The thing you're missing is that this dog is still feeling and experiencing rejection by the woman's husband. No matter what she does, this dog is not going to feel loved in this household with daily suggestions to return him. It would be kinder to the dog to return him and allow him to be placed in a home where everyone welcomes him and is willing to work with him. The therapy, techniques are not going to work in an atmosphere of rejection.

The dog may have a bigger chance of not being adopted, because he's older now. In spite of the facility telling the woman to return the dog to them, she should try to give him to a friend or family member, if at all possible. It is true that the husband's dislike of the dog will make him more neurotic.

No, return it to the rescue, honor the agreement that was signed. Just look at what happened to Ellen Degeneres.

Well, Ellen Degeneres is famous, so she is under a microscope. If the woman is really paranoid about the same thing happening to her, she could tell them she has someone interested in the dog (if someone is interested, that is) and have them go to the rescue and adopt him.

Have you ever looked at those contracts, Elle? They're downright punitive.

When we were looking into adopting a kitten awhile ago, we refused after seeing their demands. Some of the most obnoxious were:

1. They had the right to take away the animal at any time without giving a reason.

2. They had the right to enter your home for a "wellness check" at any time without giving a reason. This means even years down the road.

3. They would take away the animal if you tried to take it to anyone other than their veterinarian, who had agreed never to euthanize any animal. (Tells you he was a crappy vet.)

4. They would make all of the appointments with this vet for your animal, and if you tried to change it more than once, they would take away the animal.

5. If we were to move more than 50 miles away, you had to turn in the animal to them.

There were a lot of other provisions, that were even worse. They wanted our other cat checked by their vet before they would approve us, for example. They also insisted that we use only the litter and food that they approved, to be purchased from, you guessed it, their vet.

These guys were by no means unusual. It's sad, really , because it discourages people from adopting rescued animals. I know I'll never try that again. If they aren't willing to accept that I know what I'm doing after all these years, they can go whistle. I've found a couple of reputable breeders and I'll go straight to them if we do this again.

I rescued a cat from a bad situation. She's eighteen, much calmer and more normal, and seems bound and determine to survive now that she has the chance to enjoy life. I wish this guy would put a little effort out. I wonder if he would if his woman became incapacitated in some way.

Being a cat-lover and a hater of both chihuahuas and dobermans, though, I wonder just how much difference there is in the situations. All of the miniature dobermans I ever saw impressed me as having been born neurotic.

Yeah, yeah, I just admitted prejudice! I admitted it! No need to remind me! It was just my prejudiced impression!

I haven't read the contracts, but I heard about them. A guy I know rescued a Bijon Freize / Poodle puppy. The dog was very friendly, but he had a hard time getting him housebroken and the dog chewed everything. He gave it to his friend, John. John was in the middle of moving, so the do stayed with other friends for a few weeks. I had a dog at the time, so I couldn't take him for long periods of time. By the time John got settled, the dog bounced around to five or six different houses. Finally, John's new landlord said he couldn't keep the dog, even though there was nothing about pets not being allowed in the renter's contract. So John gave him to another friend. Not once, did the rescue check up on that dog. The original "adopter" never heard from the resue.

Being owned by enough pets in my life, I am quite aware of the bond and trust any animal needs to feel accepted and loved to be part of the family. If the husband really is going to increase the hurt this poor little dog has already experienced it's whole life, the right thing to do is find someone that knows how to love and treat the dog. If the family knows of someone that fits this profile, perhaps they could tell everyone that the dog ran away IF anyone should asked. Otherwise don't say anything. Tell the new owners which vet to avoid that would know this dog so the rescue can't control the placement. Apparently they didn't chose the right family to begin with. Her husband is a real jerk!

MessyONE:

Have you ever looked at those contracts, Elle? They're downright punitive.

When we were looking into adopting a kitten awhile ago, we refused after seeing their demands. Some of the most obnoxious were:

1. They had the right to take away the animal at any time without giving a reason.

2. They had the right to enter your home for a "wellness check" at any time without giving a reason. This means even years down the road.

3. They would take away the animal if you tried to take it to anyone other than their veterinarian, who had agreed never to euthanize any animal. (Tells you he was a crappy vet.)

4. They would make all of the appointments with this vet for your animal, and if you tried to change it more than once, they would take away the animal.

5. If we were to move more than 50 miles away, you had to turn in the animal to them.

There were a lot of other provisions, that were even worse. They wanted our other cat checked by their vet before they would approve us, for example. They also insisted that we use only the litter and food that they approved, to be purchased from, you guessed it, their vet.

These guys were by no means unusual. It's sad, really , because it discourages people from adopting rescued animals. I know I'll never try that again. If they aren't willing to accept that I know what I'm doing after all these years, they can go whistle. I've found a couple of reputable breeders and I'll go straight to them if we do this again.

That does sound draconian. The rescue contract I signed for my dog wasn't nearly as bad.

who has "too many neuroses to list"

i can't even love a boyfriend with more than one neurosis.

its a dog, after all.

her husband must be a saint for not leaving the door open and letting it run out into traffic.

how much time and energy should misguided people spend trying to retrain bad dogs when they don't have the skills or tools? this "rescue" was ill advised from day one.

The one that was attached to the Katrina dogs was even worse. A friend fostered one for awhile and decided not to keep him. He was nice enough, but not very bright, badly trained and a fear biter.

There is no shame in returning an animal to a rescue society if you can't cope. There are a lot of people who think I'm slightly cracked to have both a diabetic cat and one that's been treated for cancer. Mind you, they're 17 years old, and you have to do these things. (Besides, who else would have them?)

A lot of people thought I was crazy to take in my severely neurotic cat, but no one else would. Now she's great company--and since she stopped chewing herself half to death, very, very soft, too. I did it out of a lack of selfishness, but now--I win!

Before adopting a 'rescue dog' it would be a good idea to try & find out why the dog was in this situation. If the owner had died, it might work out OK. It might be a cull dog that nobody wants to deal with so they give it to the rescue organization. I think either adopting or buying a puppy works better for most folks than getting a 'rescue' adult dog. Find somebody whose dog (that you like) had a litter of puppies & offer to give one of these pups a good home. Offer them whatever you would pay for a rescue dog for the puppy as they could likely use it as well as the shelter could & you'll probably get a better dog out of the deal...

:o)

I agree as if this poor little guy is having neurological problems it could be something that requires medication. It is a draining experience sometimes but both partners be in agreement on this. I know its hard. We took on a black and tan coonhound mix, Oscar, over 3 years ago. He was 3 months old. The young lady had adopted him at a shelter in Florida and brought him up here to Washington state. She realized he had problems, and her boyfriend and his mom started to mistreat him when he would have what we later called his "fits". So here he also learned what abuse was. She brought him to our house, and we were going to "foster" him but realized that was not going to happen as if we gave him to someone else, he would have probably have been put down. I called the vet down in Florida and found out that he had distemper as a pup and I read that they can have "residual" effects after this. He did not like hollering, so we spoke calm around him. If we were mad at eachother, we wrote notes, or spoke evenly. We started to get less mad at eachother. I also learned that he had had seizures(no biggy, I have a chihuahua that has epilepsy). The vets had said that they never saw a case like that before. They got him on phenobarbital, potassium bromide, and he was taking prozac for awhile. So we fell in love with him, he had some bad days, but he had way more GOOD days. We noticed 8 months after he became part of our family, that he was starting to wag his tail. He was the sweetest dog we ever knew. Not one aggressive bone in his body. Just when things were going well, we lost him to bloat, and I blamed myself for a long time. But I know it was not something I could keep going over as it hurt too much. All I know is that we gave him so much love as he did in return and he taught us so much more then we ever realized. He made our hearts so big. We had to adopt TWO dogs(now we have five)right after we lost him, my husband even flew to Massachussetts to adopt a black and tan coonhound that we saw on the internet. And my husband HATES flying. But it was both of us who put all of our love into him. I would take him back to the shelter, is it a no kill? if so, find a no kill shelter. Unless you would like to have the vet check out what you can do to work with your dog. I know it is so hard, and the love you develop for an pet is strong. But don't let it effect your health and sanity. Find out what your options are and the dogs, and see what your husband is willing to do. However, dogs are not perfect little objects that we can go get and return like an appliance or pair of shoes when we find we don't really need it. Its something to be researched and sometimes, I believe, God puts them in our hands for awhile.

I pray you never get a so called "bad" dog. I dont believe she said that her dog was BAD, did you grasp the article at all? I believe there are BAD people that mistreat what they consider a BAD pet. God save all the animals from you!