Pet Life SnipPET, New Zealand Issue 4 : August 2016 | Page 6

Dog Rescue Adoption

Dog Rescues are run by people who care deeply about dogs that have been mistreated, abandoned or given up on by their previous owners. The whole aim of these organisations is to find a new home with caring parents so these unfortunate dogs can live the rest of their lives in a secure and loving environment.

Dog rescues normally cater for a particular breed of dog. This makes life easy as once you’ve found one for the breed you are interested in then it’s simply a case of registering and waiting for the right dog to come in. Usually they will have a contact list which will keep you informed when new dogs come in.

Finding a dog rescue can be as simple as looking in your yellow pages or searching on the internet. Doing a regional search by putting your city in the search terms will produce the nearest results to you.

Be prepared to give them details on previous dog ownership, your family, your house and yard and where you plan on keeping the dog.

They will also want to know about your experience training dogs and how you discipline your dog. And they will also spend time talking with you, trying to assess your character and how it will fit in with the particular dog you are thinking of adopting.

Be patient – there’s a good reason for this. All they are trying to do is make sure that you and the dog are a perfect fit. The last thing they want is for the dog to return to them at some time in the future. These dogs have already lost out once. Often they have suffered abuse and neglect and have fears and neuroses. The whole aim of the Dog Rescue is to avoid that happening again and give the dog a good chance of living a happy life for the rest of its days.

This matching of dog and adoptive parent goes both ways. You have to ask yourself if you are right for a rescue dog. There are a number of things you have to ask yourself:

6 www.petlife.co.nz/August, 2016