A couple people have sent us mail criticizing our "tone" on the Owner Give-ups page and this page (Calls from Owners Giving Up their Dogs). Overwhelmingly though, we have been given praise without end from other rescues and private individuals that help dogs in need. They agree that a majority of people do not understand what we must deal with as a rescue.

A rescue is not a pound or a humane society. Private rescues tend to have a different stance on private give-ups versus shelter and pound give-ups. Dogs at animal controls have no advocates and often have very limited time periods before facing death. Animal controls often provide initial vaccinations and heartworm testing. Some organizations take care of the spay and neuters beforehand. These organizations also have very experienced animal handlers that can objectively evaluate the dog's behavior around other dogs, cats, children, and people even before calling our rescue. This saves us time, money, and other valuable resources, as well as allows our rescue and the animal welfare organizations to work together and rescue those German Shepherds that can be made ready for adoption out to families.

Rescues ignore private give-ups, for the most part, because we do not want owner give-ups to feel good about what they are doing (and the prospect of your animal going into a private rescue is a much nicer thought than the shelter, since there is a much higher probability of euthanasia at the shelter). Also, owner gives ups, at least in our records, have a much higher probability of having major behavior problems. Private rescues, for financial, professional, and for reasons of evaluation, prefer to remove dogs from shelters and pounds. These again, are also dogs that face death.

Dogs in private homes should have more options than underrepresented, incarcerated dogs. Its not only that we dislike having to personally deal with owners giving up their pets and their stories, but we ARE watching out for homeless dogs' best interests and the dogs at the pound would argue that their interests merit care from private shelters too.

Private rescues for the most part will not take dogs with major behavior issues, because we cannot place them for reasons of liability. Also, the fact is that we have multiple dogs, and a single problematic dogs can ruin routines and injure several other animals.

Therefore many owner give ups will not receive return phone calls from a rescue if:

Small rescues, like this one, often handle 20+ messages a day. Owner give-ups are at the bottom of the return list. We are not at a loss of animals needing help! We are the ones having to make the toughest decisions about who we save and who we help.

Our adopters and current GSD owners and colleagues praise our stance and send their support.

All we have been concerned about is peoples' unrealistic expectations of private rescues and delusions that all dogs can find "a country home" or "a home without other dogs, kids, men, cats, etc...." We are simply trying to instill some sense of reality. We imagine this would offend and if people are shamed, then they probably needed the shame.However, most of the people we deal with have no shame, and the type of people that would avoid rescues, shelters, pounds, due to a dose of reality, wouldn't hesitate to leave their dog tied to a tree or dump them on a highway. Yes, these things do happen, but we are not responsible for shaming or driving these types of people away from rescue and endangering their animals. Their animals were endangered the day they became pets of those people. This is a reality, we cannot save or be responsible for all of these animals.

We are not the owner police, though we'd love for there to be mandatory licensing for people to be able to own an animal.

The owner (including anyone who takes on the responsibility of another pet) is ultimately 100% responsible for what happens to that pet. If a good samaritan takes a pet, rather that taking the pet to a shelter or pound, they are assuming responsibility for that pet. We are more than happy to assist them with placement on our Community Dogs page (assuming they qualify — the GSD or GSD mix is neutered/spayed, has no major behavior problems etc.— see Community Dogs page for more information) or work something out if they need assistance.

Remember, there are far too many dogs out there without advocates that can use our help. We must allocate our resources in an effective way. We are sorry that reading the truth has been found offensive by some. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Please spay and neuter your dog and, when possible, explain to others why this is an important part of dog ownership. We would be more than happy to never have to answer the phone to another Call from an Owner Giving up Their Dog.