Considering adoption another dog

Evac101

We're currently considering adopting another dog (two currently). Unfortunately there are a number of extenuating circumstances, to wit:

Needs to be a pup (8-10 weeks)
Needs to be a female
Would prefer a medium size dog (30-40KG fully grown)
Having seen the accidental self destruction that a friends lurcher regularly commits to itself I'd prefer a more robust breed/mix

The deal breaker for at least some rescues however is that we both work full time, between our jobs we average 8/10 weekdays over a 2 week period where we're absent from the house for roughly 8 hours. While I'm aware this is a contentious issue on this forum, it's also the reality of the situation.

We would be taking time off to ensure that any addition settled into the existing situation (8-10 days holidays exc. weekends) but after that would hope to return to our current routine regarding work. Dog walkers would be a possibility but the only access to our (secured, walled) garden is through the house itself which has obvious privacy and security implications which I'm quite uncomfortable with. We don't have any nearby friends/relatives who are able to visit during the day and both of us work sufficiently far away from the house that returning during the day (i.e. at lunch) isn't a realistic option.

So, bearing all this in mind, and knowing that I understand peoples reservations regarding our circumstances, I wondered if anyone could PM me (to avoid breaching forum rules), the names of any rescues in the greater Dublin region who are willing to re-home a pup into this kind of home situation. I'm happy to investigate further on my own but informed suggestions to kick me off would be appreciated.

peasant

Hope you don't mind me throwing yet another spanner in the works ...but from our experience having three dogs is a totally different dynamic to having two.
With three it's very easy to have one odd one out in all sorts of situations ...not necessarily the same "odd" one each time either ...depending on form and circumstances two just gang up on one.

We never left our dogs alone for long and on the few occasions we did we had to have two in one room and the third in another.

(we now have four and the general feel around the house is again as peaceful as it was when we had two ... three on the other hand was never quite right)

What I'm saying is that personally I'd feel very uncomfortable about leaving three dogs to their own devices for long periods on a regular basis ...it might end in tears.

Evac101

Honestly hadn't considered that aspect. As things stand our current pair have enough space that if one gets hacked off with the other, there are three separate covered areas which they can meander off to, away from the other. Similarly they have the run of the house in the evenings/weekends with 4 different rooms with purposeful dog beds and two bedrooms with what they consider to be their proper beds.

I would hope that that would give a third dog enough space to avoid issues with dogs feeling crowded by each other but it's definitely something to think about and talk with the trainers (who, after two years know that dogs very well) we go to regarding.

borderlinemeath

I don't think 3 as a number is as problematic as Peasant makes out, I think it depends wholly on the dogs themselves and to an extent the dog/bitch mix. We have one bossy bitch and 2 males who would let her away with anything, and they're like 3 amigos together - I could leave them together in any situation and know there would be no problems. But I think if one of the boys was a bitch it would be a different scenario entirely.

In saying that, if you're intending to get a puppy, I would be wary of leaving a puppy alone with 2 established dogs, even after a couple of weeks of socialising. Puppy exuberance can annoy an adult dog, and while adult dogs can be great teachers, it would still be a situation where I'd like to be around to supervise interactions. Plus if you're looking for a medium/large pup, is she going to grow larger than your existing dogs? Horseplay might get out of hand if a large puppy doesn't recognise her own strength.

Are you near any daycares that you could drop a pup in for socialising on the days that you're both working? It would avoid the home/privacy issues.

Evac101

Aye, we have two medium size (28-30kg on the day and 44kg) dogs, both of which are fine with dogs, once they've been introduced appropriately. IF you read previous posts I've made, the larger of the two has some issues but we've worked hard with him over the last two years and he's made leaps and bounds. Not sufficient for me to let him roam free around a group of un-neutered males but females, especially neutered females, are quite a safe bet at this point.

As the troublesome one is the male dog in our pair our trainers, who know the dogs well at this point suggested that a very young female would be the best to add to the mix so that the new dog grew into the situation rather than coming in with established behaviours/routines that might rub the existing pair the wrong way.

The doggy day case is something I'm looking into and, for the first few weeks at least, it's something that we're willing to consider providing it doesn't beggar us in the process however we're part of quite a large group of 'dog people' so, in the long term, we'd hope to socialise the new dog (and continue to socialise our existing dogs) with our friends dogs which, when we all meet up in the mountains, can be up to 8-10 in the group depending on who gets to join us.