At Forever Hounds Trust, we understand that finding your new canine family member can sometimes feel like a near-impossible task!
People sometimes comment that rescue organisations place too many restrictions on the type of home each dog is looking for, making it difficult for people to welcome a rescue dog into their home.
When it comes to adopting one of our hounds, Forever Hounds Trust actually have very few blanket rules in place. We will (and regularly do) place dogs in homes without gardens, with people who work full time, with young children, with elderly people, as only pets, with small breed dogs and even with cats!
That does not mean we can place any hound with any family; our matching process has been carefully developed to ensure each hound in our care only gets placed into the best-fitting home environment.
Why do rescue organisations set rigid criteria for adopting families?
There are two main reasons that responsible rescue organisations have to be cautious when setting homing criteria for our dogs.
The impact of a bad match on the hound
Firstly, being adopted and then returned to kennels because things didn’t work out in their new home can have a huge psychological impact on a dog. They don’t understand why their environment has changed again, when they were just starting to feel at home. Each time this happens, the dog will find it harder to settle and relax in the next home – they don’t know if they’re coming or going!
This is why we need to do everything in our power to get the right match first time.
Our responsibility to the person or family adopting the dog
Even more importantly, 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.
From assessment to homing criteria
Every hound in our care undergoes a thorough assessment.
Our team of experienced dog behaviour specialists observes the dog in different environments and situations, looks at how they respond to meeting different people and being handled, and how they interact with other dogs.
You can read more about our assessment process on this page.
Based on the assessment, we build a picture of each dog’s homing needs: a list of things that their new home will need to have (or not have) so that the dog can fit into their new family without too many issues. Some dogs turn out to have very few specific homing needs (meaning they could fit into most homes), while others can only thrive in a very specific environment.
Why do we post more about dogs with restrictive homing needs?
Unsurprisingly, the more specific homing criteria a dog has, the more difficult it is to find the right home for them. Dogs with specific needs tend to be with us for much longer, and you are more likely to see them featured on our social media posts. This is especially true because we try to give the overlooked dogs as much of the limelight as possible, in hopes that their perfect match will notice them! This can make it seem like all of our dogs have very restrictive homing needs, when in reality, these dogs are in the minority.
Why is there a waitlist for dogs with fewer special needs?
Dogs with fewer specific needs are highly sought after.
If a dog is
- Able to live with young children,
- House trained and used to home life
- Friendly with every dog they meet
- Or can even live with cats,
They’re going to have people queueing up to adopt them; therefore, there could be a longer waitlist for a dog like this.
Whilst all our dogs are put on our website as 'Newly Arrived' it might soon become apparent during their assessment that they will be a perfect match for someone already on our waiting list. So, the dog may be homed before they are made available for general applications. Therefore, we would always recommend submitting a general application so that we can consider you as a potential home for our new dogs as soon as they’re assessed and ready to go!
Why does it sometimes takes longer to find a match?
Realistically, it does usually take us longer to find suitable matches for some home offers.
In the case of families with young children, this is because we simply cannot take any risks with their safety. Although our assessments are extremely thorough, without home history they can never be 100% fool proof. Sometimes dogs can behave very differently once they move into their new home – either for better or for worse! This means that in order to confidently place a dog without history into a home with young children, we must have seen extremely strong evidence that they are comfortable around children (and all of the strange things that children might decide to do!) and that they do not pose a bite risk.
In the case of homes with cats, we simply don’t have the ability to properly assess our dogs around cats – so given their backgrounds and previous experiences, we have to err on the side of caution, unless we have history to suggest that the dog doesn’t pose a risk to small furries.
What happens if we can't find a match?
When you apply to adopt one of the hounds in our care, it means we start looking for a match - which means the dog's homing needs must match your environment and situation. That's why we ask you to provide us with insights into your home environment through photo and video materials.
When we have all the information we need, we either find a potential match right away; in that case, we get in touch to discuss the hound and arrange a first visit. If we don't currently have a potential dog match, you will be put on the waiting list.
We keep your name on the waiting list for a period of 12 weeks at a time; if no suitable hound comes in during that time, we will get in touch to discuss your options. You can choose to be taken off the list, in which case we destroy your details in line with our Data Protection Regulation responsibilities. Or you can ask us to retain your details, and keep looking for a match.
All in the hounds' (and your) best interest
Like all rescue organisations, our goal is to find forever homes for dogs who would otherwise not have that chance. We want to save as many dogs as we can, so keeping them in kennels longer than needed, based on unnecessarily strict homing restrictions would make no sense at all! However, we know from experience that it is both pointless and irresponsible to place a dog into a home environment which we know is unsuitable, and simply hope for the best.
So please rest assured that when we set homing criteria for a dog, we’re doing so in the best interests not only of that dog, but of yourself as a potential adopter.