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As a rescuers, we need to be honest with ourselves about the image we present to the public. Reader Kelly shares the difficulties and frustrations she and her housemates are having in trying to adopt a dog in 2011. After weeks of searching they considered finding a breeder instead. How many potential adopters are we losing each week?

– Mike

Girl Seeks Dog – the frustration of a wannabe dog adopter

Last year, my happy house of 3 (My boyfriend Blake, flatmate Tracey and myself) decided that what we were missing was a dog.  General consensus was that we would be much better people if we had a dog.  A scruff ball of love that looks like it has fallen off the back of a garbage truck.  After talking through the reality of having a dog, we decided that we would wait until early in the new year to adopt a rescue dog.  If the media was to be believed, post Christmas is prime puppy/dog dumping period and we would have no problem what so ever having our pick of perfect for us dogs from a shelter.  We have since learnt that this is not the case.

We put together a Mood Board to help give people an idea of what we were looking for.

6 weeks ago, we saw a medium terrier cross listed online at one of the major animal shelters.  Blake and I went there and saw that she already had two holds on her.  Who would have thought that you could put holds on animals?  It is not like they are a pair of jeans that you need to go home and think about.  We were still able to meet this scruff ball of awesomeness and there was an instant love between her, Blake and myself.  We wanted to take her then and there but as she had two holds on her already we were told to call back half an hour before closing time the following day.   We finally got through to someone the following day and were told that the dog was still available and that all of her holds had fallen through.  As it was closing time, I put her on hold to pick up he next day.  When we called on Monday, they told us that she was adopted out on the Sunday.  As disappointing as this was, we shrugged it off as a one off miscommunication.  If only this was the case.  It was the start of a very emotional process of searching for a rescue dog and dealing with organisations that are not always about what is best for the animals.

A friend at work introduced me to Mike Bailey and goodfordogs.org.  Before goodfordogs.org, I had no idea that there were so many different shelters in Melbourne.  Through goodfordogs.org I have seen many little scruff balls that look ace.  Pets Haven have had quite a few, however as we work during the week, we cannot get out there before they close as they are only open during business hours (as are most shelters).  Come the weekend, the dogs have been re-homed.

We saw another dog listed at the first shelter and when we went there on the same day again were told that he too was on hold.  The staff were very busy this day talking amongst themselves.  One of them had slept with someone hideous on the weekend and it was extremely important to giggle and gossip about it with each other before providing any kind of service to the public.  When they finished their story, we explained that we were missing out on dogs and were after advice on what to do.  The response was “if you see any dogs on line that you might even think you like, ring up and put them on hold.  It doesn’t matter how many, put them all on hold”.  I think that this is the most ridiculous process ever.

Meanwhile, I had become obsessed with searching for dogs.  Every spare minute I was searching shelter listings and petrescue.com.au.  So much that I could no longer tell if I even liked any of the dogs that I was looking at.  Blake and Tracey thought it both sad and amusing the dogs I was trying to convince them (and me) would be good choices.  Throughpetrescue.com.au I found a dog rescue group that had heaps of dogs that I was interested in meeting.  After filling in and emailing off a very detailed 4 page application form, I waited for quite some time to be told that dog I liked was best suited to living in a house with other dogs but maybe I would like to chose from an attached list.  I asked about 1 or 2 other ones and heard nothing back for quite a few days.  I did receive a phonecall from a volunteer conducting a phone interview to deem if I was suitable to be a dog owner.  Out of the 10 questions on the phone interview, 8 were exactly the same as the form I had sent earlier.  However, I did make it sound like my sole purpose for being on this earth is to own a dog.  I was told that I should have a dog within the next week as it will be a quick process.  That was over 2 weeks ago.  I keep getting asked if there are any other dogs that I interested in, yet all I want is an answer on the 2 dogs I have already asked after.  I have found that the profile information listed does not mention enough detail as to what home is acceptable for the dogs as deemed by them.  So much time is wasted going through invalid applications due to lack of initial profile knowledge of the dogs instead of actual time spent re-homing them.

I have found myself at one stage during this process almost panic buying a dog from a shelter.  Thank goodness I didn’t have access to a car.

My manic searching has been reduced to looking once at night time and once first thing in the morning.  I thought that this had paid off when when I found the ideal dog – Captain Morgan Furchild at the first shelter we went to.  We placed him on hold and was told that we were first hold and the dog was ours.  Tracey, Blake and I spent the whole day showing the picture to all of our work mates, I sent it to my family and we sent it to our friends.  Blake went out at lunchtime and purchased dog beds and toys in excitement.  Before we left, Blake called to double check that Captain Morgan Furchild was still there.  He was put on hold and transferred to a senior member of staff.  Blake was then told that they had not honored the hold and the dog had been rehomed to another family.  Apparently someone had seen Blake’s name on the paper on Captain’s cage and claimed to be him.  No one bothered to check id.  We were told that Captain did not get along with imposter Blake’s dog, and was taken off hold leaving him open to be rehomed with someone else.  We were devastated.  Not only because we had missed out, but because we had followed all of the shelters processes to be let down by staff laziness and poor/lack of procedures for the second time.  Blake let them know just how angry and upset we were.  The response from the senior staff member was that she was going to personally find us the best dog ever (shouldn’t she see all dogs as being the best dog ever?) and pleaded with Blake not to take this further.  It was a bit late by this stage for the shelter to be concerned about bad worth of mouth and negative PR.  They did offer us another dog that was not close to the brief of dog that we are after.  It felt like a band aid solution in hope to shut us up.

The option that I am now looking at is finding a dog from a shelter interstate.  My family are near the AWL shelter in Queensland so I have them on “meet and greet duty” should I see a dog online.

This process has been a real eye opener to just how hard it is to find a rescue dog.  Shelters not being open during the times that most people can actually go to them, ridiculous hold systems, lazy staff, lack of process, miscommunication, lengthy applications with no outcomes – make me see why people give up and go to pet stores or breeders.  I have a massive stubborn streak that won’t let this process beat me.

Mike also gave me the best advice  when he said “unless you met Blake when you were 16, it took some time for you to meet the right partner.  It is the same with finding the perfect dog.”

While we wait to find the perfect dog for us, we remain a happy house of 3 with a dog house, dog bowls, dog bed and dog toys ready to love our potential scruffy dog friend like crazy when we finally meet them and bring them home.