Forever Hounds Trust has a duty of care not only to the dogs we take in, but to the families we adopt those dogs out to, as well as the general public and their pets. We need to be sure that we’re not putting anyone at risk when we place a dog in their new home. The consequences of getting things wrong could be huge, especially where children or smaller animals are involved! This means that as a responsible rescue organisation, we need to be totally confident that we’re placing the right dog in the right home.
Why most of our hounds have no known history
When we take a dog in from a pet home, we have the opportunity to get a wealth of information about the dog from their previous family – their likes and dislikes, details of any behaviour issues, fears or phobias, as well details on how they behave around children, cats and other dogs. When a dog has a detailed home history, we can be very confident on how we expect the dog to cope in different home environments and situations. The risk of a dog being returned as a result of issues such as not getting along with the resident children or existing pets, or not coping with being left alone is minimal when we know for sure that the dog has coped well with these things in the past.
Sadly, this is a luxury we don’t have for the majority of our dogs. Very few of the dogs that Forever Hounds Trust take in have spent their lives in loving homes. Almost all of our greyhounds come directly from the racing industry, and most of these dogs have had extremely limited experience of the “real world” before arriving with us. They have generally never lived in a home before, and have rarely been socialised with children or different breeds of dog. We may get a small amount of information on the personality of each dog, but this is usually very minimal, if not non-existent.
Our lurchers typically come to us with absolutely no history at all – they have usually been found straying, most likely having spent their life as a hunting dog.
Where our behaviour assessment comes in
As a responsible rehoming organisation, we need to be sure that we get to know our dogs as well as we possibly can – especially since we’re usually starting from scratch!
All our assessments are carried out by qualified dog behaviour specialists and highly experienced dog handlers, who are properly trained and extremely skilled in observing dog behaviour. By observing our dogs in situations and environments which they’re likely to experience once adopted out into a forever home, we can start to build a picture of the type of home each dog needs.
Some of the main areas we focus on include, but are not limited to:
- Observing the dog in different environments, such as rural walks, dog parks and more urban areas.
- Observing how the dog responds to meeting different people, both adults and children.
- Observing how the dog responds to being fussed, cuddled and handled.
- Observing how the dog responds to meeting and interacting with other dogs, of various shapes, sizes and breeds.
- Observing how the dog behaves around resources such as food, toys and resting areas.
- Observing how the dog behaves when they have the support of another dog, compared to on their own.
- Observing how the dog copes with being inside a home type environment.
Turning the assessment into a hound's profile
Based on the assessment, we can start to build a picture of each dog’s homing needs. This is a shopping list of things that they definitely need in order to settle in their new home (or definitely won’t be able to cope with), as well as things which would be ideal, but are negotiable.
The dogs that we take in will fall somewhere on a spectrum from those who have very few particular homing needs and could fit into most homes, all the way up to those who we know will only thrive in a very specific environment. And sometimes, a hound doesn't get matched to a family at all; this is often because of advanced healthcare needs.
Fortunately, most of the hounds in our care move on to be matched with a forever home. Read more about our matching process on this page!