Why does it seem that everyone has a "Rescued Dog"?

Question

What do you mean by that "Rescued Dog"? Was your dog really in a previous bad situation and how bad was it and how did you rescue your dog?

Answer 1

Considering my two boys were sitting in a cage with a dirty concrete floor with one day left before animal control would be forced to euthanize them....yeah, I'd say I rescued mine...from death.  I don't know what their life was before that.  One was brow beaten and fears most people...the other was just dumped by their pos owners as if he was a disposable piece of trash.  

People just use "Rescue" as a term for a shelter dog, or in some cases from people that take in a stray or a neglected/abused animal.

Answer 2

i have a bunch. the first was 20 yrs ago. he was being used as target practice and i had to involve the police to get him.

now:

Jake - bernese/lab x - tied to a tree and beat with a stick daily because the guy was angry that his girlfriend left him (wonder why?), then abandoned. my hubby heard about him and went looking. found him and brought him home. been with us for about 10 yrs now.

Rocky - ridgeback/mastiff x - he was being trained to fight. lets just say we aquired him. been with us for 4 yrs now (fight free for 2 yrs)

Missy - terrier/doxie x - tossed from a car window when she was about 3 mths old. 1 1/2 yrs old. been with us for about 1 yr.

Hope - pit x - dumped in the parking lot where i work. about 15 lbs underweight, covered in red mange. she's about 10 mths old now. been here for 4 mths.

3 akita/lab x's - surrendered because the owner hadn't been able to feed them for 2 days. 8 mths old.

2 choc. lab/hound x's - dumped. about 8 mths old.

Molly - red coon hound - found her in my yard last week. i thought she was dead. she weighed 35.2 lbs at the vets and sheshould be closer to 50.

i have others, but they weren't as bad as these.

Zeus is the product of good hearted ignorance.

Bandit was inherited about 4 yrs ago when my father in law passed away. but he was scheduled for euthanasia due to cancer, but he was willed to my husband so they had to give us the pooch.

there are "shelter rescues" and there are "rescues"

Answer 3

I have 3 rescue dogs.  All 3 came from high kill shelters.  That means that the shelters usually give the dogs only a few days to find an owner or they are euthanized.  One was a katrina rescue, one was found on the side of the road, and the 3rd was in an abandoned house.

Answer 4

well we found our puppy so i guess we rescued him. he was only a puppy and was on the streets.

Answer 5

I refer to one of my dogs as either a rescue or shelter dog. I adopted him from our local animal shelter; he had been picked up as a stray. I am quite sure he was abused in the past (due to the way he acts and reacts to certain things), but he's been "rescued" and he's a happy boy now! :)

Answer 6

Rescued usually means adopted from a shelter. Other times they were taken from a horrible situation, or occasionally found on the streets.

We adopted Judge about two years ago. He came from a pretty bad situation himself. Before we found him, he was adopted by someone else. Judge was returned to the shelter a month later 10 pounds overweight. She didn't walk him once and complained that he was lazy, hated to walk, wouldn't go up stairs... everything she claimed was proven untrue.

Answer 7

my dogs aren't rescued.  

they're lazy.  

Answer 8

Well my first dog I got at a no kill shelter but I know he came from a puppy mill I guess well somewhere where they had to live in tiny cages and sit in their own f***s.  And my second dog her previous owner left her outside in a kennel on a concrete slab all the time never played with her or anything and to top it off the boys that lived their would throw rocks at her and now she has what is called Pica and she eats rocks she has had 2 surgery's so far and she is only 11 months old!  I have to keep a very close eye on her and when we go anywhere she has to wear a muzzle so she can't sneak in any rocks!

Answer 9

Well, me and my mom rescued our dog. The day we got her (from a shelter) she seemed like a pretty normal puppy. Maybe a little tired, but we thought that was from the 2 hour car ride home. The next my poor Indi was throwing up all over the place, wouldn't eat or drink, and was very lethargic, so we took her the vet very worried. The vet said she had severe pneumonia, and it couldn't have gotten this worse in one day. In other words we adopted her while she was still sick.

The vet took care of her and she seemed a lot better so we took her home in about 4 days. The next day Indi still wouldn't eat or drink. So then we took her to the vet by where we adopted her because they were a lot cheaper (we couldn't afford anymore expensive fees). They took an x-ray and found out that half of her right lung and a third of her left lung had pneumonia. We also found out that someone before us adopted her for one day then returned her (how cruel).

She was in the hospital for a week. The pneumonia was a lot better, but now she had hypotrophic ostreodystrophy, which occurs when the joints in a puppy's leg get inflamed because they grew too fast. So she stayed another week in the hospital. Now Indi is doing a lot better. The pneumonia is gone and she is on special food for the H.O.D.  She probably would have died in the shelter if we didn't adopt her.

Answer 10

I rescued My Rizzo, she was scarred up from being used as a bait dog and full of parasites andvery underweight...Now she is awesome!! I got her through a foster network

Answer 11

Like Judgerz said, it means a dog adopted from a shelter that possibly came from a bad situation.

Both my dogs are from shelters, my golden husky mix was born at the shelter and my pit beagle mix was rescued from a shelter down south when he was going to be euthinized for space.  

Answer 12

A "rescued dog" is one that was either adopted from a shelter or rescue organization or found as a stray.  

Many people have "rescued dogs" now because they realize that not only are they saving a life, but that these dogs were abandoned sometimes due to no fault of their own.  Rescue dogs make great pets.  If adopted from a shelter sometimes have only days to get adopted before their euthanized.  

I've owned 2 rescued dogs in the past.  My mixbreed was an abandoned dog and my dachshund was adopted from dachshund rescue as a senior, both were wonderful and lived to a ripe old age.

Answer 13

People who refer to their dog as "rescued" are usually just trying to make themselves feel superior to others.  It's not like the dog was hanging by one paw off a cliff.

Don't get me wrong, I think the first place you should look for a dog is your local shelter.  Many dogs need homes.  My point is these people who use the term "rescue" dogs are usually self righteous snobs.  My family has always adopted dogs from our local SPCA, and have never referred to them as "rescued" once.

Bottom line is get a dog you will love, regardless of the source.

Answer 14

We didn't get our German Shepherd from a "rescue", but I consider that we did indeed rescue him from his former owners. They had several children and didn't seem to have time for him.

He was either in his crate or outside in the fenced in yard. He was not well trained (barked a lot, jumping on people, etc.) and was very needy. He would try to grab food out of your hand if you weren't paying attention...probably a result of living with small kids. Also, he was only to the vet ONCE in his first 2 years of life!

We got him up to date on all of his shots, had him fixed and had an existing umbilical hernia repaired. He has learned not to grab food, listens well in both English and German and has another dog to play with. He is still needy, but I think that is deeply ingrained in his personality at this point and there is no way to change that.

We are just very patient with him and consider him very lucky that we took him because neither my wife or I think anyone else would put up with a lot of his quirks. He probably would have bounced from home to home.

Indeed, I think we rescued him.

Add: OK...who's the moron who gives a thumbs-down on a personal story? Fess up and explain why you felt the need to thumbs-down my story *******.

Answer 15

A "rescue" can come from a variety of places. You could get them from a shelter/humane society/rescue where they were either unwanted or taken from a bad place like a puppy mill, hoarder, or a cruel situation. You can "rescue" a dog from the streets as stray.

All of my dogs are rescues. We've gotten two from shelters, one from a dog rescue, one from a humane society, one we found in the desert when he was a pup, and another we took in from a place where she was being beaten.

ADD:

singleoid, most dogs that come from shelters or other bad situations are in need of rescuing. They usually have one paw knocking on deaths door. Most of them, when they come into a shelter, have DAYS to find a new home. And when a hundred or so dogs are looking for a new home in that same time line, you know they aren't all gonna be lucky. So, yes, when you take a shelter dog home, you have just rescued him from a horrible end.

People call them rescues, not because they want to make themselves feel superior, but because that it is truly what they are.

Answer 16

"Rescued Dog" usually refers to a dog that was adopted from a shelter and "rescued" from euthanasia or a dog that was "rescued" from a bad situation i.e. starving stray, abusive owner, etc.

My "rescued dog" was a dog that my uncle found as a stray when he was out of state on business.  There were some nasty tornadoes in the area and she was living completely outside.  She looked like she hadn't eaten in months and she was dying of starvation.  My aunt/uncle were looking for a second dog, so he brought her home.  The vet said she would have died probably within a week if he hadn't taken her.  Cody was flea/tick infested resulting in her being anemic.  That combined with her emaciated state put her in really bad shape.  Within a week, all her baby teeth had fallen out and she went through a period where she had no teeth at all until her adult teeth grew in which is amazing because she was 1-2 years old when this happened.  On top of all this it was very apparent that she had been abused by someone.  Cody was very handshy and would run to a corner and cower if you lifted your hand to grab something off a shelf.  To this day you cannot yell at her or she will run and hide.  Since then she gained a lot of weight and has been with us for almost ten years now.

Answer 17

To singleoid:

From Merriam-Webster online

Main Entry: res·cue  

Pronunciation: \ˈres-(ˌ)kyü\

Function: transitive verb

Inflected Form(s): res·cued; res·cu·ing

Etymology: Middle English rescouen, rescuen, from Anglo-French rescure, from re- + escure to shake off, from Latin excutere, from ex- + quatere to shake

Date: 14th century

: to free from confinement, danger, or evil  

To free from what? CONFINEMENT. So, yes, I have a rescue dog who was adopted from a shelter. She was CONFINED. She had 3 owners prior to me who all brought her back to the shelter. I have yet to figure out why. She's a sweet dog. Had I not RESCUED her, she would have been in DANGER of being euthanized. So, again, this qualifies mine as being a rescue.

Here's my rescue:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27420575@N0...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27420575@N0...

Then there was this guy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27420575@N0...

He was a stray who was seriously emmaciated when he showed up where I work. He was hit by a car at work, so I rescued him, again, from danger. He has since been rehomed and is doing wonderfully with his new family.

Answer 18

My dog came from a Chow rescue.  Someone decided they didn't need their purebred Chow anymore when she had a litter of pups in the middle of a 3-day snow storm and dumped her and her litter of pups on the street.  He spent a week in isolation after that because they thought he had Parvo but it was actually pneumonia from being in the storm for all those days so to me, he actually was a rescue.  He lived with me for 15 years and he was the greatest, most gentle, most tolerant dog I've ever seen!!

Answer 19

I adopted a rat terrier/shih-tzu mix from a rescue organization.  He was covered in fleas and had no hair.  He was pink and deathly skinny.  His sister and brothers died from parvo.  He was so scared of everything.  Now he has a full coat, not one flea, and loves everyone.

Answer 20

i rescued a lab from the streets and gave her to myy cousin and now is spoiled rotten and my rottie oscar who is so smart (he is not he sits on my other dog and cats and people) he was givin up because they just did not like im just want to get rid of him and he is so happy and so is the lab faith so i guess if you get a dog from a dog breeder it can be rescuing one like tricky the yorkie was a breeding dog and was in a puppy mill she now wont go to the bath room  in the grass cuz she never has seen grass before so that is what it is  

Answer 21

Everyone has had some great examples of what 'rescue' means to them.   it is never black and white, and there will always be a degree of importance in any "rescue" situation for everyone involved.

While some may feel that purchasing a breeding female off of a BYB/small PM operation is a form of rescue for some, others will feel that taking a dog - illegally - from a yard in which it is chained up 24/7  just to give it a better life is also a form of rescue.

Then there are those that will adopt from a high-kill shelter *just* to give this dog a chance at life.  This, again, is considered rescue in someone's eyes.

Then again... you will have someone who will just take in any dog that they see as a stray, have had no luck in finding its' original owners, and feel that it is a rescue situation because they got it off the streets, prevented it from being hit by a car, prevented it from (possibly) becoming pregnant and having MORE unwanted dogs and by preventing it from being taken to the shelter where it might never get adopted out.

There are SO many definitions of rescue is so many people's eyes.  I don't think there is only ONE definition, as many would argue or give examples of why THEIRS was a rescue.  

I do believe that if you've given a dog a better life, no matter HOW you obtained the dog, then it's a rescue.

Were my dogs "really in a previous bad situation?"   Yes, some were in horrible situations and some were not.  But all the rescues, in my honest opinion, would be dead right now if they were not taken in.

Answer 22

"Rescued" in this case generally means the dog was saved from a horrible situation.  My dog was rescued, but not by us.  So, we don't say that we rescued her (and if I ever did, sorry!!  I didn't mean it!).  The place we adopted her from rescued her.  She was in a kill-shelter and when LBL went their originally to pick up a cat, Jasmine was sitting in the back of her cage, scheduled to be pts the next day.