SURRENDER POLICY
All dogs can be saved but not all dogs should be!
Please understand, although biting and prey/chase drive are natural behaviours that every dog can exhibit, we cannot take in dogs that are outright aggressive to people or other dogs and animals. By this, we are talking about dogs whose first reaction to new dogs, animals or people is to lunge, attack, bite or mutilate when there was no obvious or even apparent threat (refer to the Dog Aggression Ladder). They are not interested in any other option, such as avoiding, running away or hiding. The time and money spent with one aggressive dog to get them to a point of adoption, if ever - plus finding an adopter that is willing to continue to work with the dog and manage the risk for the rest of its life - we could take in, care for and re-home multiple dogs with few, if any, issues.
The behaviours we will work with are:
- excessive herding behaviour (circling, nipping heels, stalking, heading off "runaways"), excessive energy and high play drive
- shy or reserved dogs
- herding dogs that show no herding instinct at all
- food or toy reactive dogs (also known as resource guarders)
- leash reactive or fence fighters/runners (also known as barrier aggression)
- fearfully reactive dogs (if they would rather run/hide instead of fight or they would only snap IF cornered or confronted by that "thing" that triggers their fear reaction)
- dogs with a bite history will be considered ONLY if the circumstances leading to the bite and the severity of the bite (refer to Dr. Ian Dunbar's Bite Level Chart) are disclosed
We try to take at least 30 days to get to know fearful dogs or dogs with a bite history, as their problem issues may not be very apparent at the initial assessment. If they prove to be a danger to us, we will not put them into adoption. We cannot risk putting the general public in danger and we will take them to our vet for euthanasia if you are unable to take them back to have it done by your own vet.
We are often near, or at, CAPACITY!
Unfortunately, we are limited in our available foster homes & vet funds. For every one dog adopted, there are two waiting to take the open spot. If the dogs are safe where they are for now, we can create a courtesy posting on our Facebook page with the information provided. However, we do not monitor the courtesy postings or screen interested parties. Our time & resources must go into helping the dogs in our care first.