Just because you adopt a dog that used to be somebody else’s pet doesn’t mean you are adopting trouble. Sometimes, perfectly nice, even virtually perfect dogs are turned in to animal shelters and rescue groups. Some of the most common reasons why people abandon or relinquish their pets include:
• A move to a place that doesn’t allow dogs or makes life with dogs difficult (an apartment, a dorm, a condo, a place without a yard or fence, or having to travel overseas in a country with a canine quarantine, such as England)
• A life change such as marriage to someone who can’t live with a dog, or divorce and a consequential move.
• A pet owner’s death
• An illness that makes caring for the dog impossible
• A serious allergic reaction to a dog
• A bad match between dog breed and human (such as a Border Collie adopted by someone who wants a dog to sit on the couch and relax all day)
• A rash adoption by someone not equipped to own a dog in the first place
• A dog given as a gift to someone who didn’t want or can’t handle a dog
• The dog engages in a behavior the people in the family can’t tolerate and don’t know how to correct.
Is it fair to the pets that they were given away? Of course not. Was it the pet’s fault? Of course not. Not everyone is as devoted to their animal family members as you plan to be, and some people don’t plan ahead when they buy a dog. In other cases, though the owners or other family members are heartbroken about the relinquishment but don’t have a choice.
The top 10 reasons people list for relinquishing dogs to animal shelters, according to the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy:
1. Moving
2. Landlord issues
3. Cost of pet maintenance
4. No time for pet
5. Inadequate facilities
6. Too many pets in home
7. Pet illness
8. Personal problems
9. Biting
10. No homes for littermates
When a dog has a behavior humans don’t like--it barks too much or "can’t" be housetrained or chews the furniture or whatever—it’s easy to blame the dog, to think you just picked a "bad one," that you can’t do anything about it, that dogs will be dogs. In most cases, dogs who do these doggy behaviors are just being dogs, but they aren’t bad. They simply aren’t being properly managed by their humans. In other words, nobody told them, in a way they could understand, not to do those things.
That’s good news for you, the frustrated dog adopter. That means that chances are good your dog’s "problems" are easily remedied with a little education, a lot of patience, and some regular training. The trick is communication. All you have to do is help your dog to understand the rules.
Excerpted from Your Outta Control Adopted Dog, published by TFH Publications. Used with permission.
