September, 2012
We’re in a slow time for rescue, and we haven’t had any dogs to place for a while. That’s great for the dogs, but not so great for two dozen families we have waiting in line for a dog. A number of them are past adopters who we know to be wonderful homes. One way we help our applicants is to let a select few of them know about puppies from good breeders; we are careful in those cases to contact the breeder first to ask permission. We all know there are people who want to support rescue but would do very well with a puppy. We will always place our rescue dogs first, but with a waiting list so long this benefits all of us.
We heard of a one year old Samoyed in the Idaho Falls area, which is so far south it’s much closer to Utah Samoyed Rescue. We let Dorinda know about him, and she followed up immediately. After talking to his owners she was able to pick him up. He has cataracts, but she had a previous adopter who stepped right up to take him. We enjoy working with the surrounding rescue groups.
There was also a Samoyed/Great Pyr mix in Montana needing a home. Our understanding is the woman has two females from the same litter and they don’t get along. We had two apps from Montana we were holding in case we found a dog too far east to help, but neither of them could help. Our advice to the woman was first to find a trainer, since we could tell talking to her that one of the girls was alpha over her owner. We don’t know what happened because we didn’t hear back. That happens a lot.
A few times a year we hear from someone who wants to volunteer to help rescue. That happened again last month. We always explain that our volunteers come from our fellow club members, friends, and adopters. First we have to know someone and then we can ask for help. Unfortunately rescues get offers too often from people who think they can get a dog faster by saying they will foster (and then keeping the dog). We invited the woman to come to a club event or drive to our home to meet our dogs but we didn’t get a reply. We’re very lucky to have so many friends who will step up and help, even though fosters are our biggest need.
An adopter from about ten years ago wrote to say she recently had her dog’s DNA tested. What we had placed as a Samoyed mix turned out not to have any Samoyed DNA at all. This made us curious about Katie, the girl we took in six years ago who had a mixed breed litter. We knew she wasn’t purebred, and for some time have doubted she had any Sammy in her at all, so we bought the Wisdom Panel test from Amazon. Sure enough, she had no Samoyed in her. One side was a golden/sibe mix, while other was so mixed it could be anything. Breed identification is one of the hardest things in rescue, and one of the reasons we have become a purebred rescue except in special cases. We ask on our adoption application if people would be willing to take a mix, and when we hear of one we write to those people with contact information so they can proceed directly. DNA testing is becoming cheap enough we may incorporate it into our decision making process.