Why not think about rehoming?

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Because we only keep what we can eat and that was a choice we made a few years ago because of the increased prices of feed.

How does it taste, are they tagged, do they need movement control?

Sorry, just messing with you, but that's because, to me, the worst smell on this earth, is dog, but that's just me with my sense of smell and we are all made differently....

I LOVE the smell of my dog's feet

Sorry, but they walk through there own muck....

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

My re-homed rescue lurcher.

PH

PH, are you showing some wood in that photo or are they just loose fitting trousers?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Sorry, but they walk through there own muck....

Really?
I don't know any that do

Perhaps yours does.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Really?
I don't know any that do

Perhaps yours does.

It used to, yum yum, tastes like chicken.

Just messing, we only keep working dogs, they have to work for a living and live in the barn, plus I have never smelt thier feet.
If I did, I'm sure it would smell of sheep, cow, pig, turkey, chicken, or some other very very earthy smell....

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

My re-homed rescue lurcher.

PH

By the way PH, how the hell old are you? From your posts you come across as being about 90 yrs old, but in your photo you look younger than me.

May be I've just had a harder life.
I remember when we were kids, all we had to eat was old shoe leather and even then it had no polish on it, made it harder to swallow.
Those were the days....

 

[victor meldrew]

I LOVE the smell of my dog's feet

Like wise .Sashas' feet smell like fresh home made bread !
Am I soft or what??
VM

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Can I be provocative and suggest that there are also lots of children needing good homes.

Maybe there are some amongst us, who are in a position of considering fostering or adoption?

Dusty

 

[The Cumbrian]

Can I be provocative and suggest that there are also lots of children needing good homes.

Maybe there are some amongst us, who are in a position of considering fostering or adoption?

Dusty

Not provocative at all -well not to me. However a child is a far greater commitment than an animal, so I can understand threads about animals being more readily started.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Can I be provocative and suggest that there are also lots of children needing good homes.

Maybe there are some amongst us, who are in a position of considering fostering or adoption?

Dusty

Good man, see there you go, that's a real cause.

I would if I could and i have tried, but they still hold the fact that i shot a few pirates that tried to rob my boat, against me and that didn't even happen in this country...
Surely that would make me a good candidate right, protective and all...

 

[hedgerow pete]

right , two parts my two whippets. merlin is 3 and lucy is 8 years now, merlin came from the whippet rescue , massive internet set up please try them, very much along the lines of the fantastic greyhound rescue set up

all i had to do was get a vet to give a refference and drive to liverpool to collect him, best £70 i spent in ages (the fee the whippet trust charge)
the pair are both the biggest duvet monsters going and are so soft its rediculus

now the good bits done now the rant.

went to the kdl , and what a shower of brown smelly stuff they were to far up them selves it was a joke, we were allowed to look at the dogs but we are not allowed to choice one untill they hand INTERVIEWED US AT HOME AND MEASURED THE BACK AND FRONT GARDENS form this they decide what dogs they will allow us to have, durring the interview we will need to supply bank records to prove we could afford vets bills and we would also have to one member of the family permentatly off work to care for said dog, they dont give dogs to couple if they both work. they would aslo want a deposit of £100 to pay for the interview and another £250 when we collect the dog .


the rspca i hate any way with a vengance and would never in any way ever give them money in any way whats so ever,(did i mention i dont like them) so when we inquired several years ago , before full rspca hatred we found that they also wanted interviews to be paid for and they wanted £200 per dog ,IF we were sucsessfull in the interview stage and again they dictate which dog you are given rather than being allowed to choose



by the way this is lucy the smallest whippet i have ever seen

 

[Luminos]

Shadow

Have found and uploaded the photo of Shadow when we got hin from the Weimaraner Rescue:

 

[Brosville]

Pete, funny you should mention that, we found certain rescue centres to be more than somewhat "lacking" too, others I couldn't fault......

Early on after losing my Jack Russell, I took myself off to Raystede, a large local "independent" setup, and found the Staffie in the picture above - they were very sensible, and suggested that it would be wise to have a good look round at other dogs first before making a final choice, so very kindly reserved her for a couple of days for me.
Next day a posse of the family set off to "do the rounds" of the local rescue centres. We found ourselves at the RSPCA centre at Patcham, where my wife and daughter fell head over heels for a Springer spaniel, so we went into the office to say "yes please"- which is where it all started to go wrong....... "You can't even register an interest" - "why not?" - "you haven't had a home visit" - so after a lot of "discussion" they condescended to give me the number of their local "home inspector", and I firmly told them that we would like to give the dog a home, so we left the centre at "closing time" and rushed home - 'phoned the inspector and asked for the home visit - it transpired that she had no transport, had a tenuous grasp of reality, but was happy for me to go and pick her up......... As we walked into the garden I pointed out that it was impossible to fence as it is around 3/4 of an acre, and the badgers living nearby use it as their main throughways, but that no dog would be allowed off the lead until we knew they were steady - she came in, nattered for ages, ate all our biscuits, and filled out the form to say we were an "excellent home" - eventually on the way out she muttered "you'll have to get it fenced" (it appears a common obsession with rescue organisations)...

Next morning found us banging at the RSPCA's door at opening time brandishing the necessary form - having fought our way through the scrum, we got a stroppy jobsworth - "here's the form and the money, please can we take Harry?" - "No, you can now register an interest, but someone else is in front of you" - I politely tried to elicit as to how this had happened as the dog was available at closing time the day before - they had no ansaphone, and the website mentioned they didn't read emails - but she refused to be any help at all - my daughter dragged me out before I did a Krakatoa....... and we trotted off to the Dog's Trust nearby - lovely premises, bunch of cheery
women in reception who had us fill out a form before allowing us access to look at their dogs, and carried on gossiping amongst themselves... We wandered around looking through the glass at various dogs, and it soon became plain that many dogs were in pens other than those with their names and brief details on, and many had assorted pools of pee and poo that hadn't been cleared up - we saw three "possibles" and went out to reception to find out more - head gossiper scanned the form and announced they had no dogs at all that were suitable - upon asking "why?" it appeared that the fact that my grandson visited us was enough to deem them all "unsuitable".... we left, came home, the ladies of the family tootled off to do other things, and I went back to Raystede on my own with a view to probably dismissing the Staffie as being a touch too boisterous - when I arrived, the lovely lady in reception said "why not take her round the walk first?" - we wandered round it together, and she soon worked her magic on me - she was just overjoyed to have a friend to walk and talk with her, and when I sat down on a bench half way round, she laid her head on my lap and visibly smiled........... I took an "executive decision", and wandered back to reception to register my interest - having had a long chat with their rehoming specialist, they accepted the RSPCA home check form, had me sign a disclaimer, and let me take her home for the long holiday weekend, on the basis of "either bring her back, or come and sign the adoption forms" - we went back and signed the forms...

So there are truly dreadful rescue centres, and some really excellent ones too - I shall be forever grateful to the two "off-putting" ones for steering me back towards what has turned out to be probably the best dog we've ever owned (after a lifetime of other rescue dogs, we've usually had 2 at any one time) - so whether it's a dog, cat, gerbil, pony or chicken, somewhere there's a pet that will be very grateful for the home you can give it - and it's worth every bit of any potential hassle....

 

[tkwinston4]

And of course in the dog world there are Greyhounds often put down after a short racing life.

http://www.greyhoundrescue.co.uk/

Can I also recommend GRWE?

http://www.grwe.com/homingWelfare_dogsForHoming.asp

I got my beautiful boy from them and they are all lovely people with a massive passion for rescuing and rehabilitating as many greyhounds and lurchers as they can.

 

[johnnythefridge]

Recycled Dawg.

We patronised the Blue Cross @ Bromsgrove for the purchase of our dog Paddy, they seemed fair, wanted to interview the whole family & insited on visiting the house & garden. Cost us £75 all in for the dawg, but they did give us money off the neutering process..... Conclusion: We got a cracking dog, I can't fault the Blue Cross. The picture is of The missus being towed around the paddock at the Blue Cross center by Paddy whilst we were vetted.

 

[hedgerow pete]

yes sorry to say the kdl did every thing posible to put me off there dogs going, staff, animal housing, animal care, animal health, paper work, rules, regulations, every thing, crying shame as they in theory try to do a good job.

sorry but i strongly belive the rspca should be shut down on criminal charges all staff taken out and the ones not doing time should either be shoot or retrained and a new version of the rspca we could call it the honest and legal rspca and the whole lot started again.

the biggest problem i have had with merlin the new rescue whippet is that at 2 years old the boy had never spent a day indoors and was not house trained, and that has taken a year to almost perfect, we still have acidents.

what does get my goat is the people who do grayhound raceing they just seam to breed dogs like mad use them for a year or untill they are of no use and then discard them, that to me is shocking behavour

 

[rae]

The only problem I have with rehoming dogs is that you are sharing the house with an animal that could quite easily rip your face off if it put its mind to it. OK, we have a German Shepherd, which is a pretty big and capable dog, but you get the idea.

An anecdote to illustrate. When I was much younger, my Uncle had a German Shepherd, and it was a big 'un called Wolf. By all accounts a lovely loyal dog. Unfortunately, he was murdered in a deeply unpleasant manner, and the dog would have been with him when it happened. So my Aunt moved back to the UK, put the dog though quarantine, and kept it in a bungalow. However, she soon realised that she weighed about 55 kilos and she had no business being dragged around by a dog that weighed about 40 kilos and was used to a range of about 2000 acres. So she put it up for rehoming. It was quickly rehomed, and all was good for a few months. Then, one cold night, the new owners wife thought that the sleeping dog would be happier with a blanket over it, and did just that. The dog, on waking up suddenly, went into full attack mode and did its best to kill her. Lots of hospital and stitches, dog put down. God knows what it was thinking when it woke up, it probably had the canine equivalent of post traumatic stress and just flipped.

I have no problem re-homing cats (and we have had several), small dogs or old dogs. With a big dog, I'd need to know the history.

 

[Brosville]

Even bees can (very rarely) cause fatalities..........if we took the attitude that dogs were potentially lethal, then we'd better get rid of all cars, knives, and come to that, underpants and socks, which are responsible for all sorts of injuries....
Put the rare occurrence of problems up against the great good that comes from dog ownership them I reckon it's "no contest" - old people have companions, the deaf and blind are given their freedom, and a great many of us are forced into taking necessary exercise by dog ownership....

 

[rae]

Put the rare occurrence of problems up against the great good that comes from dog ownership them I reckon it's "no contest"

Agree entirely, I am not against dog ownership in the slightest (as I said, we have one).

 

[Luminos]

The only problem I have with rehoming dogs is that you are sharing the house with an animal that could quite easily rip your face off if it put its mind to it. OK, we have a German Shepherd, which is a pretty big and capable dog, but you get the idea.

An anecdote to illustrate. When I was much younger, my Uncle had a German Shepherd, and it was a big 'un called Wolf. By all accounts a lovely loyal dog. Unfortunately, he was murdered in a deeply unpleasant manner, and the dog would have been with him when it happened. So my Aunt moved back to the UK, put the dog though quarantine, and kept it in a bungalow. However, she soon realised that she weighed about 55 kilos and she had no business being dragged around by a dog that weighed about 40 kilos and was used to a range of about 2000 acres. So she put it up for rehoming. It was quickly rehomed, and all was good for a few months. Then, one cold night, the new owners wife thought that the sleeping dog would be happier with a blanket over it, and did just that. The dog, on waking up suddenly, went into full attack mode and did its best to kill her. Lots of hospital and stitches, dog put down. God knows what it was thinking when it woke up, it probably had the canine equivalent of post traumatic stress and just flipped.

I have no problem re-homing cats (and we have had several), small dogs or old dogs. With a big dog, I'd need to know the history.

Not just big dogs.
I have friends who, some years ago, left their yorkie shut in the kitchen with their papillons, while they went to a local Christmas carol concert.
When they got back, the yorkie had torn one of the papillons to bits, so much so that their vet had to put her to sleep.

My friends gave the yorkie away to one of their daughters.

 

[Winker]

what does get my goat is the people who do grayhound raceing they just seam to breed dogs like mad use them for a year or untill they are of no use and then discard them, that to me is shocking behavour

My daughter has worked at a Greyhound Racing Kennel for 6 years now. She trains the dogs to race and looks after their general health. She is in charge of 120 dogs. Only 32 of these dogs race for a living, the rest (78) of the dogs are all retired and live their entire life at the Kennels with lots of room to run around and play with the other dogs.

When they do breed their dogs, its only the top 1% that get to breed and they have to have won over 10 races to get the chance to breed.

So i would disagree with your opinion of Greyhound racing kennels.