Category: “Rescue”

Rescue specific articles relating to the inner workings, outer workings, day to day and general experiences of running a non profit dog rescue.

Fostering vs. Adopting: Navigating the Path to Canine Companionship

Welcoming a furry friend into your home can be an immensely rewarding experience, not only for you but also for the four-legged companion who becomes a part of your family. When it comes to bringing a dog into your life, you have two main options: fostering and adopting. While both involve providing a loving home to a dog in need, they serve different purposes and come with unique considerations. In this blog post, we’ll explore the key differences between fostering and adopting a dog, helping you make an informed decision that aligns with your lifestyle and preferences.

Fostering a Dog: A Temporary Haven

Fostering a dog involves providing a temporary home for a dog in need, typically through a rescue organization or shelter. Fostering plays a crucial role in the rehabilitation and transition of dogs from shelters to forever homes. Here’s what you need to know about fostering:

  1. Temporary Commitment: Fostering is not a lifelong commitment. Fosters provide a safe and nurturing environment until a permanent home is found. This option is ideal for individuals who are unsure about long-term dog ownership or have temporary availability.
  2. Helping Dogs Transition: Many shelter dogs may have had difficult experiences in the past, making the transition to a home environment challenging. Fostering helps these dogs adjust to home life, potentially improving their chances of being adopted.
  3. Flexibility: Fostering allows you to experience dog companionship without permanent responsibilities. It’s an excellent way to assess if having a dog is the right fit for your lifestyle before committing to adoption.
  4. Emotional Investment: While fostering requires emotional investment, knowing that you’re helping a dog on its journey to a forever home can be incredibly fulfilling.

Adopting a Dog: A Lifelong Bond

Adopting a dog means bringing a dog into your home with the intention of providing a permanent, forever home. This choice comes with its own set of considerations:

  1. Long-Term Commitment: Adopting a dog is a lifetime commitment. Dogs thrive on stability and routine, and adopting ensures your furry friend has a forever home where they can grow, bond, and thrive.
  2. Personal Connection: The bond formed through adoption is profound. As you provide a loving home, the dog becomes an integral part of your family, enriching your life with companionship and unconditional love.
  3. Known Behavior: Adopting an adult dog may provide more insight into their behavior and personality compared to puppies. This can help you choose a dog whose traits align with your lifestyle.
  4. Potential Challenges: Adopted dogs might have experienced traumas or health issues that require patience, training, and sometimes financial commitment. However, overcoming these challenges can lead to a stronger bond.

Whether you choose to foster or adopt a dog, you’re making a significant positive impact on the lives of these loyal companions. Fostering provides a vital bridge for dogs seeking forever homes, while adoption offers a lifelong commitment that leads to a deep and lasting relationship. Your decision ultimately depends on your current circumstances, lifestyle, and personal preferences.

If you’re looking for a short-term commitment or want to test the waters of dog ownership, fostering might be the perfect fit. On the other hand, if you’re ready to open your heart and home to a furry friend for life, adoption could be the path to a companionship that’s as enduring as it is rewarding. Whichever path you choose, your decision to care for a dog in need is a noble and heartwarming choice that will undoubtedly enrich your life.

Ready to move forward? Click here to fill out a foster application and here for an adoption application.

Category Meet Our Pets, Rescue
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Post Date August 3, 2023

New Adoption Program

As many of you know, rescue is hard – and expensive!

In an effort to place as many dogs as possible, we have changed our adoption process. We now fundraise before we pull to cover the costs associated with taking the dogs in. Typically, this covers their bail, expected vet costs, and grooming. Additionally, we must secure foster homes for the dogs before we can commit to pull them. This is a way for us to keep costs in check and continue our mission to save as many dogs as we can.

Even though we are a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, we still have to pay for vet care, grooming, food, etc. for each of our rescues. The main shelter we pull from doesn’t always have the ability to get the dogs the medical care they need. For these dogs, we need to raise funds to cover the expenses we pay for spay/neuters, shots, deworming, and microchipping, to name a few. Other shelters have reduced fees and in those cases, the bail money will be less.

If you’d like to be involved as a foster, please fill out a foster application. Fosters are able to adopt the dog they are fostering. If you’d like to pay bail for an upcoming dog, you can donate here.

Once the dogs are ready to be adopted, we request that new adopters pay it forward with a donation to cover the next dog’s bail money.

Category Rescue
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Post Date August 2, 2023

Out Of The Darkness, Ben’s Rescue Story

Out Of The Darkness, Ben’s Rescue Story

Ben, a beautiful 1.5-year-old dog, was born into a world of darkness. From the moment he opened his eyes, he could not see the light, colors, or the faces of his mother and siblings. Despite his disability, Ben had a heart full of curiosity and love.

Ben as a 5 month old baby

But his innocence was shattered when he was taken away from his mother and sold to an abusive owner. For the first few months of his life, he was forced to live in a cramped, filthy cage, with no love or compassion. The only touch he felt was the harsh hands of his cruel owner, who hit him when he cried or barked.

As Ben grew older, his blindness made him even more vulnerable. He couldn’t see the obstacles in his path, the toys he wanted to play with, or the people he longed to be with. He was trapped in a world of darkness, loneliness, and fear.

One day, a kind-hearted person rescued Ben from his misery and brought him to our rescue. But despite the love and care he’s received, he still struggles with the trauma of his past. He flinches at sudden movements, cowers in fear at loud noises, and hesitates to trust anyone.

However, we won’t give up on him. We will continue to shower him with patience, understanding, and love. We are teaching him to navigate the world, using his other senses, and helping him overcome his fears. We will never give up on him, even when he has fits of frustration.

Ben is slowly beginning to trust again. He wags his tail at the sound of our voices, perk his ears up when we approach, and even nuzzles his nose into our hands.

Over time, Ben will blossom into a happy and confident dog. He will learned to run, play, and explore the world, using his nose, ears, and heart. He’ll wag his tail in delight when he feels the warmth of his family’s love, and his once-fearful heart will be filled with trust and joy.

Ben’s story is a testament to the power of resilience and love. It reminds us that, no matter how dark our world may seem, there is always a ray of hope that can lead us to a brighter future.

But we can’t do it without your help. Please sponsor a dog today and help us fulfill our mission to help dogs like Ben.

Category Meet Our Pets, Rescue
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Post Date February 20, 2023

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!

Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!

Sometimes at our rescue we get to name the dogs, and it’s fun. Marsha was one of those cases. She came to us a sweet. loving playful little girl. While with us we were so happy to see how she got along with every other dog, even tolerated Charlie being mean and barking at her. Nothing seemed to phase this sweet girl As we continued to observe her pack play behavior we realized that she was one of the most well-balanced dogs we had at the rescue.

As many of you know we have a trainer at The Rescued Pup that specializes in helping people with their stressed out, or naughty dogs. One of her clients had a dog that was struggling with separation anxiety. Our trainer decided to foster Marsha to her clients for one week. This would give Marsha a break from the rescue life and give the family dog a chance to see stress free crate behavior. The hope was for Marsha to model the benefits of a crate.

The week came and went and the family took amazing care of Marsha, Marsha made new friends and learned what it felt like to be part of a loving family. The family dog learned the crate was actually an ok place to be and instead of barking and drooling he could enjoy a treat or take a nap when he was in his.

At the end of the week Marsha came back to the rescue, the foster Mom was sad, the family dog seemed stressed and Marsha was so so sad.

The agreement was that we would wait until the weekend to see how the family dog did in the crate. He reverted back to the previous behavior rather quickly. Marsha was flat out depressed for 3 days, but then she started to play with the other dogs again and she even ate a little something.

We met with the family on the phone and it was agreed that Marsha would become a part of their family. Hooray! I had the pleasure of transporting her to her new forever home. As we loaded her into the vehicle she seemed so confused and sad. It was a look we see often, and my heart felt a pang of sadness for what must be going through her mind. What had car rides meant to her in her short life? A trip to the shelter to be dumped as a “stray”. Then a long trip to the rescue, a trip to the vet where unmentionable things happened (hint: she had to wear a plastic cone after) and of course the trip away from what she clearly thought was her new family. I wished I could tell her that she was going back. As we left the rescue I saw the same sad dog, laying flat in the crate, head down, ears down, heartbreakingly sad.

We made pretty good time that day. As we got off the freeway and closer to the area of her foster home, I sew her head pick up, her ears perked a little. And then when we turned at the main light before their house she sat up, nose in the air and started breathing and smelling so hard! It felt like I could hear her thoughts, so I said to her “Yes! We are going to see them!” I rolled down all the windows so she could know where we were and as we pulled onto their street I could see in her face that she knew where we were.

The family had gathered everyone together for the reintroduction and filmed it. It was so touching to see her run person to person and back to the dog to tell everyone how much she had missed them and give them hugs.

I’ve transported many dogs to their forever homes or to rescue from the shelter, but that day will stick with me forever.

Congratulations to Marsha! Now Wanda McPickle on finding the most wonderful forever family.

Category Rescue
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Post Date June 15, 2021
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The Heart of Rescue

Giselle as a baby on her way to gaining weight

People say it takes a big heart to do rescue. We agree and think it also takes a big heart for some of our rescues to pull through. Giselle is a perfect example of a dog with a big heart and a strong will to live.

I remember the day Giselle was brought to the shelter like it happened yesterday. Two nicely dressed women brought her in and said they had found her in an abandoned lot while our for their lunch walk. At first glance, she seemed like a little old lady, her frail body hunched over, fur missing, eyes dull showing signs of cataracts and she smelled of skin infections. I was on my way out the door with my newest load of dogs and remembered feeling so frustrated because for every 5 we pulled it seemed like 7 more came in.

Giselle after her first vet visit.

The next trip out to the shelter was just 4 days later, and the tiny old lady dog was still there – she was still on the legal timeline to be held as a stray. I asked about her and almost fell over when the Director at the shelter told me the dog was roughly 8 weeks old. 8 weeks?! I asked if I could pull her as a foster and get her to the vet that day. Within 20 minutes we were at the local vet getting this little baby dewormed, some bloodwork run and ordering special nutrient-dense food. We named her Giselle because she was long and lanky like a Gazelle and when she was wrapped up in my arms and her body finally relaxed, I could see how beautiful she was. I felt lucky to be able to foster her until her time at the shelter was up.

No big surprise, no one ever came to claim her. 4 days later we were back at the vet with Giselle, and she had lost weight. I also noted to the vet how much she was urinating and how the medicated shampoo wasn’t helping, her skin was sloughing off, and the smell was getting worse. He checked her blood sugar level, a couple of times, it was 1100! Now we knew what her issue was, she was a diabetic little baby. She was so tiny none of the insulin would work for Giselle. We were sent home with a plan to try and get just a little more weight on her, check her blood sugar once a day and come back as soon as she weighed enough for insulin shots.

Thankfully Giselle loved baby food chicken and she put on the weight easily once we cut out the sugar-infused diet we’d been feeding her! Being relatively new to rescue, having a dog with an ongoing medical issue was something that was so frightening and overwhelming, but this little girl needed me so I stepped up. Giselle had to have her blood sugar levels checked hourly to start, and had insulin shots 2 times a day. She was a brittle diabetic which meant that she could crash out with no warning. So Giselle went *everywhere* with me. She went to my son’s Cross Country meets, she went to shelters to pull dogs, she went to the grocery store, she sat on a pillow outside my shower. She loved everyone that she met and always seemed to know that people were trying to help her.

Giselle and her furever family

In rescue, it’s common to get a dog that you figure is just going to stay with you for their whole life. I used to joke that we didn’t have a lot of people coming in asking if we had any juvenile diabetic dogs with missing fur, bad eyes and messed up teeth – but then one day an angel named Tony came to our little shop. He met Giselle and it was love at first sight. He didn’t care that she needed shots, or that she’d have to have her blood sugar tested constantly, he didn’t seem to notice that her fur was missing in some spots, he just saw her heart and her will to live and he adopted her.

Giselle was his princess and he took such amazing care of her. He got her skin problems figured out, her tiny little body had many infections both fungal and bacterial and while we had been treating them, they ran deeper than we knew. Giselle’s family spared no expense in getting her the absolute best care. It’s hard to believe but she even balanced out her sugar crashes and was living a pretty normal life as the princess of the house.

Giselle in her own play yard

Unfortunately, even with the best care, her body had been through a lot of stress, her organs especially. Last week Giselle’s owner had to make the difficult decision to let her go. She was in renal failure and the prognosis was not good. She was surrounded by those that loved her when she passed and for that, we are so thankful.

The heart of rescue is a strong, big, beautiful thing. Tony needed some advice and help with what to do with Giselle’s care in her last days. Tony reached out to the founder, Kelly Smisek at Frosted Faces Foundation. Even though Giselle wasn’t from her rescue, she graciously agreed to help Tony. For those that aren’t familiar, Frosted Faces Foundation helps mainly senior dogs and is familiar with medical issues affecting the aged dog. Their help was so appreciated.

I know Giselle is running around somewhere having the time of her life, finally strong enough to play. And I know the heart of that little rescue dog touched my spirit from the moment I met her. I hope you get to truly experience the heart of a rescue in your life too.

Giselle Christmas 2019
Category Rescue
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Post Date January 9, 2020