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Calm, easy going neutered male BC available in Idaho


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https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/29790099

 

Oly was picked up by Animal Control, and taken to the impound. His owners were located but chose to leave him at the pound.

 

Oly is being currently being fostered in SW Idaho, and is available through IDAWG. (Idaho Domestic Animal Welfare Group).

 

He is 7, Loves kids and other dogs. Perfect gentleman in the house.

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Does anyone know WHY they chose to leave him at the pound? Might well be they're just jerks - but it would be nice to know that.

 

Is his tail docked or damaged, I wonder.

 

He's a good looking fellow, for sure. Sad to see such a handsome fellow without a home. Must be SO traumatic.

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I am fostering Oly .

He is a very pleasant dog to be around. He's been a house dog, clean calm, and housebroken. Doesnt bark. Nice boy!

He is overweight and has the listless hair coat of a dog who has been eating crummy food.

 

I don't know who his original family was, but here (in SW Idaho) a lot of people are going through personal and financial hard times. Who ever they were, it seems that they have raised a well-behaved , very emotionally healthy dog.

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He sounds like a sweet boy :wub: .

 

Perhaps the family meant well by leaving him with people who could care for him. Maybe they realized their mistake in purchasing a dog they couldn't support. The whole being picked up by animal control thing is sort of odd, though. Maybe they tried to "release him into the wild"? Unlikely, if they raised such a lovely dog. Perhaps they left him because they didn't care anymore.

 

Either way, I hope he finds a good home!

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From the pictures on the website I get the feeling that Oly might be a Border Collie/ Australian Shepherd cross. Not so much because of the lack of a tail, but because in the side-on views he presents a silhouette more like an Australian Shepherd. He is as tall as he is long. Most Border Collies are longer than they are tall. There's a lot of daylight under that dog. There's also something about his face - the eyes in particular - that looks different to me too.

 

He's a pretty dog, and sounds like a good bet for someone. Hope he gets a good home.

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Looks like he could be all BC, hard to say. As for a "reason" why the owners didn't reclaim him.... Of all the stuff I've heard being just semi-involved in rescue, there doesn't have to be a reason. Usually isn't a good one, at least. In fact, if you actually got the owners to admit the reason, it's most likely they just don't give a $h!t about the dog. If it was because they can't care for him any more, they could have surrendered him to the shelter or a rescue, but AC picked him up, so I'm not buying it. Perfectly wonderful dogs are dumped every day.

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I agree that to me he does look partially aussie shepherd. I'm a bit surprised that people care why a family let him go. From what I've known of rescues more often than not it's a problem with the humans and not with the dog anyways. Ah well. I wish him luck in finding a home!

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Chene,

I think the question springs from a genuine curiosity of why someone wouldn't want their dog, not because there might be an issue with the dog but because they can't fathom why the HUMAN would do such a thing.

 

P.S. I don't really see the aussie thing, but who knows?

 

 

J.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah, it was more than curiosity. Sometimes dogs are surrendered because they are not good with children or have a bad habit the owners can't deal with, a condition they can't afford such as allergies, etc.

 

Before taking in a rescue it is very important to understand as much as you can - or else you will be running blind as to how to assist the dog in becoming all the dog he can be.

 

It seems snide, but it's just pragmatic. I am an emergency rescue foster home and before I accept a dog, I need to know as many things as possible to help the dog as best as I can. Sometimes you can't know anything, and sometimes you can. It is downright irresponsible not to ask.

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CMP - While I agree to an extent, it can be dangerous to obtain information without the context. And without having personally known the dog or family, it's basically impossible to get that full context. If you attach a reason-for-being-left to a rescue dog, then you know what was wrong with the dog without knowing anything else. Were the previous owners inexperienced trainers? Were they biased because of their previous dogs? Did they use punishment-based training on a dog that was too soft for it? Did they allow their kid to go wild on the dog? A dog that has one issue in one house might not ever have that issue in another house. Personally I would prefer to use my own experience combined with the foster's (fosterer's...?) and rescue's experience to get an idea. If I was worried about a certain thing, I could ask that the dog be exposed to that certain thing so I could see before I made my choice, but I'd be wary of just taking a past owner's word for it.

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CMP - While I agree to an extent, it can be dangerous to obtain information without the context. And without having personally known the dog or family, it's basically impossible to get that full context. If you attach a reason-for-being-left to a rescue dog, then you know what was wrong with the dog without knowing anything else. Were the previous owners inexperienced trainers? Were they biased because of their previous dogs? Did they use punishment-based training on a dog that was too soft for it? Did they allow their kid to go wild on the dog? A dog that has one issue in one house might not ever have that issue in another house. Personally I would prefer to use my own experience combined with the foster's (fosterer's...?) and rescue's experience to get an idea. If I was worried about a certain thing, I could ask that the dog be exposed to that certain thing so I could see before I made my choice, but I'd be wary of just taking a past owner's word for it.

You make good points. Not a bad one in the bunch.

 

However, with or without context, I ask all sorts of questions, read the full file and, if possible, talk directly with the former owners. I'm capable, I hope, of separating out which things are remedial and which things may be inherent to the dog's character - but it is always helpful, going in, to know as much as you can.

 

It makes a HUGE difference when you set out to rehome them. I work with a group that tries to get all BC into environments where they can be sheepdogs but for those dogs who have no skill, interest or physical ability, we have to find regular homes - some have children, some live next to train tracks, some smell like cabbage, some have low ceilings. Yes, all of those things were factors in past adoptions.

 

When someone tells you a thing, it is on you and your intellect and experience to give it what context you can - "the dog bites" is one thing you hear - but it turns out the dog only bites when the master beats it. Hmmm. After a while, if you have been around dogs enough, to begin to understand what can affect them and in what ways - but it never hurts to have all the information even if it is so you can determine which is cause and which is not - but it is all useful.

 

People give up dogs for all sorts of reasons - some from hate, some from ennui, some from frustration, some from economic places and some, yes, from love. It's good to know which one THEY think it was.

 

YMMV, of course :)

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You're right, of course. If you can take things with a grain of salt then they probably won't hurt (although you'll always have to be careful not to let what's been told to you about the dog interfere with who the dog really is). I'm not as uncomfortable with letting someone fostering know the "reason for being left" as I would be in letting the people adopting or the general public know. Like I said, information is dangerous. That doesn't mean it will always do harm, but it does mean it can, and therefore has to be handled carefully. You sound like you're good at doing that yourself, but no one can guarantee that the new owners will be. If you're about to adopt a dog and someone says "The previous owners relinquished it because it bit. It was almost certainly because they beat it, so don't worry about," then a lot of people are STILL going to worry about it. They can't help it, because it's some of the only information they have from the dog's past life. Don't get me wrong, the best people would understand not to dwell on it. But most people aren't the best people. Most people are just average dog owners who worry about their safety and happiness, and that of their family/friends. If I were trying to get a dog adopted and the adopter asked why it was abandoned, I would tell them that it didn't matter in the slightest. I would tell them what I had personally discovered about the dog, and leave it at that (of course I would have checked to see if the reason for being abandoned was a legitimate issue as well).

I guess my point would be, info is fine for a responsible foster parent or rescue, but not great to divulge to an entire forum or to a complete stranger (from Rita's point of view).

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The thing is, if the dog has a bite history, then that pretty much has to be divulged for liability reasons. If that were the case and it was known that the dog was abused, then I'd think that should also be made known along with any more current observations. It could make a big difference in how a potential adopter would assess the risk.

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Honestly I don't know that I'd let a dog with a bite history go to an "average dog owner" in the first place. Seems like a recipe for disaster. Either way, you're right, biting wasn't the best example. For pretty much every other thing, though, my point stands.

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Withholding vital information, even if one does so for "the right reasons" (which would quite rightly smack of hubris to the average bear) is both a legal and a moral issue. I would not do it under any circumstance. People accepting the responsibility of a pet deserve to have all the information. For me it is not a negotiable issue. I understand the reasoning and I understand the concern, I just disagree with it :)

 

I've been at this a long time and it is my experience that the old photographer's adage of "ask forgiveness instead of permission" is a sure way to unhappy pet owners, a potentially dangerous situation and a personal liablity. In as much as you cannot know that it was owner's fault (or not) for any bad behaviour, you cannot know it was the dog's fault (or not) and it is wise to remember that a human being has legal rights not afforded a dog.

 

If I got a dog from an agency and it had been surrendered because of some issue that would be a factor in my life - but a lack of disclosure had not ... you know ... disclosed it ... I would be angry enough, depending upon the damage, if any, done to consider litigation. If I discovered someone had made a well meaning choice not to disclose it out of some protective sentimentality towards dogs I would go through the roof. *Through the roof*.

 

As always, everyone is entitled to their opinion - mine is no more valid than the next fellow's.

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Yes, but what qualifies as vital? Biting, sure, I understand that. Anything else that might pose a danger to the dog or the human, of course. But most things are not "vital".

If you are a pet owner, I think most everything is potentially vital. Only the person getting the dog knows what is vital and I don't think anyone has the right to subrogate caveat emptor, if you will. Lies come in two varieties: those of commission and those of ommission and neither is less grievous in legal terms.

 

You said above that information can be dangerous. While I admit I do not find the notion perplexing from a young person living in the information age, I will claim geezer rights when I respond with a thing I *believe* to be true: ignorance can be MUCH more dangerous - by an exponential factor.

 

It's a very interesing position. It makes a lot of sense in the age of Twitter and Facebook where information plays Telephone with itself until it can, indeed, be dangerous. I don't envy anyone who has to navigate the world these days.

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Honestly, we're now getting into the age old arguments that define political and social systems (on paper at least): Do you give everyone power, or do you try to keep it to those who are most knowledgeable on it? Information is dangerous precisely because of ignorance. A lack of context. But you're right, ignorance in general is dangerous too. I think we just have different opinions, anyways, and that's fair enough. Although it does make me a tad uncomfortable to be judged by my age. No one has any way of knowing what experiences others have had, regardless of the time they've been in this world (and in this case, which world they've grown up in).

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