a nice working class family. I'm sure there must be a word for people who assume that because they are middle class they are an automatic good home?

But their stance through the entire process was one of distrust and annoying superiority

My guess is that this rescue place, as with almost every other rescue place, have been taken in by people who are not who they say they are enough times to make sure that ALL new potential families are checked out. If the dog went into a family who kept him tied up outside in the rain because the rescue didn't take the time to make sure they weren't so middle class they weren't prepared to let the dog in the house the headlines wouldn't have been far far worse!

The warden arrived for the inspection bringing another dog with her and asked if it could come inside the house. I suspected immediately this was a test of how dog-loving we are.
I made all the appropriate cooing noises despite the fact it was quite a smelly dog who proceeded to relieve itself all over our hallway rug.
By then, I would have done anything

I'm surprised the home checker didn't see through the charade to be honest and it'll be interesting to see how long this placement lasts.

Don’t get me wrong. I am as much of a dog lover as the next person. But there were many times during our re-homing adventure that I couldn’t help feeling the pooch police had lost the plot.

You have clearly never been conned by anyone pretending they want the dog for purposes other than that of a pet

Oh, and of course we still needed to pay £120 per dog for the privilege of this grilling we’d been subjected to.

How else can the rescue centre cover their costs? Have you any idea how much the day to day running costs?

If for any reason we are unable to continue to look after the dogs, we are not allowed to give them away to family or friends — they have to go back to the rescue centre.

Yes and .......? If the original owners had put the same stringent requirements into the sale of the dogs in the first place they would never have been strays. The ability to abandon a dog and have no come back is the exact reason why so many rescues adopt this clause - including us!
Oh, and Juno and Albus are micro-chipped back to the dogs’ home, so if they do ever find a gap in a fence and decide to run off, the dogs’ home will always know.

We also do this and twice now the people we rehomed the dog to have claimed to have found the dogs as strays and handed them in to dog wardens (incidentally both times the dogs had been rehomed to members of the police force but that's a whole new story). When I take responsibility to ensure that every single dog we rehome has a safe future I will do whatever it takes to ensure just that, including keeping the chip numbers registered to us, something that the people we are rehoming for are incredibly grateful for
The article sums up with So there you have it. Barking mad or sensible measures? I’ll let you decide or, perhaps, we should let sleeping dogs lie

From the point of view of someone who has been lied to, had dogs abandoned because they couldn't be bothered to make the same journey to take the dog back and have turned up for a homecheck to find out that the 2 bed house with the nice secure garden was a 5th floor flat with a balcony I would say very sensible measures indeed - but what do you think?

Read article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081502/Stray-dogs-There-345-day-hard-dog-loving-home.html