Sunday, May 1, 2016

Someone saved this baby, now what?

Anyone who's ever seen a post for a dog in a shelter needing rescue has seen the comments; "someone please save this baby", "don't let this one die", "where are the rescues", "someone help", "praying"

Sharing these posts, and making pledges to help the dog are so important. If no one sees the dog, how can they save it? I've seen threads with thousands of comments and shares. Some rescues will only take a dog if the pledge amounts are high. Other rescues will pull the dog then solicit donations or pay the expenses with their own money. Sometimes, I think, on the animals where the drama and emotion is very high, rescues will pull with no resources or plan.
Once the announcement is made that the dog is safe and freedom photos are posted we see all the thank you's and words of celebration and happiness.
But what happens to the dog after all the feel good comments in the thread? Rescuing a dog is a demanding thing, financially, emotionally, and time wise. Once the dog is out of the shelter it needs a place to go. Most rescues use Fosters, some have kennel facilities,  others put dogs into boarding until....

We like to think that any rescue pulling a dog will have all these things in place and all will be safe and appropriate for the individual dog. How do we know? Just because a rescue has a 501c3 designation doesn't mean it is a quality organisation. If the dog goes into boarding, what is that like and how long will the dog be there? What are the Fosters like? How many animals do they have? Do they have experience with dogs with behavior issues? What is the dog's life like at the Fosters home? Is it in a crate all day? Chained in the yard? Locked in a bathroom? If the dog is to go on transport, what is that like?

The bottom line is that just because "someone saved this baby" , there is absolutely no guarantee it is truly safe. We hear horror stories everyday about abuse and neglect at the hands of a rescue.

Instead of praying the dog is safe it would be nice if people followed up, especially the rescue claiming the dog. Ideally anyone would be able to follow up on the dog at any given time after it is pulled.
Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world. I would love to see as much transparency as possible in the rescue world, after all the dog's are the priority, right?

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