09/01/2026
Two cent Tuesday 🤔
So this Rescue thing… It’s a lot! There are countless dogs who are in dire need for Rescue. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. A dog is suffering somewhere. It breaks a rescuers heart to have to say no. To watch what’s going on in the world. The cruelty. The neglect. How easily discarded these living breathing beings are. Sometimes it’s justified to give up a dog but most of the time it isn’t. If we could, we would help every single one of them. But that’s where sometimes the chaos, the dysfunction, the addiction, the hoarding, even abuse starts. Even within Rescue. Sometimes they’re just pretend rescues and I just in it for the money. Sometimes it’s legit rescues that really tried but got so overwhelmed. As a startup Rescue, we are trying really really hard to not grow too fast too soon, which would in the end destroy us and causes more harm. So it breaks my heart to have to say no but it’s for the good of the Rescue’s future.
Then, there is the amount of time, effort, human – power, money, dedication and care it takes even before a dog enters rescue. The partnering with shelters which often make it so hard to work with them but civilians get dibs on an injured Malinois, which is mind-boggling to me. Then, there are things that have to be in place before we can pull a dog like an evaluation to make sure it’s placed correctly and we have the best idea about a dog that’s coming into Rescue. Organizing people who can pick up the dog, temporarily hold the dog, Transport, the dog, long-term Foster. The volunteers in the background working hard processing applications. Sometimes applicants have good intentions, but then disappear. Dealing with unforeseen hiccups like health, Transport issues, access to vets, change in Foster‘s availability. After we pushed to bring a dog into Rescue, we’re exhausted.
The last thought I’m having today is that of transparency. Our promise, in an effort to provide our dogs the right homes, is as much transparency as we can give. Whether that is regarding health, behavioral or training methods. We vet our dogs as much as possible. Oh and no, not all rescues are transparent.
For example, we have a bite risk dog in rescue right now and he will stay as long as is needed until/if he finds the perfect human who will work through it with him. We’ve been asked if we’d euthanize him and we will NOT! He’s too good of a boy! However, BE could become a necessity at some point with a dog and that will be a very serious decision. But again, transparency…nobody wants to hear that a rescue dog has to be euthanized but it happens. If a dog is a serious danger to everyone around and there’s no way to safely house it, that may have to be a decision we/rescues have to make. Please remember , there are very few people who can or are willing to work with serious reactivity and aggression!
Re training: We don’t claim to be in one or the other Camp . We strive to be educated and educate our fosters. There recently had been quite some drama in the Rescue world around this topic. We want to be clear that we are neither force free nor punishment only… Balanced means the ability to use whatever tools indicated for the dog in front of you. It does not mean starting with E collars and we would never put an E collar on a puppy, for example, but it means that we hope to have an educated community. Hence our support and partnership with the Foster Trainer program. Nothing is more dangerous than somebody using a tool that they don’t know how to use correctly! It’s called ignorance.
Just my two cents today… Obviously I didn’t cover every single piece to all of these thoughts, but I’m hoping I’m getting the right message across… This is hard and we appreciate the community that backs us, we hope for the community to learn and understand what happens behind the scenes and we hope to instill trust Via transparency.
💞
pic of Fenyx for attention - project dog extraordinaire…just wants to love but sometimes can’t handle the world…we get you buddy!
