Rescue Tips from Rusty

Incentive winner of the Tea Pot is Abigail Hausberg. 

 Congratulations and thank you for donating!

Valuable rescue tips from Rusty, a rescue volunteer.

transport:

always double collar / double lead

-- prefer bull nose clips on lead as they cannot be accidentally released

-- if you don't have an I.D. tag ready, use duct tape and make a tag on the collar with a sharpie

Don't do anything that isn't positive in those first 3 days that you are gaining their trust and proving their safety.

Do a meet and greet if you can / with your other animals.  Do it safely with assistance or using a "meet and greet pen or area".

Do NOT allow any fence fighting during this meet and greet.

Use a crate for the new arrival / rescue.  This is a totally safe space for the new one and makes it possible for you to control feeding with no food aggression involved.  I use the command "Kennel" for this and treat them.  This also gives you time to start working on a new name.

I put this crate right out in the middle of whatever is going on so they can safely observe.

I always escort a new one on a short lead, to any place I am taking them to.  (I use a meet and greet pen .... large dog run, in the beginning) I work on the recall every chance I get.

Each Rescue is different and is handled differently but some of the basics are always true:

-- keep yourself safe, keep your other animals safe, keep the new rescue safe an ounce of prevention thing is true here

-- first gain their trust of your certainty and your control

-- when you have that trust, then do stressful things like grooming .... 

if it is possible to wait

Always remember you are dealing with a thinking dog and you need to watch them and their body language to see what is going on in their universe .... and then work with it.