How To Choose Your Dog – Finding A Good Rescue Organisation

If you’re the sort of person who likes to give a recycled dog a second chance, it’s easily done. It doesn’t matter whether you want a pure breed, or a general ‘mutt’. If you’ve done your lifestyle checks properly you’ll know what kind of world your dog has to fit.

If you have a dog allergy you can also adopt a low allergy dog from a rescue organisation. It takes a bit more planning, but it’s very possible.

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Types of rescue organisation

Rescue organisations tend to come in 3 main types:

  • National kennel-based chains
  • Local kennel-based rescues, and
  • Specialist breed rescues.

As suggested, larger organisations tend to have dogs in kennels. Specialist breed rescues tend to operate through a network of foster homes with a central coordinator.

If you don’t have a dog allergy, you can go to all of these. If you have a dog allergy, a specialist pure breed rescue is where you should start. That’s because the people involved usually specialise in that breed, so you get less ‘cross contamination’ from other dog breeds. Your allergy testing is more reliable that way.

Top tips for a good rescue

Rescue organisations all want the same thing, but they’re not all good. You want to pick a good one (or ones) to do business with. So here are some top tips on what to look for:

  1. The rescue should have a return rate of less than 10% of the dogs they home
  2. It should be clean, tidy and well organised, including the areas where the dogs are housed
  3. They should answer the phone or e-mail enquiries promptly
  4. Find a rescue where the people are welcoming, friendly and knowledgeable about the dogs they have
  5. Make sure the dogs have space and room to run and are exercised daily
  6. Find a rescue which will give you after care and support, including courses and seminars (you might have to pay for them, but they will be worth the investment)
  7. Find a rescue which feeds the best food they can afford within their means
  8. Find a rescue which requires home checks and a homing contract – as this protects both of you in case of problems later on

There’s a lot more to learn about finding a great rescue organisation than can be fitted into this article.  And a lot more about choosing your dog in my bigger, better free Quick Start Guide.  

So if you’re keen on giving a dog a second (or third, or even fourth) chance at happiness, learn everything you need about choosing your dog from rescue centres in The Ultimate Guide To Choosing A Dog