Rachel Beard talks to volunteers who foster rescue dogs waiting for new families
Rachel Beard
“Milton, 6 year old Lab, ref. 126,” reads the advertisement. For most homeless dogs waiting to be adopted, the story ends there. But for Milton and the other dogs at Dogs in Distress, their story continues on at foster homes.
Dogs in Distress (DID) was founded not only to help find permanent homes for dogs, but also to find foster homes for them, where they stay until DID can find a family willing to adopt them.
“We move the dogs out of pounds and into foster homes,” DID co-director Kathy Doyle says. “We vaccinate them and assess what kind of home would suit them.”
Pounds can be quite traumatic for dogs, but Dog Trainer and Pet Psychologist Siobhan Owens from the Dublin Pet School says the trauma can vary “to some degree”.
“If you imagine you have a family dog that has been in the family for five years,” Siobhan says. “And for whatever reason, they can no longer keep the dog, and that dog goes from living on the couch and living in someone’s home to suddenly being in an environment like an animal shelter or a pound, then that’s massively traumatic for that dog.”
Health
Moving dogs from pounds to foster homes is not only better for their health, but it also allows DID to determine what homes would be the best fit for the dogs. Maureen Browne, who fosters for DID, started out just transporting dogs from the pound to foster families, but has since fostered and adopted one dog and is currently fostering a second. She says the foster programme is “a nice way to make sure they have a home”.
“They’re matched up to a family based on what I would say,” Maureen says. “Like this little one I have now, I’d say her temperament is very nervous and she would need a quiet home, and then Kathy and her team would look at that and match the dog and a family who will come and meet her and I’d be there with them and then they’d go on to decide if it’s a good match and then go through the adoption service.”
Yvonne O’Dowd, who has fostered for DID since 2012, feels the home visits help her feel at ease about giving away her foster dogs to new homes.
“Dogs in Distress has allowed me to do home visits, so there aren’t too many tears when I give them up and I know they’re going to a great home,” she says.
DID began when one woman decided to reach out to help the dogs she saw suffering in pounds.
“Marie Hannon started it about 15 or 16 years ago,” Kathy says. “She used to drive by a pound in Dublin regularly and thought she might find a way to help the dogs.”
Maureen says she decided to get involved in DID when she saw how the programme was helping dogs without families. She likes that DID take dogs out of shelters and finds them homes instead.
“They’ve got a family with them throughout the day instead of being locked up at night,” she says. “It’s my preferred option, both are good, but this would be my more preferred option.”
Yvonne says “the key” to finding good homes for dogs is the DID’s website – dogsindistress.org
“They have their own website with a dog blog or profile,” she says. “So they have a photo of the dog up and I add extra photos and tell people about their personalities, which I think is great because all dogs are different.”
DID still gets most of their dogs from the pound, but some of their dogs come from owners who don’t have a place in their lives for their dogs any longer.
“About 90% are from the pound,” Kathy says. “The other 10% are privately surrendered from owners. You know, circumstances change, and people can’t care for them anymore. There are so many excuses, there are really too many to mention.”
Old dogs
While DID used to be especially busy around Christmas, when people would give up old dogs to get a puppy or get a dog they didn’t want as a present, recently the organisation has been getting busier and busier.
“Usually, we’d get a let up between busy times, but not anymore,” Kathy says. “People have been calling and saying they’re moving into an apartment increasingly, which they’re not. It’s just an excuse that makes them feel better about themselves. They just have no commitment.”
The exact cause of this near constant stream of homeless dogs into DID is hard to determine.
“I don’t really know why, it’s hard to say,” Maureen says. “People always say circumstances change. I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
But, Maureen has also noticed that some dog owners have a hard time committing to the responsibility of owning a pet.
“People get another dog or they get fed up with young dogs and they get surrendered,” she says. “I think people don’t realise the time that goes into them initially, how much work is involved, and it just gets to be too much.”
Kathy also struggles to pin down an exact reason for the ever steady flow of surrendered dogs into the programme, but agrees that lack of commitment has something to do with it.
“There’s no particular reason for it,” she says. “We just have no love for animals. We’re so backwards. Ireland is one of the worst countries in the world for animal abuse.”
Disparaging
Ireland is known as the puppy-farming capital of the world, a disparaging title that Kathy says could be avoided if people were held more accountable for their actions.
“But you can abuse a dog and surrender it to a pound and you won’t be charged because you surrendered it,” she says. “If people take responsibility the way you would do for a child, you know, a commitment for life, or 14 years, I suppose, but just a commitment. People need to take responsibility for animals and treat them as sentient beings, not disposable things.”
DID relies very heavily on volunteer foster homes in order to take care of the dogs in their programme and make sure they can be treated as “sentient beings”.
“Of course, we want to be bigger and better, but it all depends on our volunteers and a few other key people, but mostly volunteers,” Kathy says. “All voluntary work can come and go and it’s very hard work, sometimes seven days a week.”
Yvonne likes that DID offers plenty of opportunities for volunteers.
“There are other ways to help without having to take in a dog in,” she said. “Some may not be able to take a dog, but they can help in other ways.”
Maureen also recognises the importance of volunteer work.
“They rely on donations from people, and people are very generous,” she says. DID uses these donations to offer resources to help foster families take care of the dogs in their care.
“I don’t have to pay for anything,” she says. “Dogs in Distress provides everything. I don’t have to pay to feed the dog, they’re happy to do everything. I just have to bring her to vet appointments. If I was a foster family that didn’t have transport, it would be arranged for me. They provide everything, you just have to give it love and attention and make it a part of your family. Some people may have room in their home but may not have the money to care for dogs.”
Although DID covers as many expenses as they can, Maureen acknowledges that taking care of a dog can be stressful.
“It is time consuming, but I’m quite happy to do that,” she says.
Kathy says volunteer work is “totally different” from other work, but she feels the end result is worth the strain.
“It’s very rewarding, but very taxing,” she says. “You just have to hold on to those happy endings. The happy endings speak for themselves.”
For more information see www.dogsindistress.org