Help! I want to return my foreign rescue dog!

You’ve adopted a dog, perhaps from Romania or Greece, and you felt really good, it’s something you’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Or maybe you’ve had rescue dogs before so you thought you knew what you were getting into.

You read all the stuff, you got told lots and lots by the rescue about foreign rescue dogs.

Above all, you knew you could give this poor dog a loving home. And love is all you need, it would just take time.

And then it all went wrong.

Things aren’t going well. You’re not sleeping, your dog is toileting in the house. You can’t go out because your dog can’t cope on its own. Or maybe your dog is so shut down that it refuses to move or go outside at all.

This isn’t what you thought it would be. And you’re not getting any support from the rescue now.

I’m here to tell you: you’re not alone.

I used to volunteer for a Romanian rescue, helping adopters with homechecks, settling advice, and behaviour support. I also fostered for them when adoptions broke down and have helped many adopters who feel like they want to return their foreign rescue dog.

Firstly, it’s an entirely natural response. It’s bloody hard adopting a foreign rescue dog, the reality is most don’t fit into a UK home. There, I’ve said it. It’s not an opinion foreign rescues obviously share, otherwise they wouldn’t be shipping so many to the UK at the scale they are.

When I adopted my Romanian rescue dog 10 years ago, it was still a bit of an unusual thing to do. I chose to adopt from abroad because despite volunteering for a UK rescue for years (!) I couldn’t find any rescue dogs that were happy to live with another dog and cats. Maybe that’s a lie, I’m sure I could have found one somewhere but it was very difficult and all the dogs that I came across were either not good with other animals or if it was a breed rescue then you needed to go on a waiting list and couldn’t even choose which dog you wanted, they would assign you one.

So, back to what we’re really talking about: how hard it is.

When that dog arrives with you, you often have a bit of a honeymoon period, where the dog is a bit perplexed at where it’s suddenly ended up. And they’re scared.

Back in their original country, they were surrounded by lots of other dogs and, even though we might not think it’s any good, it was what they knew. And now they’re suddenly in a strange house with no other dogs and different noises.

So, at the beginning, some of their true behaviours don’t show up. They keep that tucked away for when they’re confident enough.

At this point you might be faced with a dog who is hiding from you, or chewing everything in sight, or toileting in the house.

These are all normal and understandable behaviours for a dog who has been living in pens with other dogs, not in a house, and with relatively little human contact.

Then you try all the recommendations you got from the rescue, and they don’t seem to work.

And the rescue don’t appear to have much help to offer when you get in touch to say it’s not working, or anywhere for the dog to go if it goes wrong. No UK kennel, no support – just the offer (or threat) that the dog will be sent back to its original country.

That’s actually why I stepped away from foreign rescue.

I started with the rescue as an adopter, then became helping more and more, then when they needed volunteers to help, I offered.

But there just wasn’t the infrastructure to support adopters when things (invariably) went wrong.

There was no UK rescue alliances if an adoption broke down, there was no real fostering support if it didn’t work out, no money for kennels in the UK if the adopters wanted to return a dog. On the plus side, they gave alot of behaviour support and pre-advice to prepare people, but hearing about problems and facing them is very different for adopters when they find themselves trying to shoo a scared dog back into the house at 3am who is hiding in the garden from you.

Despite the rescue I helped being pretty good, I am now speaking to more and more people who have very little support from rescue organisations when things don’t go to plan.

So, if you’ve not yet adopted a dog then look into whether your rescue really do have fosterers, and have some UK kennels or money put aside for UK kennels if things don’t go to plan (shocker: most don’t).

Anyway, you’ve adopted your dog and they’re in your home now.

So here are a few things to help:

1. It does get better

I know, I know, you don’t want to hear that. But it generally does. This is the worst part – not quite immediately after getting the dog, but when some of those challenging behaviours start to emerge. Being consistent, bedding in and working on it will pay off and make life easier. Not easy, but easier.

2. Understand foreign rescue dogs

Your rescue might have explained some things to you, but I’m going to give it to you straight.

Most foreign rescue dogs are not like UK dogs. At all. They’re wired completely differently. They are almost like a different species.

Now, I adore my foreign rescue dog. I prefer her manner to my UK dogs, actually. But my gosh it took some time to feel that way! It took me adjusting my own expectations of dog ownership.

Obviously there are the exceptions (and some foreign rescues have grown up in homes and aren’t really street dogs), but the majority are not really wired to look to humans for direction and interaction as they’ve not grown up in normal homes with humans as a puppy, and may have had to stay away from humans for their own safety.

So they become very independent, and they aren’t reliant on humans like UK dogs. People call it stubborn or hard to train, but it’s not that, they’re just independent and self-sufficient. They’re often not being naughty emptying your bin, they’re just sorting themselves out.

Bit hungry? Go raid the bin.

Need the toilet? This rug looks suitable.

3. Puppies aren’t blank slates

If you adopt a foreign rescue dog as a puppy, it won’t be a blank slate.

The behaviour and temperament of your puppy starts long before they’re born (genetics and epigenetics).

If your puppy’s mum was scared of humans, then your puppy will come out predisposed to be scared of humans. With lots of good experiences, then you can overcome that or a puppy might be unusually confident, but your dog’s parents’ temperament and personality will have a big effect on your puppy.

If your pup’s parents had lots of bad experiences with humans, then your puppy will be likely to have a lot of those feelings too.

You can work to overcome them, but you may have to accept a large part of their behaviour. It’s just how they are.

But the important thing is to realise that puppies aren’t blank slates.

4. Just because your neighbour’s friend’s mum has an easy foreign rescue dog, it doesn’t mean you will get one too.

Every. dog. is. different. One more time for those at the back: EVERY DOG IS DIFFERENT.

Don’t compare your dog to someone else’s – there’s so much at play that goes into how a dog behaves, that just because your mum’s mate’s dog is fine, doesn’t mean yours will be the same.

I’ve fostered dogs for the rescue I helped and some were much easier than my rescue dog, and some were much more challenging.

5. No UK rescue wants to help if it goes wrong

If it does go wrong, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY a UK rescue will help you out. You may get lucky, so please do try. But go in with the expectation that no UK rescue is going to help out.

There are now far too many dogs in rescue, and UK rescues can’t cope with dogs with behavioural problems clogging up their rescue – sticky dogs who will be stuck in their kennels for years. And most dogs who are coming from overseas and end up in a UK rescue probably have a behaviour issue, otherwise they wouldn’t have been given up (although the reasons I’ve been given for people giving up on their rescue are sometimes laughable).

But, the reality is, you can’t expect to bring a dog over from abroad then find a UK rescue to take it on if it goes wrong as many are very anti-foreign rescue so will not be receptive to taking on a foreign dog.

When I fostered a difficult dog from Romania after his adoption broke down, no UK rescue was interested and no sanctuary could help either because he was people and dog reactive.

6. UK people don’t understand dogs who are people reactive

It’s unusual for UK dogs to be reactive or barky at people – it’s more common for them to be aggressive to other dogs. But not people. That’s because most of our dogs have been brought up to be family dogs. Whereas in Romania or Greece, many dogs are roaming around and don’t have proper homes.

So you see higher instances of people reactive dogs in foreign rescue dogs and it can be stressful for adopters, especially if the dog is reactive to someone in your house like your husband, or barking at people on walks.

It’s very isolating and upsetting and you won’t get much sympathy from people in the street, but understanding the why behind it might help…

7. Re-adjust your expectations and understand your dog

Let’s talk about the positives. Foreign rescue dogs often have amazing personalities. They are more like a ‘real dog’ than UK dogs – who are basically puppies for life.

Foreign rescue dogs are more grown up. They are great problem solvers.

They probably don’t want to do agility or training that they think is pointless. They’re not lazy, they just can’t be wasting time faffing about wasting energy and calories when you have to search the town for your daily food.

They also don’t often want a huge amount of attention. In fact, the best thing you can do for them is to ignore them. Let them potter around, don’t stare too much, don’t try and do lots of training. Just leave them be and don’t overwhelm them. And that’s often the best approach.

8. You’re (probably) doing it all wrong

I’m sorry, but I’m here to try and actually help, not to be your best friend. And, if you’re anything like 90% of the people I have talked to over the years with foreign rescue dogs who are struggling, then you’re probably doing a few things wrong.

You’re probably doing too much. Whatever you’re doing now, do less. You can’t take this dog to the pub yet. Give it six months. And even then, you might still not be able to.

You can’t teach it to sit. Give it three months.

You can’t have your family round to meet it. Give it a month or so.

You can’t take it for a walk. Give it a few weeks.

You might have a worried, scared dog and need to take it slow. You might think you have a super confident fizzy dog – that is hiding a lot of stress through their fizzy energy.

Nobody suffers from going a bit slower. Trust me, do less, then see if it helps. What do you have to lose in trying?

9. Not all dogs are suited to UK family life

Rescues often think every dog needs to be rescued. But that’s not the case.

Many dogs live perfectly happy lives on the streets – it might not be our idea of perfect, but what home is perfect, really? The home where the dog is dragged round the local park every day even though it is stressed? Or the home where we over-feed the dog? Or the home where the dog is taken to the pub even though it can’t cope? See, we have our ideas about what makes a ‘good home’.

And I’ve seen many adopters in my volunteer work bring a dog to the UK to a worse environment than it had in Romania! Really!

Many dogs were doing Ok in their previous country, then they got ‘rescued’ and put into pens. Some of these rescues are like warehouses of dogs. If it were you, would you prefer to take your chances on the streets rummaging through bins and living your life on your own terms, or suddenly in a pen with other dogs you don’t know with little human contact (so who knows if you’re being bullied by your pen mate), for sometimes years with no chance of being adopted. Then you get sent one day to another country, and put into a house on your own with well-meaning adopters, and whatever you do such as chewing to alleviate some boredom, seems to be wrong.

Is that really rescue?

Now, I know my Alma who is 10 and who is snoozing on my couch right now is pretty happy she isn’t sleeping outside in the cold without arthritis pain relief. But, she would also enjoy a degree of roaming around streets I bet. But some dogs don’t do well in our normal homes, going on normal walks and being expected to act like normal ideas of dog ownership like we have in the UK.