Poochville (Dogs Trust)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Dogs Trust
Date:	16/11/06 (325 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Know what they are doing, they cover all the bases

Disadvantages: Costs more than you think to adopt a rescued dog

***Intro***
For anyone that doesn’t know then I’ve recently adopted a rescued dog. Yep, it’s currently destroying my house as we speak but it’s what my family wanted so I have to feel warm in the knowledge that my kids will grow up more emotionally stable and that the dog’s misdemeanors will distract my good lady from my own! We’ve always collectively believed in providing a home for rescued animals and have exercised our right to do just that with the three cats we have at the moment. Taking on a dog was a whole new ball game but by going through The Dog’s Trust (TDT) we found the whole thing painless and knew we had the support we needed in the future if anything went wrong.

***The Dog’s Trust***
TDT was founded in 1891 and was previously known as the National Canine Defence League (NCDL). Originally established to protect dogs from torture and neglect, the organization remains a big player in the field of rehoming dogs with over 300,000 members and supporters in its modern incarnation. TDT is a registered charity obtaining funding from donations from the public and proclaims itself to be the largest dog welfare charity in the UK. The organization has a comprehensive website at http://www.dogstrust.org.uk which is well worth a look if you are interested in giving a home to a rescued dog. With over 100,000 stray dogs found in the UK in 2005 alone, you can see that it’s a huge task finding homes for all of the canines that find themselves homeless and when you read about the fate of the majority of greyhounds, for instance, then it’s difficult to turn to a pedigree when you know a dog may die as a result of not helping. TDT has 17 centres across the UK including sites in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as England so there should be one within a reasonable travelling distance for most folks.

***My Experience***
The site has a 10-step process that gets folks started if you are interested. The initial step is to register on the site with a user name and password (usual details required i.e. name, address etc) and then complete a questionnaire that acts as a sift for both you and TDT. So the kind of questions you will encounter includes things like “Do you have a garden?” “What hours do you work?” “What other pets do you have?” and so on. All of these are factors will influence the kind of dog you end up with.

Steps 2 & 3 are talking to the staff about which dog will suit you the most and visiting the viewing kennels. Having filled in the questionnaire then the volunteers at the centre will have an idea of what kind of dog you should be looking for but we were left to our own devices at our first visit, to take in the various dogs on show at the kennels. A word of warning: not all of the dogs are on show as the centre operates a rotation policy to give every dog a chance of finding a new home. We didn’t find a suitable dog at our first attempt and the dogs on the website tend to be the ones that have been difficult to find a home for so may not be representative of the kind of animal you are looking for. You will also find a sift on the description on the front of the glass kennel i.e. this dog is not suitable for families with children; this dog will not mix with cats etc. This can be frustrating but they are there for a reason and you are better off respecting the staff’s judgment in these matters.

Steps 4 and 5 include shortlisting which dogs appeal to you and then meeting the selected dogs in a special meeting room. We chose four dogs we thought would suit, although by the time one of the staff came over to attend to us, we had to restrict ourselves to two as the others were being considered by other folks. We needn’t have worried; having met our choice of a 5-month old colley cross-breed, we fell in love with him straight away and couldn’t wait to get him home!

Steps 6 and 7 include a home visit and vet’s check. TDT didn’t go through with the home check for us as we lived too far away (the centre is in Kenilworth and we live in Northampton) so we had to take photographs of our garden, clearly showing the height of our fence. We passed this visual inspection although I did worry that, for all they knew, we could be doggy mass murderers planning to mince the pooch and make cheap curry from it. Still, I’m sure they would find this out somehow. Before we could take him home, the dog had to have a full veterinarian check over to make sure it wasn’t harbouring any evil lurgy.

Steps 8, 9 and 10 focus on the pre-adoption talk, taking the woofer home and follow up. My good lady had to go to the pre-adoption talk as it was during the week and I couldn’t get the time off work but she says it was useful covering basic stuff like toilet training, general behavioural bits and pieces and looking after your new dog in general. You’ll be told to avoid feeding it chocolate (poisonous, apparently), the right mix of foods and when to feed the dog and other useful stuff. We had to wait around ten days before finally taking our mutt home as he still needed some psychological assessment done to make sure he wasn’t a rabid man eater or anything like that. TDT take subsequent ownership very seriously and we had to sign a contact to say, amongst other things, that we would get the dog neutered by a certain deadline and that, should we find the pooch incompatible with our family for any reason, then ownership must be passed by way of legal assignment to any subsequent owners. I also had to pay £75 for the privilege of owning our new canine. The fee included a new collar and lead, a voucher towards the cost of getting the dog spayed and a chip implant in case he ever got lost so that we could be re-united via the computer database. We were also given free pet insurance with PetPlan for the first six weeks. We’ve decided to stick with PetPlan even though there are alternatives and a tip re pet insurance is to make sure that it’s life time cover and it doesn’t terminate when the dog reaches a certain age. You can bet your bottom dollar that when it reaches that age then that’s when you’ll need the cover the most!

***Advantages/Disadvantages***
As with most things, there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of using TDT include:

Plenty of locations to choose from
Comprehensive start up support
Good screening process
Follow up support
Free pet insurance for the first 6 weeks

The disadvantages include:

Only open from 12pm on Saturdays
Don’t always do home checks
It’s first come – first serve on Saturdays as most people arrive at midday!
Dogs can be high maintenance

***Conclusion***
Having previously dealt with organizations like the RSPCA and the Cat’s Protection League, I’ve been pleased with the professionalism of TDT. They’ve been attentive, supportive and generally, very helpful all the way through the process and it’s re-assuring to know that they are there should we need help in the future. As a nation of animal lovers, organisations like this serve to enrich our lives and so do a wonderful job in preventing dogs being destroyed unnecessarily. If you are considering adopting a rescued dog then I would recommend The Dog’s Trust implicitly. Now where's my shoe gone?!

Thanks for reading

Mara

Summary: Overview of TDT