Rescue Journal

firing up the ole brain here...

Carol  ·  Jun. 11, 2009

my daughter called me today...they had a stray dog at her school...it was out of the local SPCA's juristiction so i went down and got her and reported that i had her to both the spca and the bylaws folks (who were responsible for stray dogs).

anyway..she did go home..with a lecture. she was in heat and running loose. AND was adopted from a "rescue" 6 weeks ago...she was originally brought up from mexico, cute little small breed, under a year old and pregnant to boot (i am assuming her pups didn't get spayed or neutered before adoption either.)
ok..so i have issues here...cross border rescue is fine with me. saving any dog at all...mixed or purebreed, large or small..whatever, go ahead...save them all.

but please at least spay and neuter the little buggers before you set them loose to breed up here.

anyway..don't know the group..never heard of them before. that's happening a lot lately cuz new "rescues" are spring up all over the place.

but what is getting confusing now is the term "rescue" and what it applies to...is it actually rescue, re-homing or brokering or a combination of all three.

so i thought i might to try to simply clarify, the differences in each.

re-homing = providing a service to humans to find new homes for their family pets. and to provide another service to humans to find the pet that they want. it usually requires both a surrender and an adoption fee so they get paid from both ends. it usually involves animals that are in fact re-homable and somewhat in demand. you won't find alot of sick, biting, destructive, or ugly, pain in the ass animals among these ranks.

brokering is a business based service to humans driven by supply and demand. these animals are "rescued" from areas where young, small, cute and highly adoptable animals are a dime a dozen, tossed away because of a glut on the market and generally facing death due to an over abundance of too many of them. they are "rescued" from probable death and moved to a different geographical area where they hold more value and stand a very good chance of being adopted. again...you won't find alot of rotti/shep crosses with incontinence or biting issues...but you will find a cute, young little dog with a pretty sad story behind it. the "adoption" fees for these animals are market driven..$400 or $500 is a fairly average fee.

now i don't really care if folks re-home or broker but understand the 2 key differences between these enterprises and rescue.

rescue is NOT nor ever will be a service provided for helping humans in either acquistion or in disposal of their pets. it is for the animals wellbeing only...humans, either surrenders or potential adopters can take care of their own wants and needs.

AND more importantly (at least in my opinion)..rescue is about helping the ones that you really don't want to help at all cuz they will be REALLY hard to find homes for.... the old, the ugly, the pain in the asses, the biters, the house soilers and pee'ers, the destructive freak outs, the ones that drive everyone nutz and the plain jane rotti/shep/pitbull crosses rotting in our shelters of which we have an over abundance of our own right here.

and don't ever tell me rescue is a business because i will swoon at your feet...rescue is not a business. it is an act of compassionate kindness and faith and freaking hard and frustrating work. and every single one of us do it for free...the animals do not have to earn their keep or recoup our losses or turn over fast enough with adoption fees to keep the money flowing into the bank.

they don't have to do anything..they don't have to be adopted, they don't have to be in demand, they don't even have to ever be wanted by anyone..all i want is for them to be happy here if nowhere else is available for them to be happy in.
that is rescue to me.

Comments

Colleen

Thanks for the break down. I was wondering about the re-homing part.

But re-homing is subjective, correct? Depends upon this, or that,and especially the dogs interest. A grey part in all of it.

Did that make sense? :)