Contents
- Anatomy of Rescue
- The Rescue Manual
- Mission: Rescue
- Are They Deserving Dogs
- Becoming a Pound Puppy
- Death Row Dogs
- But There's Plenty of Rescue Groups
- The Problem Dogs
- Angels From Heaven
- Surrenders
- Dog, after Dog, after Dog
- Quarantine and Disease
- Rescue as an Industry
- Dogs on Trial
- Reputation and Professionalism
- The Final Result
- Acknowledgements
Okay I think it’s official, my new name in the Husky Club is “Rescue Guy”, probably because all I talk or write about is Husky rescue… Well actually I never set out for it to be that way but I don’t mind at all, yes rescue is a bit of a theme for me these days – I guess I just love it!
When I started in Husky rescue at the end of last year I had the idea it would be just another part of my life with dogs. You know, something in addition to the everyday Husky things like frying up fur with my breakfast and filling in craters in the yard. Something positive to help them. I never thought I’d find it so involving though, and now I have a good deal of enthusiasm in being able to share what I’ve learned from top to bottom, I hope you won’t be bored to tears.
Rescuing a Husky sounds simple. You take it from the pound, look after it for a bit, advertise it on the web and find it a new home. How easy is that! Well when you get down to it you find there’s a few small catches, like these for starters:
How do you find out about which dogs are in need? How do you get to them if they’re a long way away? How do cope if they’re ill, antisocial or noisy when you get them? What if you can’t afford the pound fees? Where and how do you advertise them? How do you know if you’ve really found a good home for them? What happens if the new home they go to can’t handle them? Who pays all the vet expenses? What if you never get any calls for them? What if another dog’s in need but you’re full up? What forms do you legally have to fill in? Do you need insurance? How do you control disease and quarantine? Who’ll take over rescue when you go on holidays? Where do all these dogs keep coming from and how do you stop it? Does it actually work? And is it all really worth it anyway?
Trying to deal with all these questions at once makes rescue look impossible, but actually there are simple answers to everything and it’s not all as impossible as it seems when you go through it step by step.
If you wanted to start up a rescue effort in your area you might find yourself very much on your own even if you were surrounded by other rescue volunteers. Joining a rescue group takes some initiative and can be a bit like being handed the Rescue Manual and told to go make it all work, there’s not much instruction on how to get started.
The manual for rescue doesn’t actually exist yet, and even if it did, it would probably never be finished. It would always grow and evolve and adapt, as it should, to the changing state of society.
The unanswered question behind rescue is, “What are we trying to do?” To answer this properly, first there’s some things we need to know:
· There is an abundant and ever present supply of rescue dogs looking for homes; Think of rescue dogs as a renewable resource. There’s lots and lots and lots of them, too many to count, and there always will be – but using this as an excuse not to help them is still really just that, an excuse.
· Not every dog can or should be saved. In rescue we have to make active choices about the dogs we allow to be destroyed, as much as about the dogs we save. It’s ugly, but we can’t ignore the fact that using our limited resources to save one dog is effectively the same as choosing to doom the others. Our mission doesn’t’ have to be about saving all of them but should be about making a commitment to those we can.
· Rescue is absolutely one hundred percent not about saving dogs from death row. Well okay, half of it is. Saving dogs from euthanasia is a huge win in itself, but the other half is finding homes where rescue dogs brings years of joy to those that take them in. With both halves you have a higher purpose in saving dogs, and one that works well.
· Good dogs die and bad dogs get re-homed. You kind of have to accept it’s a lottery for the dogs, and sometimes it’s not about the merits but simply timing and dumb luck that determines who gets saved and who dies. Fortunately almost all the dogs saved are good dogs, but equally don’t make it your mission to only save the best or most needy or you’ll go nuts. Think instead of rescue as helping deserving dogs find loving homes, and it’s the success of these together that counts.
· Every home is after something different so even completely opposite dogs can each find their perfect match eventually. Monika Biernacki says there are no 'unhomeable' dogs just dogs with no homes, and she’s got a point.
· We invited dogs into our world, they didn’t invade it. This is an argument of social responsibility, and not the weightiest one we can come up with sure, but it’s worth recalling which species domesticated which.
· Rescue is a business. It’s about marketing and products and money and being professional, even if we don’t realize it. I love Huskies, I really do, and even though they’re living breathing creatures far removed from some production line, it’s still important to see them as a product in the business of rescue. If we do then we’ll manage supply and demand, logistics and finance, and all the other parts of rescue much better, and all without sacrificing our values.
There’s a year’s worth of discussion in each of these points, but for now we move on and consider our mission statement.
“Our mission is to do as much as possible to find good homes for deserving Huskies.”
This isn’t a perfect mission statement but it’s still not bad for now. It doesn’t say that we’ll try to stop all dogs from being put down. It doesn’t say we’ll work tirelessly to find perfect homes for everyone. It doesn’t discuss whether one dog is more or less deserving than another, it just tries to improve a small corner of the world by finding good homes for some good dogs. Maybe we can meet all the other ideals in the future, but for now the mission statement simply applies to today: to make life better for deserving dogs.
Many of us have crossed paths with rescue dogs in our time, whether we knew it or not. Some of us already have them as pets in our homes, probably most of us have come across a dog at the park that the owner bought from a pound, and maybe we stopped to talk with those owners to find out why they would consider taking on such a ‘risk’. Rescue dogs don’t have to look or act different from other dogs, they don’t have to stand out, and there’s no stereotype for the dogs that end up needing rescuing. The most interesting thing I find is that some people still think of rescue dogs as a bad risk; mixed-breed problem dogs that will need lots of work to reform them again. Well Bela, Cotton, Ice, Kita, Shelley, Misha, Manson, Shaya, Neko and Sky – the rescue dogs I’ve met myself this year – want to tell you otherwise.
The number one question people ask me is why these dogs end up in the pound in the first place, and the number two question is what’s wrong with the dog?
It would be ridiculous to think that all pound dog are innocent victims of circumstance. Some are clearly beyond being helped, and the variety of dogs impounded is as astounding as the number of ways they got there, and so each dog needs to be assessed for their own temperament, quirks and problems.
Most dogs impounded are picked up as strays by animal control, and without microchip, ID tag or diligent owners, they’ll probably never find their way back to their original home. Are all free roaming Huskies escape artists then? Yes they climb and dig and run, but I’ve also seen fences and gates the owner thinks will keep a Husky in that most of us would just laugh at.
Many dogs are handed in to pounds by homes that need dispose of them quickly, these dogs come in all shapes, sizes, colours and temperaments.
Then there are dogs that are seized on the grounds of nuisance and placed in pounds by rangers, and perhaps it’s these – the ones that have already had professional assessment – that are the hopeless cases that give the pound puppy its bad name.
“Rescue dogs don’t come from breeders, pet stores and pounds, they come from homes that don’t want them any more.”
I think this is the statement that best fits the evidence. After six months of doing rescue I disagree with the notion that rescue dogs come from puppy mills, pounds and pet stores. We see so many so-called ‘breeders’ doing what we consider bad or irresponsible things, and then getting away with it, and maybe the outrage we feel makes it easier to focus blame on them. Certainly most rescue dogs were bred by back yard breeders and sold by pet stores, but they’re not the ones handing them in to pounds. The real reason dogs end up in rescue is because the homes that bought them in the first place simply don’t want them any more, whether it’s because of apathy or lack of commitment or because the dogs have become unmanageable and are too much to deal with any more.
Yes we need to curb puppy mills and pet stores who trade in live dogs (and squash them entirely if possible) but regardless of where dogs come from, they will still end up in rescue unless their homes give them a higher priority and level of commitment
It also seems that even if a dog has a good home, they’ll still get left behind every two to three years as life circumstances change. Factors such as moving for work, getting married, having children, going through divorces, tragic family circumstances and simple financial pressures mean the dog has to find a new home, and some telling evidence for this is the number of the Huskies intercepted by Rescue on their way to the pound who started with that family as rescue dogs in the first place.
As for the temperament of pound dogs, it’s absolutely not true to say that Siberian Huskies that end up there are always problem dogs and social monsters that their owners can no longer control. I’ve seen pound dogs with far nicer temperaments than my own two (beautiful, sweet, crazy, lovable, demonic) Siberian monsters.
You’ve probably heard the terms ‘kill’ and ‘no kill’ shelter when people refer to dog pounds, particularly in the U.S., but not much in Australian or European cultures. Of course the fuzzy feel-good docusoaps like BBC’s Battersea Dogs Home and our own Animal Hospital don’t want to delve much into what happens behind the closed doors, so you would be forgiven for thinking Australia has plenty of no-kill shelters. It doesn’t.
“Most animal shelters in Australia are kill shelters. I’ve heard the RSPCA referred to as an a ‘adoption agency’ even though 5 out of every 6 Huskies they receive are destroyed.” (Source: "Animals", RSPCA, Autumn 2005)
A kill shelter looks just the same as all the others, it doesn’t advertise itself with iron bars on the windows and it doesn’t have a constant black cloud hanging over it. The difference is that the dogs not lucky enough to find their new forever home are destroyed by lethal injection.
Euthanasia is a fact of life. An unfortunate fact of course, that probably misses the point of the responsibility we took on once we as a species invited dogs into our lives, and yet it is undeniable that there are a number of good arguments for euthanising a dog, all of which are based on lessening the period of suffering the dog faces in its continued existence.
In Australia, the Companion Animal Act 1998 requires that dogs seized that have no identification be held for seven days in animal shelters, and that dogs with identification be held for fourteen. At the end of this time the dog is termed ‘due’ and is at the mercy of the shelter who can choose to have the dog euthanised immediately if not claimed. The problem is worse for dogs that are surrendered to shelters. These dogs can be put down at any time, including immediately, at the discretion of the pound.
But There’s Plenty of Rescue Groups
The rescue groups for various breeds range from well-organized registered non-profit organizations to individuals acting alone for the welfare of dogs. Greyhound Adoption Program NSW Inc has a reputation as one of the most organized. Many breeds have no rescue group.
“Husky Rescue is not a rescue group at present, but simply a group of individuals sharing information and working for the welfare of Siberian Huskies throughout the state.”
How many people work in Siberian Husky Rescue in NSW? Not many! I won’t claim to have taken a true census, but in all the time I’ve been working in rescue I’ve only ever come across four foster homes in all of NSW, including myself, that actively re-home Huskies. There may be more foster homes involved, but in six months I’ve not come across them, and I’ve come across a lot of rescue people.
Not all dogs are easy to get on with, and some need a good dose of Ritalin to stop them bouncing off the walls. Some come from the firebrands of Hell and have obviously lived a life that did nothing but nurture their mean streak, and these are definitely the problem dogs.
On Tuesday you get a call from the pound about two dogs on death row, both due, and you have to make a decision if you could help one or other or both. In the end you can only take one so you follow the Law of Rescue that says the females are easier to place and make the decision to only take the girl, dooming the boy to destruction, and hope you don’t end up feeling too much like God.
The next day you get her home and out of the crate, standing three feet back to take her in more fully. She’s a biter, and you know this because of the deep bruise she gave you when you were loading her into the car. Of course she looks all innocent now, but the sinking feeling inside you hasn’t gone, for sure you won’t be able to re-home her in a month of Sundays.
So what next? Do you keep her? Can (and should) you find her a home? Do you wish you’d left her at the pound? Or are you thinking of whether you can call the local vet and ask to have the dog you’ve only had for five minutes put down?
The answer is to avoid this situation at all costs and never take a rescue dog on faith, sight unseen.
“One of the awful truths about rescue is that not all dogs should be rescued.”
Temperament testing is an important part of trying to work out which dog should benefit from your limited rescue resources. At the basic level it includes checking whether they’re fearful, whether they can be handled all over and whether they are aggressive to people or other dogs.
To find out about the temperament of an unknown dog, the best way is to have someone meet them and cautiously carry out the checks. At the pound you can do it yourself, or rely on the assessment of the staff there, or if the dog is a surrender then get the owner to complete a full questionnaire about the dog first.
“Fortunately if you end up with a hellion dog the Law of Re-homing applies, that says for every dog there is a home, you just have to find it.”
“I just wanted to thank you again for matching us up with such a wonderful dog. I just can't believe that someone would just give up or abandon such a warm and loving dog.”
This is a real quote from a real home where I placed a dog in April. The dog in question was just about the most perfect pet you could ever hope find. He was mature, happy, relaxed, gentle, affectionate, got along with other dogs, had no latent medical issues, was not food possessive or aggressive, was fully housetrained and even walked on a loose leash. Amazingly, he was not a surrender - he was rescued from death row at the pound. He passed through the hands of three rescue volunteers before he found his new home – where he got full indoor privileges on the first night. The dog was Ice, pictured below.
Ice is one of the better rescue dogs but astoundingly almost all rescue stories end up this way, and the most important thing to take away from testimonials like this is that when it comes to Huskies, the laws of animal control don’t discriminate and all kinds of dogs can end up in pounds, even the angels.
“We regrettably need to re-home our dog because we are unable to give him the attention he deserves. Would it be possible for him to find a good home as we would be very upset if we have to euthanise him.”
Another real quote and one we hear every month. Some surrenders are very real cases of dogs in need. Family circumstances have changed beyond their control and the dog genuinely needs a new home. Rescue workers have a lot of time for these dogs and their owners.
On the other hand the rest are just a case of ‘spare dog’ syndrome, and the concentration of most rescuers wanders off entirely after hearing the words “…unable to give him the attention he deserves”.
In the end though it’s unimportant to both the dog and the eventual new owners why the dog was surrendered so there’s also no point getting upset about the ‘why’s’ behind people handing in their dogs. What is important is to get to them before they reach the pound.
If at all possible, it is critically, essentially and fundamentally important to get to the dog before the dog ends up in a pound.
A dog in the pound can be exposed to serious diseases, is at risk of euthanasia if not claimed, and is subject to additional release fees. Moreover all possible chance of getting a history on the dog is lost. Every single dog that I have rescued from the pound myself has come with least kennel cough, if not other more serious diseases, and if anyone remembers Shelley, her coronavirus-like symptoms were almost certainly contracted at the pound. In contrast, not one of the dogs surrendered to me has had any medical problems apart from one that developed a small allergic hot spot (Hello, Ice).
There are three other benefits with surrenders: First, the owners can be encouraged to hold the dog while an ad is run, eliminating the need to find the dog a foster home. Second, in many cases the owner can be encouraged to contribute a donation to rescue, to be used to help cover the direct costs involved in the process. And third, the foster home if needed can get to know the dog and represent it more accurately to enquirers.
The only down side to doing everything in our power to encourage people to contact Rescue before dumping their dog in the pound is that we have more calls to field, but even if those calls all go unanswered, the worst that will happen is that the dog will end up in the pound, which is where they were headed anyway.
In the first month of fostering you might find wonderful homes for two dogs, and in the second month, maybe one, and in the third maybe two more. Every dog deserves care and attention, and in the end it doesn’t take unreasonable amounts of time. Re-homing a dog might take 5 to 10 hours a week all up to manage, but that’s less time than most people spend watching TV.
After five dogs though the novelty might start to wear off and perhaps some same familiar problems are coming around each time. Well one of the things that keeps you going in rescue is getting to know all these beautiful and loving dogs personally.
One of the best experiences in rescue is to hear (or see!) months or years down the track of the happy ways they have changed the lives of their new owners. I’m very lucky to have stayed in touch with the owners of most of the dogs I’ve placed and I still see some of them regularly. Some are now good friends.
“If you enjoy talking about Siberian Huskies with like-minded people then you’ll find friends among the applicants for rescue dogs.”
Canine Parvovirus (CPV-1, CPV-2) is one of the most feared diseases in the dog world. It’s found everywhere throughout Australia but especially in pounds and shelters and can have very serious consequences for some dogs, but are the risks so high?
Some research into CPV turned up a few particularly interesting results (Various sources, UGA, UMN). Of the fifty five million dogs living in the U.S.:
· An estimated 5,000 dogs die each year in the U.S. from Parvovirus
· An estimated 20,000 dogs die each year in the U.S. from bloat (gastric dilation-volvulus)
The reality is that your dog has a far higher chance of dying from bloat than from parvo and many articles published by vets in the U.S. officially rate the risk of parvo to vaccinated adult dogs as “low”. It’s interesting to note that in living memory no Husky Rescue foster home has ever reported a case of Parvovirus in a dog they’ve taken in.
For the majority of dogs parvo just isn’t the killer risk it’s reputation would have you believe. However! Yes, it is true that parvo is a very high risk factor for puppies, so don’t even consider going near a pound, or near someone who has, if you plan to breed dogs.
Leaving parvo and other serious ailments aside, a more practical risk to consider is kennel cough. Caused by viral agents or Bordetella bacteria, most pounds – and boarding kennels – have their own flavours of kennel cough, which although not serious is highly contagious among dogs and akin to the human cold or flu.
If you bring a dog from the pound home, you may be bringing kennel cough with them, and your dogs at home may end up with the same symptoms. Foster homes generally deal with the problem by keeping pound dogs in quarantine for 10 to 14 days or until all symptoms have disappeared.
“The best and only sensible policy to adopt when considering taking in rescue dogs is simply to keep them separate for a while.”
Is it wrong then to think of dogs as a product? I believe the answer is no. People only have problems with the idea because they associate products with a cold hard focus on profit, even though that’s not where the word originates, and certainly dog rescue is not about commerce or profit.
“A survey conducted of homes that took in rescue dogs in 2006 showed they set out to look for a rescue dog in preference to one from a breeder or pet store.”
This is good news and means Rescue does not compete in the same market with pet stores and breeders for suitable homes for dogs. Regardless, we do still need to find them homes, and one of the most important – and easiest – ways to get a good response for a rescue dog is to advertise them well. It’s normal for people to respond to pictures and informative text in an advertisement, and even though we’re talking about a living breathing dog, something that someone is going to take in as part of their life and love as a family member, the process of decision making on image is still the same for the consumer.
Once the phone starts ringing with enquiries it’s important to learn as much as possible about the new home by asking them a comprehensive questionnaire and having them around to visit. The screening process used by Husky Rescue does exactly this and has proved to be very effective in filtering out bad applicants, as those inquirers who are not really committed to the dogs simply balk at what they’re asked to do. It’s simple and gets very good results.
No, the other kind of trial. When dogs are placed into a new home they are initially placed on a Trial Agreement, which is a safety net in case things don’t work out. The agreement doesn’t transfer ownership until both the foster owner and the new owner are happy that things have worked out, and so gives the foster owner both the moral and legal right to reclaim the dog if they have to. There are careful checks and balances built into the trial agreement used by rescue and it is worded and executed in a very deliberate way for maximum effect.
Reputation and Professionalism
The same survey of (good) homes that took in rescue dogs also showed the top reasons why people choose them:
1. The reputation and size of the organization involved in rescuing the dogs convinced them to explore the possibility. Operating in association with SHCNSW is an important factor in finding dogs homes, and we need to protect this reputation.
2. The quality of photos and detail in the dog’s bio was paramount in helping the new owners find the right dog. Without good photos and a good bio dogs were simply overlooked, even if they were perfectly suitable dogs.
3. The ability to talk in detail about the rescue dog and about Huskies in general with the foster carer was listed as a critical factor for most homes and without it the homes said they would not have taken the dog.
After a while it was odd to notice that whether people took in a particular Siberian Husky rescue dog almost had more to do with the way the rescue group operated than it did with the dog themselves. It was never (and will never be) about trying to talk someone into a dog (in fact most of my time is spent talking people out of them) but answering their questions honestly and in detail so they knew what they were committing to meant they were prepared and happy to put in the effort required to take on the dog.
“Husky Rescue really works. It does what it set out to do and finds good homes for deserving dogs.”
We may never run out of dogs to rescue but fortunately we’ll also never run out of forever homes to place them in either, and we’ll continue to work to make sure it stays that way.
Many thanks to Penny Blankenship for her wonderful cartoons and drawings. Visit her rescue site for special needs dogs at http://www.gimpydogs.com
Contact Andrew Peterson by email at andrew@basis.com.au to find out more about Siberian Husky Rescue in Sydney, Australia
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