“I could never put my animal into rescue……..”
Rescue animals come in for all sorts of reasons, the minority is your stereotypical dumped, abandoned, unwanted. For many bringing animals in to us it is a heart wrenching decision which causes upset past the initial bringing in. Many owners have brought animals in because for one reason or another finance, or lack of finance, plays a part. Be it moving to rented accommodation that wont allow pets, change of job so hours are longer or working away, new family members and there just isn’t the time any more, family illness, lack of money, the list is pretty extensive. Sometimes this has led to vaccinations lapsing, no neutering, behavioural problems that haven’t been addressed, health problems that haven’t been addressed. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were unloved it just mean life has a way of interfering sometimes. For those who say “my animals come first”, “I wouldn’t move to a place that wouldn’t accept my pets”, it’s not that easy. Until you or someone you know has been in that position you always think it wouldn’t happen to me.
We encourage ex-owners to keep in contact with us and as far as we can we’ll let them know how their animal is doing. We encourage them to bring in their pets favorite bed or toy, anything that gives them that extra bit of reassurance in the first few days with us. We post updates when we get them on our facebook page.
Just because an animal ends up in rescue it wasn’t necessarily unloved, sometimes it was loved so much the owner had to do something to improve it’s life. In some cases the easy option would be to keep the pet, the right option would be to give it the chance of the right new home. Yes, of course, there are the cruelty cases, the “it’s not little anymore”, “it’s too hairy”, the thoughtless purchase of a pet, the gumtree ads! But in a large amount of cases the animals were very much loved, and one thing we can be certain of they will be loved while they are at BARK and we will do our best to get them the new loving home they need.