Arkansas and SC transports needed!

[moniechris]

My dear friend Judi is the Southern representative for the CKCS rescue organization. She currently has two cavies in need of transport: one in Arkansas, and one in SC. Let me know if anyone can help!! Here is the email she sent to me:

I have 2 in rescue as of today and I have been asked to foster one of them because has a kidney disorder and needs to be fully evaluated but she is in Birmingham AL. I am working on an airline transport (someone to fly with her in the cabin) but can't set that up till Mar 5 or 6. So now I am working on a driving transport. So far I have someone willing to get her to I 10 in Florida just east of Tallahassee and am trying to set up the trip from there to Orlando. Her name is Bella, she is about a year old and too cute for words.
I have another little boy in ARKANSAS! He is a puppy mill baby, also too cute but has issues with house training and was placed twice by the Midwest region rescue and returned. His name is Beau and he is on the website under the southern region now and I hope we can find him just one more, forever home and not have him bouncing all over the place.

PM me if you can help!!

[Karlin]

Can't help with transport -- but a suggestion -- why don't they place Beau with a long term foster? Just a couple of weeks would get him well on his way regarding housetraining. I'd take any dog with an issue like that and put him with someone who can get him over that hump so that there's little chance of him bouncing back (or only with an experienced dog home).

[moniechris]

I am not exactly sure as to why he keeps getting rehomed so I don't know if the potty training is the issue. I don't know much about his story at all, but usually the fosters are at least a month.
What I do know is that Judi was NOT impressed with the applicants and threw almost all of them out, as she would have thrown the one's out who poor little Beau got rejected by. Some people are just more stringent than other's in their placement, and in this rescue, the fosters choose who the dog goes to, and apparently they were not careful enough. (Hence why we are moving him further South so we can have more control..)

I don't know why anyone would expect to take in a rescue and have it completely potty trained, so I hope there is more to it than just that.

[Mic]

Monica,
I sent you a PM.

[Karlin]

Thanks for the update.

Even good sounding homes often turn out to be quite different when you homecheck... or after they have the dog for a while. People are often quite idealistic when they apply for a dog especially a rescue, and most especially, a rescue that came from an unfortunate background that will be a bit of a challenge. People like to offer a home to the especially needy ones even though they really have not thought through that the dog is just that: especially needy (we see this all the time with my rescue colleagues who have TV slots -- 30 people will apply for the blind dog and none, when they failt o get it, will consider all the others at the shelter! Yet almost always none of those homes is remotely acceptable to home a blind dog...).

One reason why experienced fosters are so wonderful -- they can help to get such a dog to a much more stable place and better ready for a successful adoption. Good fosters are worth their weight in gold.

All that said the more work done by the rescue before placing a dog the better. That means a pretty blunt evaluation. Some of the best homes I've found are the ones that others might reject out of hand -- lower income homes, working homes, no-garden homes... because that may be where the biggest hearts nd the greatest dedication is from the p[rospective owners. Some of the worst are the upmarket homes that say all the right things but are really looking for a clean, odorless, undemanding accessory, not a dog, or people we know in one way and because of that, we fail to evaluate them throughly for owning a dog (eg family friends and so on).

I've had dogs returned before. and needing re=placement -- and housetraining can be a BIG issue for many people -- but with something like a housetraining issue for a puppy mill rescue, that would be or should have been fairly predictable and talked through or support provided etc. Fingers crossed he finds just the right home this time around (both these dogs! ).