This is a great thing to consider if you are wanting a dog in your life or an extra dog to join the dog you already have.
I'm going to get straight to the point and give you plenty of information to think about and consider to help you make the decision of whether to adopt or maybe not.
Regardless of who you adopt your dog through or where this dog was prior to then, you are receiving a dog that requires training. More than likely it requires a lot of training!
The dog has ended up at a pound/shelter because it have not had sufficient training. (Almost always, there might be exceptions like a deceased estate, but even if it was a deceased estate, the dog would likely go to any family member if it was well trained as the family would love the dog and see it as an easy decision to keep it. So unless the deceased had absolutely no one to take the well trained dog... the dog was probably not well trained... and so on). There are always exceptions, but yeah, the dog requires training!
A dog in a pound or foster situation will not act like the dog you end up with after it is at your home for 2 - 4 weeks. The first 2 weeks is probably relatively easy.
Once your dog has settled into your home, you will have already allowed the dog to either revert back to old bad habits, or you have inadvertently trained this dog new bad habits. This dog might have never had separation anxiety, but your human need to love and spoil this poor adopted fur baby and the simple routine of "going to work" can easily cause separation anxiety. All because you didn't focus on the training as you probably didn't realise how important it is!
Every dog learns things quickly if you repeat them... good and bad!
I have worked with a huge amount of people and their adopted or fostered dogs over the years and a common trend happens... They hope love and kindness and spoiling the dog will save it. It doesn't. It's nice to do this but it is nicer to train the dog.
No amount of treats, puppachinos, scarfs, harness that match their lead, custom collars, fancy jackets, cuddles, kisses, cosy beds, their own Instagram page or any of the other things us humans like to do for the adopted dogs has EVER or will EVER stop or prevent -
A dog barking all day while you're at work
Separation anxiety
A dog destroying everything
Resource guarding - Super common for pound dogs
Food Aggression - Super duper common for pound dogs
Lead reactivity
Bad recall off lead
Barking at the neighbors fence
Pee pee and poo poo inside
Jumping on guests
ETC.
These are the most common issues I see with most Adopted dogs.
Please understand these dogs need training! Training a dog in a calm and positive way with loads of calm and clear communication will benefit your dog way more than anything else you do. The reason your dog was surrendered is almost certainly because the previous owner slacked off on the training. Doing a 4 week puppy school does absolutely NOTHING for any dog if you do not continue training consistently throughout the first 2 years and then ongoing for the rest of their lives!
I repeat, puppy schools are a waste of time and money if you do not continue training. I work full time as a dog trainer and virtually every dog I work with has gone to a puppy school. Yet they are often crazy by the time they are 8 months old. The word "training" better be getting driven into your head by now... there will be more of the word TRAINING below.
After our Son Thomas was born, Our two dogs were 5 years old, and we, without noticing slacked off on our interactions and engagement with them. After 6 months we had to put in so much more time and effort with them to get them back to an acceptable training level. Recall was no longer perfect and they needed to be asked twice, they started pulling on the lead a little bit as we weren't walking them anywhere near as much, they were getting more restless and started chasing birds in the yard and they actually began to move for their dinner before the release command was given!!! They are all good now though and we didn't make the same mistake after our Daughter Tess was born 1 year ago. Ongoing engagement and training is important! Even for older dogs that have had excellent training.
Here are some harsh don'ts - (or let's call them "really really maybe say no to adoption or definitely think hard about)
Don't adopt a dog if your current dog is not very well trained and at least a couple of years old. It will rarely work out and you will get overwhelmed and you will surrender the adopted dog because your first dog comes first. I cannot begin to tell you how often people have stopped training with me because it "didn't work out between the dogs".
Don't adopt a dog if you live a chaotic work and social life as you will be require to spend a lot of dedicate time TRAINING the adopted dog. Working 40+ hours a week plus kids extra curricular on weekends plus your social life doesn't leave a lot of time to training a new puppy let alone a potentially damaged older dog with unknown bad habits. So give it some common sense thought, it's not fair to surrender a dog again because your emotions took over.
Don't just believe what you have been told about the dog. You probably won't hear the full extent or even any truth at all. Or the fact that no one can predict how the dog with be in the new environment. (This is what I have seen commonly from training sessions I have been to with adopted dogs). So often I hear of more underlying problems that come to the surface over time.
Don't wait what seems like the usual 6 months or more to start training an adopted dog. Do it immediately, regardless of anything! This dog does not need to settle in. It needs to be trained from the get go!
Don't just adopt a dog without giving it proper thought! Balance your emotions with common sense, for the dogs sake.
I do wish shelters, pounds and foster places focused way more on training a dog before being re homed. I do understand there is costs and time associated with this, but the reality is those dogs are there because they are not trained and they will end up back there or worse if they do not get trained!
I genuinely care about dogs more than most. My Mission statement that kept me focused on dog training all these years has always been -
"A trained dog is happy in a home. An untrained dog is unhappy in a shelter"
The meaning of this is simply that regardless of where the dog is located, if it's not trained it's not as happy as it should be! Dogs love nothing more than structure with clear calm communication. They are not around forever so let's give them the best life possible!
I'm absolutely not against Adoption and doing anything to help dogs have a better life.
I am completely against Humans making dumb emotional decisions that end up bouncing a dog from home to pound to shelter to foster... All because no one through any of this, took the time to do what's actually best for the dog... TRAINING IT!
If your are going to adopt a dog, simply put the time in to train it. Give that dog the best life possible.
There is soooo much more I'd like to write, but I'll leave it there for now!
Give your dog a pat for me!
Cheers, Scott
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