Thinking about adopting a dog from a rescue shelter?

I hear ya, but I was just letting him know there are some groups that are only worried about the money, not the dog. There are some great groups out there, but there are some really terrible ones out there as well. A friend of mine works for one and she has told me about some other groups she worked with that are operated strictly for profit.

To avoid the possibility of dealing with such a group, I went with the Humane Society. Even if they aren't "All that", as you put it.

 

If I lived in the Houston area and had the room I would take that little puppy.

I've gotten two dogs both from rescue. It's a great feeling once you get to know the dogs that they are having a much better life than they could have.

My first dog was going to be killed. It was the fault of pound workers who said she was unpredictable. They didn't realize that she was pregnant and gave birth a week later. Of course the expectant mother was unpredictable when they were handling her. Luckily she was rescued, and we have her now.

It's like she knew what was coming for her. She is so eager to follow the rules and understand them. She won't do anything unless we give her permission. She was so unassertive because she believed that if she followed all the rules and was really submissive, maybe this time she wouldn't be abandoned. She has really come out of her shell a lot, and is a great dog. In the 1 1/2 years that I've owned her she hasn't barked out loud more than 12 times total.

Our other rescue dog is a standard dachshund. She's like a little tank, and very impulsive. She tries to follow rules also, but thinks of them secondly. She's kind of territorial and barks and lunges at other dogs in the neighborhood. We didn't know that before, because when we first met her and walked her it wasn't near the home, so she was fine with all the other dogs she met. We've only had her for about 4 months, and she's getting a lot better. She just graduated from obedience class. She is super sweet, but has required some extra work to get her to adapt to our home, and first dog.

I will say if you adopt a dog, try and get one the opposite sex of the one already in your townhome. Even if they are both fixed the opposite sexed dogs tend to be less competitive with each other.

Definitely adopt a dog from a shelter(or R2K). As others have said they will take care of all the initial vet expenses, and you'll be helping out a great cause.

 

My wife and I adopted a rescue puppy out in central Texas as soon as the school year ended a month ago. She is a fantastic lab mix, about 4 months old now and lots of fun. She's lots of work, too, but definitely worth it. Our biggest issue, medically, has just been dealing with some worms that she had when we got her. Otherwise, she's very playful, has a wonderful personality, and is extremely intelligent, though our cat isn't on the best of terms with her at all times. Apparently, our puppy just doesn't understand why our cat doesn't want to smell her butt, and our cat doesn't like it when our puppy tries to sniff his butt!

 

The best dog I ever had was from the SPCA in Houston, back when there was a shelter off of Allen Parkway and Shepard somewhere. (pretty sure it was the SPCA... there weren't all that many "animal rescue" operations going on in 1971) I was living alone at my garage apartment by Hermann Park and decided that a dog would be groovy. I've always been a dog lover and hadn't had one for a few years, since my last dog passed away, so I hopped into my Triumph Spitfire, the one that had the holes rusted through the back floorboards, but was an absolute gas to drive, and went to the SPCA.

I'm walking through the corridors of walk-in cages, taking in the pitiful sight of literally hundreds of puppies of all kinds, older dogs, "tweeners," and pondering the staggering numbers, thinking it might have been a bad idea. Too many dogs, too bummed out from looking, and nothing that "clicked." Then there he was. A black, curly/wavy six week old thing that was as cute as any dog you could imagine, with eyes the color of pale caramel. Unlike the other puppies, and the other dogs, he was sitting, staring at the cage door, waiting for the right person to show up. I asked what he was. The pup looked like he was a breed of some kind. Turned out that he was half Standard Poodle and half Black Lab and ended up looking like this -

http://www.designer-canines.com/images/labradoodle2.jpg

I picked him up, he took one look at me, grinned, and started licking my face. We clicked, instantly. About $24 dollars later, including his shots, the guy's sitting in the front seat next to me, top down, and we're on our way home. I had obtained a Labradoodle, and didn't know it until the term became famous many years later. It always struck me as curious that he didn't shed or have much of the typical dog odor. The Wonder Dog ended up being around 45 lbs, stunningly intelligent, independent, but very protective. Just loved the chicks. Great to take to parties. Knew a whole bunch of tricks, which he learned in about ten minutes, and the bigger the crowd, the better he performed. I still miss him.

I'd look for a "half and half." Often, someone with a pure bred dog gets it knocked up accidentally by a neighbor's pure bred dog. The puppies end up in a shelter. If your lucky, like me, you might get a pup with the best qualities of both dogs. Good luck!

 

I've gotten two dogs from shelters, and they're both great dogs. One is some sort of weird daschund/pug mix and one is apparently mostly American Eskimo (which actually looks a lot like the stray in those pictures).

I would definitely recommend to anyone that they at least check out the shelters. I've heard of very few people having significant problems with puppies and dogs they got from shelters or rescue groups.

 

I work at the SPCA and yes, animals get euthanized there, but I assure you it's not half of them. The number of animals coming through the door on a daily basis is ridiculous, and it gets to the point where there is simply no space. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

People like to think that if there are 20 rabbits, 10 mice, 10 guinea pigs, 5 ferrets, 150 adults dogs, 60 puppies, and 200 cats/kittens, that 1 more isn't going to be that hard to accommodate. Well what people don't realize is that 3 of the rabbits, 2 of the ferrets, 15 of the dogs, 9 of the puppies, and 25 of the cats/kittens were probably already given special accommodations just to squeeze them in. We always have animals scattered throughout the shelter in offices that have been converted to cage space just to make extra room. There is a lot of effort made to fit in all that we can.

I should add that healthy animals are never euthanized for space. Sick animals who need specialized personal care and cannot find a temporary home through our foster program are usually put down. Especially if an animal is stricken with a highly contagious illness like kennel cough, distemper, or URI. Since we try to take in every animal we can, they end up in close quarters, and the stark reality is that putting one animal down is a far better alternative to allowing a shelter-wide outbreak. We are also forced to euthanize animals who are admitted to the shelter too young to be adopted out and who also can't find a temporary home through our foster program. It's a sad reality of being the largest shelter in the 4th largest city in the nation.

Even if we ever did get to a point where there was a surplus of space at the shelter, we'd still only be one cruelty seizure away from overflowing again. A single seizure can bring in up to 200 animals in a single day. Anybody ever watch Animal Cops on Animal Planet? Well then you know that it's courageous work that those investigators do, but the reality is that all those animals have to go somewhere once they're rescued.

If you knew the people that work at the Houston SPCA, you would know that they truly love all the animals that come through the shelter. Nobody ever wants to put an animal down. It's just a matter of fact that with the sheer number of animals we take in, it's going to happen.

It doesn't mean it's a bad place with evil people that you shouldn't adopt from.

*This wasn't meant as just a response to JayZ750, but rather to everyone in general.

 

yeah, Ive heard of that before.

Some of the more serious(passionate) foster/adoption programs wont just give the puppies out to anyone that walks in, you need to convince them you are capable of providing a proper home and giving them the proper care.


on the puppy:

I appreciate any help you guys can be...he is a cute little thing, it would kill me to think of it put down before it had a chance to play with some kids in a big backyard or be someones lapdog.

One of my few weaknesses....puppies.

I adopted a beautiful lab mix two years ago....yall might remember I asked for the board to help name her.

she is quite the big dog now..

 

no doubt. and not trying to put down the SPCA, or any other group. I don't know the exact stats, just passing what i heard. It's good that everyone is trying...I just don't know if I believe in kill facilities at all...I don't think there really is such a thing as a human killing of a pet. Taking in a dog to turn around and kill it doesn't make much sense to me.

And I do know of genuine stories with people being turned away from SPCA due to overcrowding and being pointed in the direction of BARC, and being misled into believing that BARC won't put the animal down. This 3exact thing happened to my wife when she was pulling some dogs at BARC. An owner was turning in a dog for whatever stupid reason, tried to do it at SPCA, they told her to go to BARC and the dog would be fine and adopted out quickly...truth is that BARC generally kills owner turn-ins pretty quickly, as they use the logic that if someone already had them and didn't want the pet, time to put it down....makes no sense. So, of course, the wife had to pull that dog too.

Anyway, more power to the SPCA - Houston sadly spends very little per capita on animal rescue, has a crapload of people, a large % of which aren't responsible pet owners, etc. So the SPCA definitely helps a lot.

Sorry about bad link before. Try below:

http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/redcollarrescue.html

 

Scout's Honor is good. One of our personal dogs is from them. She's great.

And again, I'll repeat what I said earlier...generally, there is no such thing as too stringent screening. It may seem tough, but it is to just generally get an idea of what kind of pet owner the potential person will be.

I'm sure some groups do go overboard....but for the most part, if the rest of the application makes sense, you can leave out things you're not comfortable filling out. And as I said before, it's in YOUR best interest to have a home visit as much as the dogs.

 

My problem with the SPCA in Collin County was when I took an adult cat to them that was not getting along with our existing cats (I know cats don't generally get along at first, but this was beyond that and something that needed to be addressed), the person there told me they would immediately be putting the cat down because they put down all the animals that have behavior problems - no chance for adoption to someone else or anything. (I disagree with the whole idea that this particular cat had a behavior problem, but even so, it seemed like he could simply be adopted to a family with no other cats). He also didn't seem to be litter box trained very well, so I assumed he had been an outdoor cat.

Because my wife had assured me that we needed to get rid of this cat, I left him there, only to decide that I couldn't do that to him. So, I went back (wasn't even all the way home yet. It had been maybe five to ten minutes since I had dropped off the cat) and asked for the cat back figuring I could at least try and find him another home or some other solution before sending him to his death.

At that point, they told me it would be $75 to get him back.

I explained how stupid that was, and, to their credit, they let me take him back for free, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth regarding that particular branch of the SPCA.

 

Well I'll tell you that the SPCA has a ridiculously high employee turnover rate, especially in animal care. So there's a very good chance that someone at the front desk didn't have their facts straight. Regardless, believing that any shelter can operate without practicing euthanasia in some cases, is unrealistic. If there is a shelter out there that truly doesn't kill animals, then I guarantee they're turning them away at the door instead, or they're in a small town that doesn't force them to max out their space.

And just for the record (not aimed at anyone in particular), every SPCA is completely independent of the others. There is no association whatsoever between the Houston SPCA, the ASPCA (New York), the SPCA of Texas, or the SPCA in Collin County, etc. So if you ever have a problem with one, don't assume that any of the others are the same. Just an FYI.

 

I once took 2 stray cats to the Houston SPCA a few years back. The woman there made me sign some waiver first before waiting to explain to me that they weren't even gonna try to get them adopted at all and were just gonna kill em instead. Then when I told her I'd find a home for the cats myself she refused to give em back. F***ing b!tch

 

A simple google search will find you no kill shelters in Texas.

they may be turning away animals, but then, they should at that point, rather than take them in and kill them.

pets are better off on the streets....ESPECIALLY in the case of cats. dogs are more arguable, but even a dog has a fighting chance on the streets. that's a much bigger question about people welfare, I guess, but still.

 

One of the main reasons to get stray animals off the streets is to stop them from breeding. So letting them back on the streets doesn't help nearly as much in the long run. Because cats give birth to such large litters, a single female cat and her offspring can produce up to 420,000 cats in 7 years. Even if her offspring's offspring only reach 1% of their potential, that's still 4,200 extra cats, and if even 1 of them is euthanized down the road, then the end result is still 1 dead cat...except you also have 4,199 new cats that have to be housed somewhere.

Again, it's very sad, but it's necessary. But I've never heard anyone who had a problem with it, actually come up with a plausible alternative. Aside from magically making the public far more educated and responsible about spaying/neutering/caring for their animals properly, there may not be one.

By the way, by definition, the Houston SPCA is a No-Kill Shelter. No-Kill doesn't mean they don't kill any animals...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_kill_movement

So with that I think I've said all I can. We'll agree to disagree, I suppose.

 

It is sad. Houston is in dire need of many many many more low cost or free spay and neuter facilities. There is a group in town focusing on just that.

have you heard of Nathan Winograd. I know he's a little controversial, in that he is against mandatory spay/neuter laws, but he's definitely had success in creating plausible alternative. I'm assuming you have heard of him, he's in your wiki link. Here's the link to the article on how he helped transform the Tompkins County SPCA.

http://www.bestfriends.org/archives/forums/goingnokill.html

And the fact that the Houston SPCA can be a kill facility and still consider itself no-kill only confuses the situation...as at least 2 stories in this thread illustrate to a certain extent.

 

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116058075161889442.html

 

I have 2 stray cats one just had a litter of kittens all cramped in my front lawn chillin... If anyone wants these cats or kitten feel free to take them... Please neuter and spayed your pets