On August 17th DRC put out an urgent appeal for someone to collect former SPA resident Tayson from a refuge in Department 07, where he had arrived as a stray. Any dog adopted from the SPA Carcassonne will always have a home with us. I lose count of the number of dogs who “belong” to other refuges who refuse to take them back when they show up at the SPA Carcassonne. Pleading over-crowding is all well and good, but do you really think things are any easier for us?
In any case, within 30 minutes of the appeal, we had no fewer than three offers of help. Many thanks to Steve and Sue, Pauline and Wally (both couples have adopted at least one dog from the SPA Carcassonne) and mostly to Muriel’s parents, who were first to respond and so, based solely on that criteria, were the ones “chosen” to rescue Tayson. I am sure that the French network would have come up with a solution pretty quickly too, the SPA Carcassonne is blessed with fabulous supporters for whom animals are a priority.
You will all be relieved to know that Tayson is now back at the SPA, very thin and undernourished, but at least he is safe.
So how did this situation come to pass? Why was Tayson left to wander for we suspect several weeks with his owner failing to notify us? Had we known we could have put out appeals on Facebook for people to keep an eye out for this boy; after all he is a big dog and is friendly and approachable. I suppose the new owner did not wish to admit that he had lost Tayson. We know that Tayson likes to wander and we emphasised this when he was adopted; some people hate admitting they are wrong, even when a dog’s life is at stake!
We do not refuse to let dogs leave our department like some refuges, citing the difficulty of follow-up. We home dogs all over France and abroad, too. Quite often the further away the dog, the more news we have; look at the wonderful photos we have of the dogs in the UK and Belgium, sometimes years after they were adopted. So no, this experience will not change the way we rehome our dogs. But we perhaps need to emphasise to people that if there is a problem, keeping quiet about it is not an option. The appeal to collect Tayson proved that we can sort out most messes, even if in a perfect world every adoption would work out first time.
Shockingly this is Tayson’s fifth time at the SPA. His next home has to be the right one. When we say that a dog needs a well-enclosed garden, we are not saying it because we have shares in a fence company!
There were three adoptions at the SPA today, just to brighten things up. Guismo left after having been spotted yesterday by the adopters of Granite (now Whisky). They wanted an older dog to be company for Whisky, but he or she had to be housetrained and cat-friendly, which we knew to be the case with Guismo! The other lucky dogs were Yorkie and Stella.
Just to balance things out, though, three non-identified dogs were brought in. Photos of them to follow tomorrow, all being well.
Tayson looking for a lift home
And on his way, looking happier already with Muriel’s mum!
Guismo – ADOPTED
Yorkie – ADOPTED
Stella – ADOPTED