• Plan ahead — the likelihood of a rescue being able to take a dog today or tomorrow is VERY unlikely.
If a baby, a move, a life change is coming, and you’re going to need to surrender a dog, the more time you can give a rescue, the more likely they will be able to help you.
• When you can’t plan ahead — we understand, sometimes situations arise that are out of your control.
Understand that most rescues are volunteer-run, by people with full-time jobs and families, and do not have space open and fosters waiting on standby to take dogs immediately. To help, time will be needed, and that might mean weeks.
• We cannot always help — if the space or funds aren’t available, we may say no. We do everything in our power and then some to help, if and when we can.
Screaming at us or telling us we don’t care about helping dogs or that a dog will die because of us is neither fair, nor kind. Kindness goes a long way, and I can guarantee our “no” hurts us just as much if not more than you. Your disrespect might be the last straw that puts an individual out of rescue permanently. This world, and especially this state, desperately needs every single rescue currently out there.
• Fully vetted dogs have a MUCH higher probability of being accepted into a rescue — we are non-profits, legally, and every bit of what we do can lay testament to the “no profit” aspect of that. At any given time, we have $10-15K owed to our various vets. We have no regular funding; all of our income comes from donations.
Our adoption fee covers vetting for a completely healthy dog, barely. Vet costs continue to rise, and unfortunately, it’s a rare occasion where a dog comes into our program that only needs vaccinations and altered. Heartworm positive? 400+ Xrays for injury? $200+ Surgery or teeth extraction? $300+ Bloodwork? $400+ It adds up quickly.
Any vetting you can cover, ANY, helps us to say yes. If you can’t cover anything, we also understand that too, and will do our best to accommodate. Live in the country and got dumped on? Happens every day, and it’s not your problem or ours, but the problem creators are rarely on clean up crew. It’s a reality we live with every day.
• Honesty is the BEST policy — we operate on full transparency, the good, bad and the ugly, and it’s an absolutely necessity for the successful adoption of a dog if you do too.
Knowing all there is to know about a dog helps us find the best foster and the best adopter. Finding out a dog has food aggression on day 1 in a new home could send a dog right back to a rescue, when an adopter armed with the information up front would easily be able to feed separately.
Spots don’t hold for extended periods of time, so when a dog leaves a foster, the next dog generally comes in quickly. There is ALWAYS a waitlist for accepted dogs who we don’t have a foster for yet. When a dog has to come back, there’s a scramble to find where they can go. This is why we have such an extensive application and work really hard to find the best fit for a dog’s new home.
There ARE situations where we cannot take a dog because we will not be able to move it — i.e. aggression or a bite history. A dog that stays in a foster spot for a long time is a spot taken from countless future dogs. Rescues have to weigh those odds and make those tough calls every single day, and it sucks. Weighing a dog and its needs/issues against future ability to help dogs is an impossible task, and yet again, it’s something those in rescue have to do on a regular basis.
• If you’re willing to foster, we CAN almost certainly help — we will work hard to market your dog, process applications and get him or her into a new home as soon as possible.
That being said, your commitment to us must match ours to you. If you say you can keep the dog for 3 weeks, we will plan with that in mind. If you plan to actively be searching for a home yourself, we may decline taking the dog into our program. Time and effort marketing, processing applications and scheduling meet and greets is wasted if we tell you we found someone and the dog was given away already. Our time is valuable, and respecting that goes a long way, and also helps us to not waste time that could be used on another dog.
• Be kind — our hearts break daily for a whole myriad of reasons, and we promise you, we’re truly doing our best.
If a baby, a move, a life change is coming, and you’re going to need to surrender a dog, the more time you can give a rescue, the more likely they will be able to help you.
• When you can’t plan ahead — we understand, sometimes situations arise that are out of your control.
Understand that most rescues are volunteer-run, by people with full-time jobs and families, and do not have space open and fosters waiting on standby to take dogs immediately. To help, time will be needed, and that might mean weeks.
• We cannot always help — if the space or funds aren’t available, we may say no. We do everything in our power and then some to help, if and when we can.
Screaming at us or telling us we don’t care about helping dogs or that a dog will die because of us is neither fair, nor kind. Kindness goes a long way, and I can guarantee our “no” hurts us just as much if not more than you. Your disrespect might be the last straw that puts an individual out of rescue permanently. This world, and especially this state, desperately needs every single rescue currently out there.
• Fully vetted dogs have a MUCH higher probability of being accepted into a rescue — we are non-profits, legally, and every bit of what we do can lay testament to the “no profit” aspect of that. At any given time, we have $10-15K owed to our various vets. We have no regular funding; all of our income comes from donations.
Our adoption fee covers vetting for a completely healthy dog, barely. Vet costs continue to rise, and unfortunately, it’s a rare occasion where a dog comes into our program that only needs vaccinations and altered. Heartworm positive? 400+ Xrays for injury? $200+ Surgery or teeth extraction? $300+ Bloodwork? $400+ It adds up quickly.
Any vetting you can cover, ANY, helps us to say yes. If you can’t cover anything, we also understand that too, and will do our best to accommodate. Live in the country and got dumped on? Happens every day, and it’s not your problem or ours, but the problem creators are rarely on clean up crew. It’s a reality we live with every day.
• Honesty is the BEST policy — we operate on full transparency, the good, bad and the ugly, and it’s an absolutely necessity for the successful adoption of a dog if you do too.
Knowing all there is to know about a dog helps us find the best foster and the best adopter. Finding out a dog has food aggression on day 1 in a new home could send a dog right back to a rescue, when an adopter armed with the information up front would easily be able to feed separately.
Spots don’t hold for extended periods of time, so when a dog leaves a foster, the next dog generally comes in quickly. There is ALWAYS a waitlist for accepted dogs who we don’t have a foster for yet. When a dog has to come back, there’s a scramble to find where they can go. This is why we have such an extensive application and work really hard to find the best fit for a dog’s new home.
There ARE situations where we cannot take a dog because we will not be able to move it — i.e. aggression or a bite history. A dog that stays in a foster spot for a long time is a spot taken from countless future dogs. Rescues have to weigh those odds and make those tough calls every single day, and it sucks. Weighing a dog and its needs/issues against future ability to help dogs is an impossible task, and yet again, it’s something those in rescue have to do on a regular basis.
• If you’re willing to foster, we CAN almost certainly help — we will work hard to market your dog, process applications and get him or her into a new home as soon as possible.
That being said, your commitment to us must match ours to you. If you say you can keep the dog for 3 weeks, we will plan with that in mind. If you plan to actively be searching for a home yourself, we may decline taking the dog into our program. Time and effort marketing, processing applications and scheduling meet and greets is wasted if we tell you we found someone and the dog was given away already. Our time is valuable, and respecting that goes a long way, and also helps us to not waste time that could be used on another dog.
• Be kind — our hearts break daily for a whole myriad of reasons, and we promise you, we’re truly doing our best.
Filling out this form does NOT automatically ensure we will take your dog.
We will do our best to help and will direct you to other resources if we are unable to help.
We will do our best to help and will direct you to other resources if we are unable to help.
