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My parents are moving, need to find a home for aging dog
April 2011
My parents have to move for financial reasons to a smaller place and they won't be able to take the elderly family dog with them. We'd like to take her, but there are some big issues... 1) she is an outside only dog and for us to secure our property it would cost $1-2k in building/repairs and 2) even if we made all the repairs our property just isn't very suited for her, like there would be no shelter from rain, we are sure she'd bark constantly because of the noise of the neighborhood (my parents live in very quiet Orinda, we live in the Oakland flatlands near a busy intersection). She is really a sweet dog (pretty classic Labrador temperament), but given she isn't trained to be indoors any longer and that she is 13 years old, it seems like trying to find a new home for her won't be successful. We just don't know what to do. We can't afford to do what we need to do to our house to make it secure for her, but even then it isn't an ideal situation. If we give her up to a shelter, won't she most likely be put down? Does anyone have any advice on what we might do? Have we missed some possibility? Out of Ideas
There are plenty of cheap dog run fences you can get inexpensively at home depot for the short run. It should not cost that much to make improvements, surely? Yes he will be put down if he is not a cute puppy at the shelter.... dog lover
Contact a Lab rescue - they may have facilities and can take her or will have a family willing and able... At 13 you are right, she is not very adoptable, but she may have a great twilight with a rescue! Maggie
For the family dealing with mom & dad's aging dog, there are some excellent resources available. Muttville is a local nonprofit whose mission is to find homes for senior dogs. They're at www.muttville.org.
Also the East Bay SPCA does not put down dogs (except in cases of extreme aggression, which of course is not your situation). They have location in Dublin and Oakland; www.eastbayspca.org. Pet lover
Aging dog issue: If you absolutely want to give up the dog, try Muttville in SF - they do only senior dogs. Not sure if they have room at the moment, but they might have a foster home, or maybe you could board the dog somewhere for a short term while a foster home is found. Boarding would be cheaper than securing your yard it sounds like. We adopted an outside only, 13 year old dog, a St. Bernard Border Collie mix... and she adjusted to indoor living just fine in about 2 months. She has her bed and just wants to be near us. She is now almost 16 and doing well. I hope the best for you and the doggie! AJ
If you don't think your yard will work, I would suggest craigslist, trying to find a foster home for the dog (maybe Milo foundation), or seeing if your parents have friends in Orinda who would want the dog. Keeping a dog in the cold and rain is against local animal cruelty codes, so you would need to get atleast a dog house or something to protect it from the rain/cold/sun.
From what I learned from people who have worked in animal control, I don't think it would make it long at the pound. (If anyone in BPN has different information, please feel free to correct me). It's my understanding that though most of the shelters in the area are ''no kill'', they still put down dogs which are unadoptable or have medical problems (which at 13 it will probably have something) or they can transfer to kill shelters. With all the foreclosures, the shelters are pretty full, which makes it hard for the best dogs to get adopted and even harder for those with known health problems. I hate to say it, but if your only option is to bring it to the ASPCA, then it might be best to put it down yourself in a loving way so that its last days are not traumatic and sad.
I can understand someone not wanting a dog living in their house if they are otherwise happy being free of the shedding and possible dog smell, but if your reason for not having it indoors is a belief it can't be done at this point, then you should atleast try it to see if the dog can adjust. In fact, at 13 years old, it would probably love being in a warm, dry house and less upset about not being able to run around outside as a young outdoor dog would be. If you have a walking routine, I doubt it will be hard to housetrain. Dogs understand instinctually understand that there are appropriate and inappropriate places to go to the bathroom, it would probably just take a couple of weeks to train it to go outside. I thought taking a dog out for walks everyday would be a big burden on my already busy life, but I have grown to really appreciate the time to just walk for 20 minutes which I never did before having a dog.
Good luck, I know its a difficult position anon
No advice but I’m in a similar boat— my fiancé and I just had a baby and his cat is very aggressive. He’s tried to attack the baby already and has scratched our friend’s toddler on the forehead. He’s a nice cat to humans, but just wayyy too dominant and aggressive.
We had the exact same thing happen except that our older cat (who was 4 at the time) was the less friendly cat and we decided to keep the new cat. Even after 4 years we were able to take the older cat back to the shelter we got her from, albeit with lots of guilt tripping from the shelter. If you got your newer cat from a shelter, I'd give that a shot as she sounds very re-homeable.
I'm planning on going to the Berkeley Humane Society this weekend in search of a cat who does well with kids. If you haven't yet found a home for the new cat, maybe I could take her. You can DM me if you're interested!
I don't know which organizations take in pets that need to be rehomed, but start with contacting the humane society. You can ask around at work, in case someone is interested. If you deal with an individual, ask for a rehoming fee of $50-$100 then donate it to a shelter. This is to insure that they want a pet and can afford food, etc. Ask the potential new family about their home, other pets, whether they know how to care for a pet, etc until you feel comfortable that they will be a loving family.
Maybe the younger cat needs more personal space? If rehoming is not successful, I wonder if the younger cat would be more satisfied as an indoor/outdoor cat?