Rescuer People, Are We Winning the War

Judging from the river of abandoned pets out here, it's a tough year to have four paws.
Are there more pugs being surrendered or turning up in pounds? With the troubled economy, are there fewer donations and less interest in special fundraisers? And is it harder or easier to carefully place a senior or younger pug then it was last year or the year before. In short, are we holding our own?

Ellen, even though I am on the other side of the planet I know only too well that the answers to your questions are a very sad and very resounding YES, YES, YES, YES AND NO!!

Rona, you answered that correctly. We've had so many pugs given up it's insane. And, donations are way down. Not to mention how slow adoptions are too. It's a very sad time in rescue right now. We have a waiting list of pugs to come in with no place for them to go.

Exactly what Rona said.... Our foster homes are full. Pugs are not moving. Applications are not coming in. The foster and hospice families are often paying for the medical expenses so the rescue is not further burdened. BYB's continue to crank out puppies that are not being sold. Homes are being lost. Pets are abandoned. It is dire.

Brenda wrote:Rona, you answered that correctly. We've had so many pugs given up it's insane. And, donations are way down. Not to mention how slow adoptions are too. It's a very sad time in rescue right now. We have a waiting list of pugs to come in with no place for them to go.

Rebecca and the Pugs wrote:Exactly what Rona said.... Our foster homes are full. Pugs are not moving. Applications are not coming in. The foster and hospice families are often paying for the medical expenses so the rescue is not further burdened. BYB's continue to crank out puppies that are not being sold. Homes are being lost. Pets are abandoned. It is dire.

What everyone else said. It's discouraging. We have had pugs in for months and months-slow apps, more incomings, lower donations-something's gotta give at some point. And here at least, when times are tough people often use their dogs to breed to make money-so more pug puppy ads are showing up which means more down the line. We have a spay/neuter law that I am hoping will start to make a difference soon.

Sadly, we are seeing this with all breeds, of course, not just pugs.

So far, up here in Alaska, we are above water. Do we owe the vet? Yeah, over 50% of the time, we owe. But, we have enough space and foster homes for all the dogs we are taking in. Every time I see what is going on with the rescues down in the states, I get sick. I wish I could help!

We have some pugs that stay in rescue for months. The average, if I were to guess, is about 3-5 months before being placed. It seems the middle aged males take the longest, which is really too bad, as they are the best in my opinion.

Donations for us are up, but that is because we have grown larger, more fundraising being done (thanks to MaryJo!), and I think more people that have adopted in the past are donating.

MAPR is in there with everyone else who's swamped. The adoption fee for seniors (and that's only 8 years old!) is down to $100, and still the fosters are hard to move. Foster homes are full to the brim, and applications are down.

If MJ has a knack at fundraisers, can Polar Pug make some suggestions? I think we have to all stand together, united or fail one by one. I have always wondered, what do the abandoned pugs do in the general San Franciso/Oakland area. The brief google search I did just now suggests no rescue operating at all.

This year we did a garage sale fundraiser. It was AWESOME! I mean, no joke, it was a lot of hard work - but, we made a lot of much needed money. MJ is really, really good at organizing, and she's also good at asking people for donations.

I'm just now getting our paperwork in order, and going to start looking for grants and corporate donations. We have 501(c)(3) status, but, due to some bad filing, we can't find our determination letter. I just sent off to the IRS for a copy.

While we are making small inroads in changing some of the laws, for example, the license fee for intact animals in most of N. CA is $100-$200 per year, but few breeders follow the law. People get more and more self centered and education often falls on deaf ears. If people simply refused to buy from puppymills and BYB they would cease to exist. However people want their puppies and they want them NOW. Then when the dogs end up with medical issues, they dump them on rescues or sell them on CL and call it a "rehoming fee".

People have more financial problems, more dogs end up being dumped but these people who are now not working, don't bother to offer their time or assistance to the shelters or rescue. We have a 7 yo little girl coming to Pugoween next week who set up a lemonaid stand and raised $50 for PugSavers because she loves her 12 yo pug. These are exceptional parents and I am hoping her story will inspire others.

As long as people remain silent when they see people who are carelessly breeding, pets will suffer.

As to the pugs in SF area, PugPROS covers that area,

As a thought, when Drew Carey took over for Bob Barker, did the famous "spay and neuter your pets,' slogan go away? Can someone ask him to revive it if he isn't already doing so. How about asking the ladies on The View to push spay and neuter as being popular.

We're Here wrote:As a thought, when Drew Carey took over for Bob Barker, did the famous "spay and neuter your pets,' slogan go away? Can someone ask him to revive it if he isn't already doing so.

He still says it :)

Even up here--and we're way less swamped than the US--we have seen a real upsurge in dogs being surrendered and adoptions are WAY down. We used to get 10 apps for almost any of our dogs. Now we're lucky if we get two. Our big fund raiser, the Woofstock Walk-A-Thon generated half the donations we got last year.

Our other problem, like so many of the other rescues, is that our foster parents have often had dogs back to back for years without a break and I'm losing foster homes due to it. People's own dogs are exhausted or ill so need a break as well as I have several foster families who are on long term leave due to their own health issues. And it's very hard to get new foster homes that have a clue. We have lots of applications from people who want to "try out a pug" by fostering. While I appreciate the desire, given the severity of the health issues we see, we really need homes that can hit the ground running. And for whatever reason, I've been getting applications from people breeding mixes who want to foster. I'm not bringing this up to re-create drama, but I've had three applications to foster from people breeding puggles/ori-peis/juggs. They don't see anything wrong with what they are doing, don't understand why we have a "resident pets must be altered" rule and have been pretty ugly to me when I've turned them down. Discouraging to say the least.

And we're now getting adopted dogs returned due to the economy. Some of these dogs have been out in their adoptive homes for 4 or 5 years.

How many rescues recruit senior citizens by giving a yearly senior rate with a bumper sticker or keychain. And then see if foster homes can be recruited using seniors.

We've tried, but many of our seniors are on very fixed incomes and can't afford the vet care for many of our dogs. When we can we do use seniors for adopting seniors, and try for fostering, but so far, it's been a bit of a bust.

We don't have the volume in pugs that you guys need to cope with, but I work with all-breed rescues and the increase is noticeable here, too. Rescuer burn-out is increasing as well.

One big problem in Australia right now is that DDs, BYBs and even Heinz cross breds are being advertised for ludicrous sums and for some reason, people seem to think they must be worth it - so pay ridiculous amounts of money for a "breeding pair" or an entire bitch and then breed themselves to try and recoup the money. It's madness with some breeds - especially the heavily advertised F1 crosses.

All the education we try to put out there is like a drop in the bucket when faced with the advertising, all we can do is plod steadily on.

We don't have the problems you guys in the States have, but there is certainly a large increase in the number of litters being bred and advertised for sale. When I began looking for my first pug 7 years ago, there were few litters advertised and even fewer bitch puppies available. Now there are loads, on our Kennel Club website alone.
Foster homes are few and far between. Last week I put out feelers to 2 people who I thought might foster. One is getting a puppy (of another breed, which she has been involved with for years, so fair enough) and one has simply not come back to me.
Fundraising is certainly becoming more difficult. We have 2 major fundraisers a year, one in July and one in September. In 2011 for my sins I have said I will organise the July tombola. This is always a huge money spinner - or has been in the past. I must need my head seeing to.
I'm still remembering a few weeks ago when we had a total of 9 to move on our little patch alone. I've no idea what's going on in the rest of the UK but I suspect it's not good. And soon it will be time for the pre-Christmas clear-out.

We have 14 coming into DFW in the next 2 days.

14.

and many of these are heartworm positive, so it'll be at least 30 days before we can adopt them out, assuming they can have the shorter heartworm treatment.

so no, we are not winning this war. we're doing everything we can to help as many pugs as we can, one (or 14) at a time.

Yes, we had many applications to both foster & adopt from Pugoween this weekend, but not all will be accepted of course.

As fast as we can adopt them out, more come in. It's a revolving door...

Here in Ohio, we have 84 pugs in foster care and a waiting list of 40! Our donations are down as well.

Good god - 84 pugs in foster, 40 on the waiting list?

14 coming in?

Damn! Alaska could use some of these. We really could take a good amount, because we often have more applications than pugs available, and sometimes people apply for pugs and we just don't have the right one to fit their family.

Who's gonna build an underground rescue railroad for these pugs?