Friday, January 30, 2015

Puppy adoption

Sometime last year Sandhya and I decided to adopt a 4 legged pet (read dog). We thought it would be nice for Avni to have a pet doggie to grow up with. So the search began, initially we thought of adopting a young/adult dog but soon fell in love with pups. Needless to say our adopted pup will be coming home sometime next week. Yes, will post some pics once she arrives.  In this process we worked with multiple rescue organizations across Austin and here are some of the learnings.

  • The best resource on the web to find dogs and pups is petfinder.com
  • Pups get adopted real fast, if you see something today and like its pic, get to action right away else it will be gone before you realize
  • In general whether it is a dog or a pup, I recommend to adopt from a fosters home rather than straight up from the shelter
  • There are a ton of pitbull and pitbull mix dogs and puppies available for adoption
  • I must have met close to 8-10 foster parents and all of them were very good people. I did learn a great deal by interacting with them
  • Be prepared for heartbreaks, for the pup/dog you fell in love might already have an application pending
  • Most shelters pull dogs/pups from euthanize list and I am very certain one will never know the dad is but sometimes the mommy dog gets rescued and you get to see at the least 1 parent.
  • The fosters are highly motivated people and are experts in the field, interact with them and they can teach a lot. 
  • Its one thing to meet a dog in the fosters home and completely different to see it in your own home (hint: if you can get the foster to bring the dog to your home, that’s the ideal scenario).
  • If you are ok with a mixed breed dog/pup and not hung up on pure breeds, adopting from shelter much much cheaper.
  • Considering the fosters pretty much could be living all over town and sometimes in next town, it does take decent amount of driving to find the right one.
  • Patience, patience and more patience    

Austin Pets Alive: Previously known as Town lake animal shelter, located on the banks of town lake. They are mostly a volunteer driven organization and they have a huge collection of dogs and pups. They have a very well designed and searchable website. They mostly work through emails and phone calls rarely. The best part, they have a matchmaker service too, she is pretty helpful specially if you are looking to adopt an adult dog. One thing I didn’t like about them is the fact they did not inform in advance if there was an adoption pending and their website has no way of indicating the same.  

Austin Dog Rescue: I have to admit, these guys are my favorite amongst all (even though I couldn’t adopt from them). They do not have a physical shelter but only work through foster programs. These guys are very structured and do have a very well maintained website, once I showed interest in a dog/pup by emailing the co-ordinator, the foster would call to discuss about the dog/pup and about us (family, house, yard and all) and if they are satisfied they will setup an appointment for meet and greet. If the foster likes the interaction then we go ahead with the adoption process. The foster has the final say in adopting the dog to us.

Austin Animal Shelter: This is a city of Austin Animal shelter and very professional one. They have a 2 step procedure, first show up at the shelter and do the required paper work to become eligible for adoption and then look around their website or the kennels and most dogs/pups go on a first come first serve basis unless they are in foster program where the foster has the final say. Unlike other shelters where they pull dogs/pups from being euthanized, I believe Austin Animal shelter works only with stray and owner surrenders.   

Craigs List: This was my favorite place when I was looking for adult dogs, but the experience wasn’t that great. Lot of the dogs that people are looking to rehome on craigslist are big dogs (80-90LB). I got close to meet and greet through craigslist twice but did not go through with either of them, in one case the lady cancelled the meeting 2 hours before the scheduled time and another case they wanted to hand me the dog over to me in the middle of the road (it became more of an ethical dilemma). On the whole It’s pretty entertaining to read through some of the posts.

Other organizations worth mentioning are

Relocation rescue: they usually post on craigslist and won’t find them on petfinder. I am in good touch with the Austin contact and she is very motivated to find good home for dogs/pups.

Love a Bulll Austin: These guys mostly work with PitBulls and their mixes, super focused on those breeds. They are working hard to eliminate the social stigma that comes with Pit Bulls and are willing to house the dog at our house for however long we think we need to before we say yes/no for adoption. Somehow I am not a Pit Bull fan butt I did end up meeting one of their dogs and sort of liked her.  

Austin Humane Society: I barely worked with them and they are mostly phone based people and not email. I believe they have a shelter somewhere on Anderson Mill road and 183.