Tag Archives: rehoming

04/6/23
help i need to find a new home for my dog

Help! I need to rehome my dog!

help i need to find a new home for my dog

 

With my rescue, I am currently getting a large number of surrender requests with people wanting to rehome their dogs. There seems to be a lack of understanding on what to do if you’re in a situation where you’re contemplating rehoming, so this guide is here to assist.

 

Do you really need to rehome your dog?

Circumstances are tough when you consider having to rehome a dog, but your circumstances are only ever temporary. So the first question I’d ask you is, do you really need to rehome a dog?

If you think you need to rehome your dog for accommodation issues, then boarding kennels are an excellent interim solution until you can find somewhere to live. Many boarding kennels will provide a discount if a dog is boarded for an extended period of time.

Do you need to rehome a dog for behavioural reasons, then have you considered investing in training? Either classes, private one-on-one training, or a board and train. (Even if you are not in a position to keep your dog after training, you have made the dog more desireable to a future home.)

Are finances the reason that you need to rehome your dog? If so, you can consider accessing financial relief services. There are numerous in South Australia in regional and metro areas. Some even are able to provide dog food.

If your situation is quite complex, with perhaps accommodation, safety, financial, mental health, or other situations at play, South Australia has a fantastic organisation called Safe Pets Safe Families. They can assist in select cases.

In 90% of cases, the best home for your dog is the one they already have.

 

I do really need to rehome my dog…

If you have tried all the options above and have decided you do need to rehome your dog, then I recommend…

  1. Contact your breeder or the rescue organisation you acquired your pet home. When you carefully chose the rescue or breeder you purchased your animal before, part of your selection process was an organisation that provides ongoing support. Contact your breeder or rescue first.
     
  2. Is your dog desexed? If so, you can advertise your dog privately. Places like Gumtree, Facebook, and ‘old school’ methods like community noticeboards. How you advertise your dog can make a big difference to the enquiries you get. By rehoming your dog privately, your dog experiences less stress (i.e. they only have to move house once), plus you are able to provide a detailed history and information about the dog to its new home.
     
  3. Breed specific rescues are the best place to start, if you are going to contact rescues. If breed specific rescues cannot assist, then contact local rescues. Work your way up to larger rescues. (Note that you should also ascertain whether the rescue is ethical prior to surrender.)
     
  4. Place your dog in boarding kennels on a temporary basis, if you are not able to secure a place for your dog promptly.
     

With all these options, starting the process as early as possible is your best plan. It may take days or weeks to coordinate the return of your dog to the breeder, or find a suitable home from your ad, or for the breed-specific rescue to have room

It can be difficult.

There’s no doubt that it’s difficult to make the decision to rehome a dog and, then, even harder to actually go through the process. This process is also hard for rescue groups. Keep in mind that most rescue groups in Australia are run by volunteers, with limited capacity. When you are able to find a solution for your dog without contacting a rescue, you are reducing burden on the volunteer system and leaving room for an animal that may be in more dire circumstances than your own.

With that in mind, if you do contact rescue groups: Please be kind. It is not their job to take your animal. It is not your place to make volunteers feel guilty about not taking your animal. Rescue groups are provided by caring individuals who want to help. Their kindness should be returned compassion.

Thank you for caring enough about your dog to try to find the best option for them. Good luck!

01/17/14

Pets as Gifts – Evidence not Anecdotes

ResearchBlogging.orgPets aren’t gifts. We all know that.

If a pet is given as a gift, the recipient might not be prepared for the financial commitment. The pet might be unsuitable to their lifestyle, or the recipieint may be uncommitted. And this means the pet is more likely to be relinquished.

But are you willing to be wrong about that?

This pretty shar pei has found her home through Adelaide All Breed Dog Rescue Inc.

This pretty shar pei has found her home through Adelaide All Breed Dog Rescue Inc.

“Studies of dog and cat relinquishment to shelters, however, show that the relinquishment of dogs and cats received as gifts is lower than from other sources,” says Weiss et al. in their 2013 paper. While this blog post will concentrate on this article, it’s important to note that this study builds on the research of others. For example (as summarised by Weiss et al.),

  • This article looked at 2600 dogs and 2300 cats, and found “Relinquished dogs infrequently came from pet shops, as gifts and from veterinarians. The study found the odds of dog relinquishment were higher when acquiring an animal from a shelter, friend, as a stray, and from a pet shop compared to receiving an animal as a gift”. Cats had similar trends.
  • This article “identified 71 reasons for pet relinquishment” and unwanted gift made up only 0.3% of dog surrenders and 0.4% of cat surrenders.
  • And this one found that being received as a gift was a protective factor, with dogs and cats received as gifts being “at [a] significantly decreased risk of being relinquished”.

Simply, there is no evidence that pets being given as gifts leads to relinquishment. It is an unfounded myth.

This study even says, “the myth that dogs and cats should not be given as gifts still persists“.

 

How was this study conducted?

A large telephone survey of 1006 adults was conducted, with 222 people saying they received a dog or cat as a pet in the last 10 years.

If an individual identified them self as a pet-gift-receipient, they were asked further questions. Were they involved in selecting the pet? How attached are they to their pet? Do they still own the pet?

 

And what did they find?

Some of the gifted-pets were rehomed – 21 out of the 215 pets. That is, 9.7%.

It didn’t seem to matter if the gift was a surprise or not – it wasn’t associated with people rehoming their pet, or being more or less attached to it.

“These results suggest that there is no increased risk of relinquishment for dogs and cats received as a gift.”

On a side note, this study is different, because it looked at owner retention, instead of shelter relinquishment data. This means that the statistic of 9.7% rehomed is probably higher than shelter surrender intake (as many pets would be rehomed privately instead of through shelter facilities).

 

How does this relate to shelters?

Weiss et al. express their concern about shelters who prohibit adoptions when they know that the animal is going to be given as a gift.  Weiss et al. says, not allowing pets to go as gifts may “impede the overarching goal of increasing adoptions of pets from our nations’ shelter system”.

Significantly, they say (emphasis my own):

“These findings may help animal welfare organisations open options for those interested in obtaining dogs and cats for their family and friends. It is important to note that animals obtained from a shelter are more at risk than those obtained as gifts. Allowing adoptions of dogs and cats to those obtaining the pet as a gift may decrease the risk of return or relinquishment for that dog or cat. Furthermore, it would allow for more animals from shelters to find homes.”

 

The next thing

Briefly, the article suggests that the next area for study is research and planning, and how that relates to pet retention. Current evidence suggests that ‘spur of the moment’ type acquisitions made with little or no research or planning are not associated with higher rates of relinquishment.

 

So have you ever received a pet as a gift? And did you keep that pet for its life?

Reference:

Weiss, E, Dolan, ED, Garrison, L, Hong, J & Slater, M (2013). Should dogs and cats be given as gifts? Animals, 3 (4) DOI: 10.3390/ani3040995

01/13/14

Clever Marketing Ideas for Shelters

Often, we hear about ‘the overpopulation problem‘ – the myth that there are too many animals in the shelter system to find homes for.  Of those that argue that an overpopulation problem exists, they often point to shelter-euthanasia rates. The argument goes that if there was no overpopulation problem, then there would be no pets killed in shelters.

I call bullshit.

There are plenty of pounds in Australia that impound animals, hold them for the mandatory holding period, and then kill them with not a scrap of community engagement. They didn’t try to find the owner. They didn’t try to find a new owner. For whatever reason, there are many facilities in Australia that just do what they have to do (legally), and not what they should do (morally).

So what should impounding facilities be doing?

I argue that impounding facilities need to do each of these marketing and promotional steps for every animal in care, in order to get animals out alive.

 

"That's absolutely my dog!" said no one ever. This is a genuine impound photo from an Australian pound - not very useful.

“That’s absolutely my dog!” said no one ever. This is a genuine impound photo from an Australian pound – not very useful.

On Impound

Take a good photo and use it

When an animal comes into the facility, they should take a clear and appealing photo. The animal should not be obstructed by cages, people, or other animals.

Once a good photo is obtained, it needs to be distributed everywhere – Facebook, Gumtree, council offices, the local paper. While we would love for our good photo to find the original owner, it also, potentially, will find the pet a new owner once that holding period is over.

 

Correctly record details on the animal

Make sure that the impounded animal is recorded in a way that can maximise reclaim. In short: Record details correctly!

Try to minimise the emphasis on breed. Breed cannot be identified by looks alone, and owners may believe their pet is a different breed than the pound, making reclaims less likely. Bad!

So instead, details about the pet needs to be accurately recorded: colour and coat type, any obvious medical issues, its sex (please get it right!), and make a note of any tattoos.

 

Minimise disease risk

Administer relevant vaccinations immediately, upon intake, to minimise the chance of disease risk across the shelter. (And, obviously, protect that individual pet from contracting a disease, too.)

 

For more details, read the KC Dog Blog on “The First 60 Minutes“.

 

During Holding Period (i.e. Find the past owner!)

Check for identification

Obviously, facilities need to check the animal for details on the collar (e.g. stitched into the fabric) or the tag.

Animals need to be scanned for a microchip – but this needs to be done thoroughly and properly. This involves:

  • The scanner needs to be fully charged,
  • The scanner needs to be waved, slowly, all over the animal, but remain close to the animal at all times,
  • If no chip is found, a second fully charged scanner should be used, by a second person.

Basically, facilities should assume that every animal is microchipped, and work hard to find that chip.

Some animals have tattoos on their ears or groin, so these can also be used for identification.

 

Use all available information on past owners to full capacity

If you find any skerrick of information regarding the animal and the past owners, find out more!  If the number on the microchip is no longer active, use their names to look them up on Facebook or the electoral roll. If you can find the phone number on their tag, Google it, and see if you can find a name associated. If there’s a number or word in the ear of a dog, find out what it pertains to. Do everything possible to make contact with the owners. Get that pet back home!

 

Know who’s lost

Shelters and pounds should use staff or volunteers to maintain a catalogue of lost pets.  These individuals would check lost pet notices, online and in print, and record the details on a centralised system.  If this resource was to be kept up to date, then it could mean that impounded animals could quickly be reunited with their people.

 

Be accessible for reclaims

Many people work 9am to 5pm, and find it difficult to access the shelter to reclaim their pet.  Having opening times of 8am-8pm would allow working people to access the facility and reclaim their pets, or simply just come to the shelter to make sure their pet has not been impounded over the course of the day.

 

During Adoption Period (i.e. Find new owners!)

So now the animal has been in the shelter for the mandatory holding period – what now?

This is the kind of photo that gets pets adopted. Taken by Kimberley Gifford Photography, this photo of 'Benjamin' led my now-husband and I to adopt.

This is the kind of photo that gets pets adopted. Taken by Kimberley Gifford Photography, this photo of ‘Benjamin’ led my now-husband and I to adopt. (And we didn’t even want a cat at the time.)

 

Photos and advertising

Facilities need to seek the services of a professional photographer to take awesome photos of pets for adoption. The photos should be well lit, with an appealing background, with the pet looking happy. Once you have an awesome photo or two, share the bejesus out of it. Put it on your website, on Facebook, on PetRescue, on Gumtree, share with the press, whatever! Get it out there!

 

Use deals and events to lure in adopters

It’s no secret that people like a bargain, so facilities can offer financial incentives to potential adopters: Your pets are cheap, especially considering all the vet work that has been done. If you buy a cat, you get a bag of cat food free. If you adopt a kitten, get the mother free. Adult cats are free. Whatever needs to be done to get an adopter in, needs to be done!

The other option is to run big events. Invite the media to mega adoption days, where you hope ’100 pets in new homes before the end of the day’, or whatever it may be. Make a spectacle.

Also, make sure at least some of your adoptions can occur off of the shelter. Many people find a shelter environment depressing, and so may not be inclined to visit the shelter to find their new pets. Using pleasant, external environments is likely to encourage adopters to take pets home.

 

Be accessible

This flows from off site adoption days – facilities need to make sure their adoption events are off site and are in different geographic locations, so people from many areas can get their hands on a rescue pet.

Just like I advocate shelters being open 8am-8pm for reclaims, adoptions can also happen in these extended hours too. This means that the average-worker can adopt a pet without having to take the day off work.

Having an online site, listing pets available for adoption, also means that people can access potential-new-pets in the comfort of their home – online shopping, for pets!

 

Make the pets you have better

Clearly, not every pet that enters a pound or shelter is going to be ‘the perfect pet’ on intake. Facilities need to run programs that make them more adoptable. Does that cat have a skin problem? Put her on medication and fix her up. Is that bunny a bit scared of people? Get him onto a regular handling program. Does that dog jump up? Engage in some behavioural modification.

Sometimes, some pets need a lot of work to improve their adoptability, and these pets may be better suited to entering foster care or a different rescue…

 

Use rescue groups

Rescue groups are valuable to shelters and pounds.  They can help relieve the pressure of bigger facilities by taking in pets and rehoming them.  As they are often smaller, they can often more intensely treat medical and behavioural issues.  As they normally hold pets in foster homes, for animals requiring long term treatment (for example, mange), then a foster home may be more humane than a shelter environment.

In short, rescues and pounds need to use rescue groups to their advantage.

 

Use compatible animals to maximise kennel space

Many pounds claim that they need to kill pets for space. An alternative to this is doubling up compatible pets in the same run.

 

But, but, but…

People keep saying to me that pounds can’t afford to do this. I argue that if they stopped killing animals, they probably would gather community support. It’s not a secret that people don’t like volunteering at places that kill pets. If you stop killing pets, you’ll attract volunteers, who will be able to take sexy pictures of animals, will be able to put them online for you, and will be able to staff your front counter during your opening hours. The possibilities are endless.

Further, successful shelters don’t shame the public. They don’t call people irresponsible for surrendering pets.  They don’t criticise people when their pets get lost. They don’t black mail the public, telling them that if they don’t adopt, pets will die. All these things get the public off side – and the public is a very important friend.

Also, the public is more likely to donate to pounds that don’t criticse them, and don’t kill the pets in care. So fundraising will be easier.

In summary, shelters kill pets because they don’t bother finding their owner or don’t bother finding a new owner. And if they just stopped killing pets and blaming the ‘irresponsible’ public, perhaps the public would like them more and volunteer and donate, and then there will be less dead pets.

Pound’s nonchalance to getting pets out alive is the real bullshit here.

 

Further reading:

10 Ways to Get Pit Bulls Adopted from ThatMutt.com

The First 60 Minutes from the KC Dog Blog

What a Good Pound Does from Dog Rescue Association of Victoria Inc.

The Seven Deadly Sins of ‘Overpopulation’ from SavingPets

01/18/12

Bye Bye, Little Miss Scatterbrain

It is with mixed feelings that I announce that Winona (who we talked about days ago in our 2012 goals) went to a new home on Friday.  After their weekend trial period, her new family has fallen in love with her.

Winona the border terrier puppy, at 7 weeks

Winona at 7 weeks

I get frequent enquiries about border terriers, and Winona has been ‘on offer’ for a while – however, with certain conditions. Namely, that we can continue to show her to her title, and that we can have a litter from her at a later date. This is a pretty big ask.

Her new family contacted me after their border terrier cross died, and after a lot of consideration, came to visit.   Continue reading →

01/16/11

Kenneling Rescue Dogs

Please note that this is an old post and some of my ideas have changed since it was originally published. I leave it up for historical purposes.

Recently, I came across “Minimum Health Requirements for Shelters”. I had the pleasure of working in an animal shelter that did meet most of these standards, and were close to meeting the remaining. This was a big shelter and had many resources, both financially and in terms of staff and volunteers.

However, I believe that my shelter was exception in this regard – many shelters do not provide an enriched and healthy kennel environment. The Animal Welfare Act calls for food, water, and shelter, and all kennels I know meet these standards, but we all know that animal welfare is a lot more than these essentials. Because of the complexity of animal welfare, the practice of kenneling dogs has been brought into dispute.

This post looks to examine how the lack of resources often means that rescues cannot meet these minimum health requirements, and that they ultimately have to make difficult decisions regarding the fate of their animals due to their lack of resources. Additionally, it will look at why many rescues kennel dogs, and the problems associated with long term kenneling. Alternatives to kenneling will also be considered. Continue reading →