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I have been volunteering locally with a rescue group that rescues and rehabilitates giant breed dogs. The group is based out of Colorado and has experienced great success in the mid-west. They are expanding into this area due to our tremendous need for help in animal rescue in North Carolina, and I welcome their support (and their funding) to our state with open arms.
What we have quickly discovered here though, is that in NC, it appears to be much more difficult to find suitable foster homes. I'm sure the economic downturn has something to do with it, but we are working so hard and keep coming up empty handed.
Does anyone have any recommendations on where we can locate giant breed lovers in the area?
I'm sure the fact that it costs a fortune these days to feed these big dogs is a barrier to fostering as well, but the rescue group is covering the costs of food, too! We're trying everything we can to find homes ...
Try asking the Hillsborough animal rescue. We adopted our (now deceased) dog, Elliot, from them back in 1998. He was a basket case, but they painstakingly nurtured him back to health and allowed us to take him home. Maybe they know of people that can help?
Someone posted a link today about meetup.com and when I searched "Giant Breed Dogs" to see what that entailed I noted a link for meetup. Silly me... I thought it was a dating site. DUH!
There are 176 people just waiting for someone to create a meetup group for large breed dogs, and 2 other dog loving groups already on listed on meetup Cary & Raleigh.
I would also check with some of the larger animal hospitals... they may be willing to keep your name & number on file (for fostering) when folks inquire about adoptees, etc.
I checked out that website Meetup before, and I think they charge some type of fee to create a group. I'm not sure how successful it is so I've been hesitant to spend the rescue group's money on something until I have a chance to research it more. I'll look into it further.
Maybe you could put flyers up at Vet offices. Maybe that way you'd find quality foster parents. I would love to foster rescues (especially giant breeds) but have kids and would want to put the dogs through more trauma and I don't have the room. Good Luck!!
It is my observation that the pet overpopulation around here is MUCH WORSE than other places . . I don't have numbers, so I could be wrong.
Once you get outside of the big counties of Wake, Durham, Orange, you get out of the territory of "animal shelters" and into "animal control facilities." At these, zero services and only the most basic care (food) is provided. There is no requirement for them to be spayed or neutered so even if they are adopted they could go on to reproduce.
Harnett County has a relatively good program in that the officers there are really nice people and I cannot imagine the ones that I have met ever mistreating the animals, but other facilities are much worse.
Here is a link to the pets available now:
Animal Adoption List (http://www.harnettanimalcontrol.com/adoption_list.cfm - broken link)
This changes through out the week, as some get adopted and then the ones that are left on Wednesday are put down. There are always a lot more animals there than on the website as they only take photos once a week.
They have one week to get adopted and are then put down. Fortunately, the pets at Harnett go by lethal injection but at other facilities they go in a gas chamber which is very horrific.
So, the long answer is that the rescue community here is very overwhelmed. That said, it's still worth looking for foster homes as the more foster homes there are the more pets can be saved.
Good luck to you and thanks for being an advocate for the animals.
It is my observation that the pet overpopulation around here is MUCH WORSE than other places . . I don't have numbers, so I could be wrong.
You are absolutely right. The euthanasia rate here is near 80% for cats. And fostering is even more difficult for them
Of course, NC has a few backwards laws on its books. Do you know it is illegal to humanely trap a feral animal? Why is this important? In order to spay or neuter a feral, you have to trap it. D-uh. Maybe the way to S/N is to wave a magic wand.
Seriously. Overpopulation is a huge problem, and fosters/adopters can only take on so many. The rest is up to the rest of the population to spay/neuter. That way every animal has a PERMANENT home, not a foster or a shelter.
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