Common misconceptions about adopting a rescue animal – Dogs

Adopting a dog from a rescue centre may take time and require some patience. We are aware that many people do decide to look into buying a dog elsewhere instead, perhaps online, from a breeder or even from abroad. If you do decide to go down these routes, we have covered what you should look out for in our online guide, click here

We are advocates of adopting from a rescue centre and do try to make the process as straightforward as possible, however we encourage all adopters to be responsible for their own adoption journey.

Ensure that you are regularly checking our website for any new dogs that come in and sign up for our e-news where we will often highlight a dog (or any animal) that is looking for a home. We also hold regular adoption workshops where we explain the adoption process to those who might not have been successful to try to provide as much information as possible to help with future applications.

We don’t ask for ages on our application form, although we do ask all adopters to be over the age of 18. Age itself is not a barrier to adoption; it will depend on the type of dog you are looking to adopt. We look at each dog and potential adopter individually. We take into consideration things such as the dog’s activity levels, characteristics, and your living situation.

Most dogs that come to Raystede for rehoming require access to their own garden or a suitable outside space. We may get dogs that don’t need a garden, but these dogs are few and far between. We encourage you to keep checking our website for new arrivals and to also register with other rescue centres.

We do thorough behavioural assessments on all our dogs before they are available for adoption as well as looking at whether they have lived with other animals before. Part of the assessment is looking at whether they are suited to living with other animals including cats and other dogs.

We will indicate on the profile of each dog whether they can live with other animals and any decision made will be in the best interest of the dog, taking into account your individual circumstances.

Many dogs make wonderful family pets and being pregnant does not prevent you from adopting. However, it is important to consider what dog might work for your lifestyle once you have a child. For example, is the dog able to live with children, especially very young children? Our Kennels Team will have assessed whether each dog has previously lived with, or been around children, what ages they are used to and what their behaviour was like.

If your application for adoption is progressed, then a full assessment of the dog will be shared with you so you can be best informed on whether that dog will be right for your family setup.

Some of our dogs might be nervous of traffic, lots of people or other dogs. These dogs might be better suited to living in a more rural environment as opposed to a busy built-up area. We’ll always outline the type of home a dog is looking for on their profile on our website.

If your home isn’t ideally suited to that particular dog, we suggest you keep checking our website for any new arrivals who would be suited to that environment – do keep trying!

We are proud to say that we have a very low return rate mainly due to the adoption process we follow which tries to ensure that every dog is matched to the right adopter.

Before the adoption becomes official, we will arrange for you to have at least one meet with the dog that you are interested in so you can learn more about them, and the dog can learn more about you too. All these steps mean we really hope that when adoption day comes, all parties are happy and there are no surprises!

But we know that sometimes circumstances change and if you do find yourself in the situation where you need to give up the dog you adopted, then we are here to help and will take the dog back.

However, we will also try to support you with any questions or concerns you might have about your dog and try to signpost you to places that can help e.g. dog behaviourists, specialists etc hopefully meaning you and your dog can continue to live happy lives together.