Sunday, January 16, 2011

Home Visit Advice?

Great news—a wonderful family has expressed interest in adopting Jack! They came to meet him at adoption day yesterday, along with their current border collie.

We're scheduled to do a home visit tomorrow to see how Jack and the other dog get along at the potential adopter's house. We have limited insight as to how Jack does with other dogs since he's an "only dog" at our place. The shelter told us that he's good with all dogs, but he has sometimes been barky with other dogs at adoption days. It's not really an authentic environment to judge behavior—on leash with dozens of other dogs barking, people all around, etc.

Some of the volunteers at the rescue gave us good advice for the home visit. Have the dogs meet on neutral territory like the sidewalk. Then take the dogs to the backyard before letting them off leash to see how they do together. The last step should be going in to the house.

Do you have any more advice for home visits? We think this family would be a great fit for him, so we want him to succeed!

3 comments:

  1. yeah I agree - take it really slow.

    dogs meeting as potential housemates is so strange, its like "hi, nice to meet you, let's live together".

    Even if they have an initial growl, just make sure the home knows that it can take like 2 weeks or more to adjust.

    Best of luck!!!!!!

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  2. Oh I hope this works out well.

    I don't know if I've mentioned this to you, my mom person loses track, but we have a feature called Foster Friday at Pet Blogs United, so send an e-mail to PBU at comcast dot net if you're interested.

    Nubbin wiggles,
    Oskar

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  3. Thanks, Oskar! It looks like Jack has a forever home, so we'll email you info for our next foster!

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