So they are the only rescue around you within a 200 mile radius? And you make a huge effort to travel 7 hours to rescue a golden but was almost turned down because of "another undesirable" who gave their dog up to the pound? I commend you for caring and will never understand that type of mentality.

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I totally understand it. You have to remember that these people are (for the most part) volunteers who donate a lot of their own time, money and heart to these rescue organizations. They are in it for the dogs. If they have a dog adopted 7 hours away who is ultimately turned in to the local shelter because the adopters don't want to drive the 14 hour round trip to return the dog....I understand making a general limit on mileage from the location of the rescue. Certainly there should always be exceptions to the rule, which there apparently were with cubbysan , but I find it hard to believe that one can't at least understand the reason behind that type of policy when one knows the story behind it.

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If the rescue had a dog dumped at a shelter by a long distance/out of state adopter, how do you feel about that poor dog in danger of being put to sleep because of an irresponsible adopter? Golden Retrievers do get put to sleep in shelters. And then the rescue group having to go to great lengths to retrieve that dog, if it was even possible.

Rescues are tasked with seeing to the welfare and protection of the dogs they take in - not making exceptions to the rules to satisfy people who want to adopt but don't like the policies.

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And for the most part, even without a full explanation of why, you can figure out for yourself why some policies are in place.

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It would be horrible to have that happen, however I'm am a realist and know that no rescue can save every dog that comes their way and believe restricting people from this type of adoption would be a disservice to all the other dogs waiting to be adopted.

It shouldn't have to be that hard to be able to adopt a golden who is setting in a shelter due to not enough foster parents.

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Wouldn't that be speculating?

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To truly understand I think you need to 'walk a mile' in the shoes of a rescue. I spent 4 years 24-7 in rescue, fostering, volunteering, donating and adopted two rescued dogs. It is hard to comprehend why rescues are so determined to get those dogs into the right homes, unless you experience it with your own eyes and heart, the suffering some of these dogs endure, pictures and stories just do not 'cut it' - as a rescuer the last thing you want for those dogs is to suffer again for one second - so they have to do what, is in their opinion based on their experiences is best for the dogs. As a foster home who had final say in an adoption, I made a few mistakes, placed the dog in the 'wrong' home, for one dog - that mistake was fatal, another turned into a kill shelter, where the owners were told without a doubt the dog would be put down, another returned with behavior issues caused by the owner - I will carry the guilt for life, and vowed to do better - the next time - no dog deserves that fate.
Sure rescues may seem over protective and have rules that don't make 'sense' to some but those dogs they rescue are just as 'valuable' and deserving to them as any dog from anywhere else. If it was your dog, how 'far' would you go to make sure it had the best life possible? Would you expect a breeder to sell you a dog, just because you want one?
Do I agree with everything some rescues do? No, but for the sake of the dogs, I will continue to support those that do meet what I expect a rescue to be, they are not all the same, and will adopt another rescue when it is time.

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Until there are none, rescue one.

Almost all Rescues have an Adoption contract which states if the owner can no longer care for the dog they have adopted for any reason for the lifetime of that dog, it is to be returned to the Rescue Group.. Adopters sign the Adoption Contract full aware of this clause and agree to abide by the terms of the Adoption Contract.

It has happened several times to a few Rescues in my area who have had to change their policy-

A boxer Rescue adopted a dog to a family out of state which they normally did not do, but for some reason made an exception in this case. The Rescue Group was contacted by the local Animal Control after the Adopter turned that dog into the facility. The adopter was fully aware that they were to contact the Rescue if they could no longer care for this dog, but for whatever reason chose not to.

The Boxer Rescue was in the process of making arrangements to have Volunteers drive to the Out of State facility to pick up the Boxer. Before the arrangements could be completed and the dog picked up, Animal Control euthanized the dog because it's hold time had expired even though AC knew the Rescue was planning to come get the dog.

After this particular incident, the Rescue would no longer adopt their dogs to anyone out of their Service Area and especially not Out of State.

Why not adopt a dog you see in a shelter directly through the shelter?

My girl is from a GR Rescue and I found my boy at my County Humane Society. I lost my bridge boy almost 2 years ago at the age of 15.5. I was planning to adopt through one of the GR Rescues in my state, had their Adopt app. downloaded, but had not started filing it out when I saw a young Golden boy at my HS which was only 15-20 minutes from my house. If I had gone through the GR Rescue, I was looking at a 2.5-3 hour trip one way. This was a win win situation for me. I was looking for a Golden boy and this boy was in need of a home and family.

When I was helping with Intake, I often thought I had seen it all, then something else far worse would come along. It made me sick to see the condition some of the dogs were in, it made me angry to think that a human could be so cruel to an animal who trusted, loved, and depended on that human to exist.

Then to see that dog become healthy,whole, blossom, be able to forgive humans for what had been done to it, learn to trust again and be placed in a home where it would be cared for, loved and adored for the rest of it's life, made it all worthwhile and reaffirmed the reason why I continued to help the Rescue.

The reason why I had to go so far was there were no goldens or golden mixes in my area at the time I was looking - three months. I would go to the local petco's and pet smarts that the local rescues would go to every weekend. The shelter amazingly did not get any, and the two golden rescues here only had a couple at that time, and they had issues that could not be placed with another dog or children. I searched through the hundreds of dogs listed as goldens on Petfinder from the various pounds, and none of them were actually golden retrievers. They were not even close to being mixed golden retrievers. They had terriers and pitbulls misidentified as goldens, most of them were not even the color of gold.

The weirdest thing is, right after we got MacKenzie, then I noticed that goldens or at least golden mixes started to show up on these sites. Not sure if it was the time of the year, but I really think it was because MacKenzie was meant to be ours. I really believe you get the dog that is supposed to be yours.

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