Home
>
Pet
>
5 Things to Know about Animal Rescue Groups

town car ride to ohare Marengo Park Ridge taxi to Midway Naperville south of 95 limo Midway Lincoln Stretch limo rentals Deerfield travel from O'Hare Carpentersville .. Drug testing

5 Things to Know about Animal Rescue Groups

Over the past decade, breed rescue groups have become a major force in dog adoptions. These rescue groups limit their effort to a particular breed of dog including purebreds. This is a help to people who want a certain breed of dog but can't or won't use breeders.

To make the best use of a rescue group, however, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Watch out for scams.

Some wholesale breeders and brokers who can't meet federal and state laws advertise themselves as "rescue" organizations. Crooks have even collected money for non-existent rescue groups.

Unlike animal shelters and local humane societies, rescue groups usually do not have storefronts. They are a collection of breeders and breed fanciers who perform their services from their homes.

Ask any rescue group if they are incorporated or registered as a nonprofit group in your state.

The best way to find a rescue group is to go to the American Kennel Club's (AKC) website at www.akc.org and search under the breed you're interested in getting. If no rescue group is listed, contact the national breed club and ask for references.

2. Don't trust everything a shelter tells you.

In some areas, the county or charitable animal shelter feels they're in competition with rescue groups and take pains to color these groups as irresponsible.

Some people who volunteer at shelters are animal rights extremists who despise anyone who breeds dogs to serve as pets. This is a source of tension as many rescue group members are hobby or professional breeders.

Some rescue groups have made this worse by advertising how they "rescue" dogs from the shelter implying they are the guys in the white hats.

A further issue of contention between the groups is the fee charged to obtain a dog. Some rescue groups deliberately undercut the fees the shelter's charge.

Shelters may be limited by law or organization rules to charging a certain amount and can't compete on price with rescue groups.

3. Ask about foster care for the dog you're considering.

Responsible rescue groups place dogs in foster homes to assess the dogs and determine what behavior problems, if any, exist with the dog.

This information is crucial to determining what type of permanent home would be best for the dog. For instance, one without children or one without other pets.

Be leery of a rescue group that is trying to place a dog that it has just obtained without having an interim placement.

4. Expect to be interviewed.

Responsible rescue groups do attempt to match a dog and his personality with an appropriate owner. They can only do this by asking questions including what your experience is with dogs, what you know about the breed and what type of lifestyle you have.

Please do not be offended. I would never accept a dog from a rescue society that did nothing more than ascertain if I could pay the fee they want.

5. Be prepared for anything.

There are no overarching laws, regulations or oversight of rescue groups. Some are run very professionally and some are basket cases. Unlike shelters, they are rarely subject to any state or local inspections.

You may call a rescue group and never get a response. Part of the problem is the rapid turnover of volunteers involved in rescue groups. Realize that you may need to be very, very patient when dealing with a rescue group.

Always ask how the dog came into rescue. Some well-meaning group members "rescue" any dog, especially a neglected looking dog, they find outside without an owner.

The dog may or may not be abandoned but few rescue groups, in my experience, make much of an effort to try to find owners especially if in their opinion the dog does not appear to be well treated.

Find out if they check for microchips or tattoos and if you do get a rescue dog, have your vet check them right away for this as well as diseases.

You may expose yourself to emotional trauma and even liability issues if you wind up with a lost dog whose owner tracks him back to you.

As a final caution, it pays to make two or three visits with the dog you're considering adopting before making the final decision.

Louise Louis is a long-time dog person and operates the ToyBreeds.com website.

limousine chicago service

In The News:

The Boy Scouts of America is trying to recruit a new generation of kids to join its troops with high-energy, high-tech activities that include thrill-inducing zip lines at a new adventure camp, apps and a television show.

The next iPhone or iPad from Apple is surely around the corner, and Google is getting into everything from cloud computing to car making. But what the cards hold for $100 billion behemoth Facebook is far from clear, experts say.

Rumors of the hairy humanoid known variously as the yeti, bigfoot and sasquatch have persisted for decades. Now scientists are hoping to make more of a case for the creature -- with the help of genetic testing, Reuters reported.

Scotty has finally been beamed up. The ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on the 1960s television series "Star Trek," were launched to space this morning (May 22) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Cows are a red herring. The most dangerous potential source for methane release lies underneath thinning permafrost and glaciers in the Arctic. Ecologists have just mapped the seeps where methane is bubbling up, and they found more than 150,000 of them.

At a time when black magic was relatively common, two curses involving snakes were cast, one targeting a senator and the other an animal doctor, says a Spanish researcher who has just deciphered the 1,600-year-old curses.

Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, U2 frontman Bono and more honored the memory of late Apple founder Steve Jobs Monday in New York City at the 16th annual Webby Awards.

Humans' close relationship to dogs has so far obscured their history so much that it's not yet possible to use genetic data to tease out the details of their domestication, new research indicates.

A Jurassic mom's almost certainly painful death is perfectly preserved in a rare fossil skeleton, one of the many unique items that will go on display in the Houston Museum of Natural Science's $85 million dinosaur hall when it opens to the public June 2. We take a first peek at the exhibit.

A Jurassic Mom's almost certainly painful death is perfectly preserved in a rare fossil skeleton, one of the many unique items that will go on display in the Houston Museum of Natural Science's $85 million dinosaur hall when it opens to the public June 2.

The rise of Kickstarter's crowdsourcing platform means consumers can now vote with their dollars, investing in unique new projects that they believe in, from smartphone watches designed from e-paper to coffee joulies that keep your drink at the perfect temperature. Here are the 12 most funded design projects.

Jodie Foster may have seen proof of alien lands in the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film "Contact," but the real life astronomer the filmmakers based their sci-fi odyssey on didn't find so much as a tentacle.

A first-of-its-kind commercial supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Tuesday, opening a new era of dollar-driven spaceflight.

Many scientists say it's just a matter of time before we find evidence it exists, and now, anyone can get in on the hunt -- as long as they have a computer.

The private rocket company SpaceX is officially "go" to make a second try at launching its unmanned Dragon capsule early Tuesday, May 22, from Florida's Space Coast.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal from a Boston University student who was slapped with a $675,000 penalty for illegally downloading 31 songs and sharing them on the internet.

The European Union has given Google "a matter of weeks" to propose remedies to antitrust concerns arising from its alleged dominant position in the online search market.

A Maryland student was awarded the top prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair on Friday for developing a urine and blood test that detects pancreatic cancer with 90 percent accuracy.

Microsoft recently announced plans to strip the Windows interface to its basics -- flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distractions. Here's a brief look at the Windows interface over its 27-year history -- and how it will look tomorrow.

Microsoft's So.cl social network opened to the public at large this weekend. The experimental research project combines social networking and search, the company said -- and the company swears it's not meant to compete with Google+ or Facebook.

5 Things to Know about Animal Rescue Groups

Pet Pet