Please take a moment to read the article on Thinking of Adopting a Lab? before you consider submitting an application with SCLRR. It will give you some good ideas to think about before you consider a Lab as your dog of choice.
SCLRR's Philosophy
You might have been in contact with or read about rescue organizations over the years and felt they were overly picky, dishonest or vague about a dog's behavioral issues and presented too much red-tape to their adoption process. We have heard people say, "It is easier to adopt a child than an animal from a rescue." In some cases, we could not agree more. We have listened to these concerns over the years, we have changed our processes, tried to increase our communications, and thoroughly investigate each complaint we receive. Feedback is very important for our group and we are ever evolving. At this time, we feel that we are balancing our efforts successfully in placing our foster dogs in well-matched homes without causing too much frustration to our applicants in the process. The feedback we are receiving is that nearly all adopters leave our rescue thoroughly pleased with the experience and the care we take with our dogs both medically and in our evaluations.
SCLRR is a non-profit organization that does not have a single paid employee. The volunteers in this group give a considerable amount of their free time to placing unwanted and abandoned Labradors in well-matched homes. The only payment these volunteers receive is a personal feeling of satisfaction at having helped a dog and completed a family. One of our most important beliefs is that the people involved with our dogs (this could include volunteers, applicants and the businesses that provide us services) should be treated with respect at all times. In our organization, we stress to our volunteers that the people we encounter are as important as the dogs we are helping. The bottom line is that SCLRR would not be able to achieve our high-level of successful without the consistent focus of treating people with respect. We will always try to be as honest with you as possible. Sometimes you will not be completely happy with our honesty, but we feel it is the key to our success in the adoption process.
Our process starts with a family receiving a home visit by one of our volunteers. Many people have questions about why we perform homechecks on our adopters. After all, no one usually performs a homecheck when they purchase a puppy from a breeder or adopt dogs from shelters. This is true, but it does not mean that it is necessarily a good process or a benefit to the dog or family. When you adopt a dog, no matter how wonderful the dog is, there will always be adjustments to be made in the home. We feel if the dog is the correct match, there should be minimal stress and you should be prepared for nearly all issues the dog will present you with. Foster parents are very busy and they will not have time to drive a dog to a potential adopter to visit their home, so they need the homecheck notes to objectively evaluate the household they are considering. Yes, we are looking at the physical makeup of the yard, home, etc, but we are also evaluating the family's experience with dogs and their training capabilities during the interview as well. All this information is vital to properly match a foster dog to a family. It is also your opportunity to learn from our experience and ask a volunteer questions face-to-face and address any concerns you may have about your home, yard, etc.
We also want you to know that SCLRR is very open minded and does not automatically disqualify families that have small children, small pets, other dogs, elderly members in the home, busy work schedules, or a first time dog owner. We believe there is a dog out there for every family as long as the family is motivated to train and put effort into their new dog’s transition into their home. With that said, some variables are more difficult to match dogs to than others and patience may be needed until the right dog comes along.
The main frustration we see in SCLRR is the amount of time it may take before a family finds their new dog. We fully admit that SCLRR's processes are not necessarily speedy, but we are thorough. We need to accomplish the homecheck and then we have to find the correctly matched dog. This does not usually happen over the course of a few days. We may have a few applicants to consider for each dog we put on our website. With that said, we will always choose the best matched family for a dog. However, if all things are created equal between families, we will then consider how long applicants have been waiting. We try to make this as fair of a process as possible. We will not set up a dog or family to fail. Even though a family may have fallen in love with a dog's picture, we can not consider the family for that particular dog unless it is the right match for their home. You are going to have this dog in your home for potentially 10 years or more. The adoption of a dog is a long-term commitment and should not be rushed into quickly — take your time, be patient, we promise you that it will all pay off!
The next question we often get is why we charge an adoption fee. Each of our dogs receives fantastic care in the foster homes and the foster parents are not expected pay for their foster dog's food and medical expenses. They give a tremendous amount of their time and that should be enough. We always try our best to uncover any potential medical issues in our foster dogs and cure or get them managed before placement. Some dogs will cost us less than our adoption fee, but most dogs will be considerably above the fee. If it were not for the SCLRR donors, we would not be able to help as many dogs we do. Our main source of income is from private individuals — not large corporations. All of our dogs are sterilized, vaccinated, microchipped, dewormed, treated for any infections, and have any necessary surgeries or treatments needed. They are groomed (usually at our foster homes) and get SCLRR collars and tags. Other costs we incur are shelter fees (shelters do not give dogs away for free), boarding costs (we do no not have a facility), office costs (printing, website, phone, supplies), etc. We also take care of registering the microchip for all of our newly adopted foster dogs. All of this takes a considerable amount of money. We are incredibly thrifty and save costs wherever we can, but we do not short cut on quality medical treatments. We have also formed relationships with different vets and other companies in securing discounts and other benefits. The bottom line is that to properly care for our dogs, it takes a lot of money and asking for an adoption fee does offset some of these costs.
We evaluate every foster dog for a minimum of a week in each foster home. We believe to properly evaluate a dog for aggression issues and to determine the exercise requirements, level of training and start them on the path to proper house manners, they need to become part of our families for a small period of time. Please understand, we do not "rehabilitate" temperament, we are concentrating on proper evaluations and then we find the homes where our foster dogs will be successful and people will be able to handle their training needs. No matter how much time and resources we put into a dog, it will all be lost if the home is not correctly matched and the dog is not properly assessed. We also expect families to travel to a foster home. We want you to see the dog as it will be in your home — relaxed and not stressed. This is why we no longer participate in adoption events and our adoptions are now handled at the foster home. It may seem like a long drive to travel to a foster home a couple of hours away, but remember that it is usually only one time and if the meeting goes well, you will come home with the dog. We never let multiple families visit with our foster dogs and then decide who we want to adopt the dog to. That is cruel and unusual punishment to invest your emotions in a dog and then not be selected to adopt them.
With all that said, we do our best in our evaluations, but there is no guarantee that a dog will be exactly the same in your home as they are in a foster home. For example, we have had dogs that are fine with a cat in our foster home, but take to chasing a cat in the adopter's home. We do try to provide the proper education and training to our adopters to make them successful with a dog's transition, but sometimes situations are beyond our control. Please understand that we do not want a dog to stay in a home where things are stressful or dangerous. We want the dog to come back into SCLRR where it can be further evaluated. We know that adopters will have to put effort and time into their new dog, but there are some situations where an adopter needs to resign themselves to turning the dog back over to SCLRR. We offer fantastic support to adopters after the adoption of your dog, you can contact us as often as you need and even years after your adoption about medical or behavioral issues. We are there for you at all times.
SCLRR is extremely committed to educating the public and its volunteers on dog related issues. We provide training to our volunteers via professionals and other SCLRR volunteers. We provide our volunteers and adopters with very informative literature and SCLRR volunteers have a tremendous amount of experience to share. Some volunteers have been with this group for 10 years or more. We do not take the evaluation and placement of dogs lightly. We are committed to never knowingly placing dogs with aggression in homes. Our motto has always been that if a foster parent would not want to adopt their foster dog for behavioral issues, why would we expect someone else to manage these problems? Dogs should make people's lives better and more fulfilled. Dogs should help us learn about ourselves and be a source of happiness and enjoyment. We strive for nothing less in our placements.
We wish you the best in your search for a new family member and we want you to rest assured that we are there to help you every step of the way.
Sincerely,
SCLRR volunteers
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