Rules of adopting a dog

Hope i can explain this right. I think rescue centres do a great job, but one thing that worries me, is for quite alot of the dogs, they always seem to say not good with children or only with children 8+ for example, so the only problem is won't that drive alot of familes away and towards dog breeders etc. I'm not saying maybe it's wrong because I'm glad alot of the centres check people and their lifes before they let them adopt a dog. But if say a family with 2 kids under 6 wanted a dog, isn't it going to be harder for them? It's a hard comprimise I suppose.

Some of the smaller charities are more lenient and take each family into account. I think more should do that because it excludes a lot of great dogs and homes from being matched up.
I understand they have to be careful in case of people blaming any bites on the charity, but sometimes it goes too far. Same with people who work full time.

agree with you there should be no blanket ban like some do at the moment.
ATD x

Many Tears turned me down because i work for 4 hours in the afternoon even though the dog would have had 2 other dogs as companions and my son comes back from college half way through to let them out, i am sure they have the best intentions but this was a working cocker and really needed a lot of exercise but i can guess the only people who are at home all day are retired and quite possibly not as active as my family, i just hope the dog found the right home but some of the restrictions are ridiculous.

My dogs have someone with them pretty much 24/7, we are only ever really out for an hour or two at a time without them,if it's longer my mum comes in to sit with them. We are not retired. I work part time and my OH works shifts. We are also lucky to have my mum there who loves the dogs and can't have one of her own.

I think most charities are flexible...if you can prove the children are dog savvy.

The thing to remember is that there is usually limited knowledge of the rescue dogs and what info they have is often on the light side of truthful.
This is why centres have to be cautious about rehoming with children.
Can't you just see the newspaper headlines? ..... "Dog from ------- resue centre savages 5 year old"
We were even asked how often we had children visit.

I can understand the reasoning of not putting a dog with little history and a small child together, although I don't think small children should be left unsupervised with ANY dog (& it wouldn't generally be the dog I didn't trust!)

What I don't get is why some require owners to have an enclosed garden. Our back gardens are open plan, with just a tiny foot high barrier between them, so Jake always has his flexi on when out there. I just don't understand the problem with that?

I believe the rescues are acting correctly and prudently about this. The dogs in rescue are often something of an unknown quantity, maybe with a history, possibly previously badly treated and also they are mainly adult dogs not puppies. They are assessed while in the centres (but they usually only have limited knowledge of how they behave in a home and they cannot give guarantees about how a dog will behave). That coupled with any history they do have means that they err on the side of caution with many of the dogs in their care. Surely this is only sensible.

It is always preferable for a dog to have a bit of outside freedom in a suitable garden, without the need to be leashed or tethered.

Look how many go up for rehoming when the dog growls in a "bog off you're annoying me now" way at the kid pulling their ears. Immediately the hysteria kicks in, dog's chucked back to a rescue with a label of "aggressive".

I can understand rescues not wanting to home dogs that will bounce back. Plus you DON'T know what a rescue dog's had in its past (to quote House roughly "people lie)... and the uproar and anti-rescue hysteria there'd be if there WAS an accident... would backfire on the entire sector.