# Need some advice re: Rescue possibly going under



## ali6879 (May 12, 2014)

Hi all,

New to this forum, I stumbled on it today after getting a frustrating phone call.

I'm fostering 4 puppies for a local rescue. There are 6 in this litter altogether, initially I agreed to 2, but they couldn't find a foster for the last 2, so I took them. We've had them 4 weeks, since they were 4 weeks old (mom died). 

The girl who runs the rescue is a friend of mine, and had been asking me to foster for awhile, but it never fit in my schedule, as I travel a lot. Since I had about 6 weeks available and she only needed help for 4, I said I'd take them in.

They were supposed to get spayed tomorrow and go to adoption events this weekend. I get a message this morning from her stating that they can't get spayed because the rescue is out of money, and owes quite a bit. Which means they can't go to adoption events this weekend. 

I was a little irritated at this - some background, the rescue gave us initial starter food for them, but I took care of it for the past 3 weeks as I know rescues are tight on funds. Plus, I wanted them on a consistent food so they didn't get upset digestion systems. My parents are coming to town to visit next week, and then we leave for a trip for 8 days....so the pups not being able to be spayed is a definite issue.

I asked her, if we were to pay to get the puppies spayed, could they pay us back with the adoption fees that get collected, and was told no, they owe too many people money already. Am I right to be upset about this? I have no idea how they are going to get this handled now. Obviously, in 4 weeks, we have grown to care about the puppies, but we are not in the position to adopt all 4, nor do we want to (we have 2 adults already). Advice? Thoughts?


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

Would this rescue release the puppies to another rescue? You could start calling around to larger or more established rescues or places like your local Humane Society and explaining your predicament. Puppies are _usually_ adopted very quickly after they are fixed and available for adoption so they would likely be much easier to get another group to take on responsibility for them than if they were adult dogs that might be stuck in foster care for a long time taking up valuable "real estate" so to speak.

Even if they won't give the pups up, try calling a SNIP clinic /similar low cost S/N places to see if they will give you multiple vouchers or give you the rescue group rate or similar. You might be stuck paying out of pocket and writing it off as a donation but some low cost S/N is as cheap as around $40/dog or they have some some free spots available even. 

I too would be upset about the cost of getting the dogs spayed and the obvious lack of communication since if the rescue already owes quite a bit of money, they probably knew they couldn't afford to fix these dogs even before you took them on 4 weeks ago. That said, even if they got fixed as scheduled, where were you planning on taking them or how were they going to be cared for during your 8 day trip? Most foster cases are open-ended time frame, fostering the dogs till they get adopted whether it is for 1 week or 6 months (sometimes it is vacation coverage of another foster where there is an actual known time frame), so it seems a bit odd that she only needed help for 4 weeks with a definite end date unless the dogs were heading on to another already-arranged foster. In which case, not being spayed shouldn't be an issue. They could arrange to have each dog spayed once an adoption contract is signed and the adoption fee could be paid directly to the vet for the spay.


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## ali6879 (May 12, 2014)

I've been looking into low-cost S/N since this morning, so I'll definitely keep looking at that. 

As for the trip arrangements, they generally have people who get the dogs once they are spayed/vaccinated and are in charge of taking them to events, as I don't live very close to where their particular events are held. That was one of my first questions too, so since it didn't seem to be a big deal at the beginning, I didn't even consider it being a problem. 

And I agree - there must have been knowledge of the financial issues well before we agreed to take the pups. The rescue does have a store-front facility for boarding the dogs in their care, and she said she could put them there, but I feel awful putting 8 week old pups into a kennel arrangement for most of their days. I'll give it the rest of today for her to get back to me, and then call her tomorrow and see if she would be amenable to me finding a low-cost S/N place as well. It has to be better than the $110 cost per dog she quoted me this morning when I asked how much it would be. Thank you for the advice -- it's much appreciated.


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## Kirska (Jun 9, 2014)

ali6879 said:


> was told no, they owe too many people money already.


I would never get involved with a group that carries a debt. My group maintains an account of money on hand for emergencies, and if we don't have enough money to treat dogs, they don't get pulled. If you're putting more money out than you're getting in, it's only a matter of time until you go belly up.

I can't even fathom not having enough cash on hand to get a litter spayed. We didn't pull our first dog as a group until we had enough money to care for it, including any unforeseen emergencies.

In short, run, run away.


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