Once Edith and her five-week-old puppies entered the room, it took every inch of self-control I had to remain focused on my interview. A suspected ex-baiting dog, Edith, a gorgeous little terrier with the most mellow temperament, bears the scars of a former life etched right onto her face.
Robyn, the rehoming coordinator at Oak Tree Animals’ Charity in Wetheral, tells me that people assume that ex-working dogs couldn’t possibly want to be someone’s pet, and dogs with an appearance like Edith’s – scars and an offset jaw – are often negatively judged and mislabelled. Less than 30 seconds in Edith’s presence busts both myths: she immediately seeks out attention from Robyn, someone who has clearly shown her unconditional love, but remarkably she then turns her attention to a complete stranger in the room, by putting her two paws up on my knees looking for affection. Her puppies have only known kindness from people, so it’s easy to understand their calls for attention. But Edith? She had a history.
My encounter with her revealed to me an issue at the core of Oak Tree’s work: how to combat the misconceptions of some animals being too ‘damaged’ or too ‘old’ to find homes, and how such animals are just as deserving of loving homes as younger, healthier ones.
Found abandoned in a nearby village, it wasn’t immediately obvious that Edith was pregnant because she was so malnourished, extremely skinny and didn’t have any mammary development. She gave birth overnight to three tiny puppies; sadly, one didn’t make it, but after proper care, warmth and nourishment from the team at Oak Tree, Edith has put vital weight on and is now able to nurse her remaining pair.
Often, pregnant mothers’ litters end up overtaking them out of the kennels into new homes, which can be understandable. People often think that bringing home a new puppy is more of a known entity or a safer bet. Unsurprisingly, Oak Tree has a huge waitlist of people who have applied for puppies from other litters in the past, which is the first port of call for potential homes. Staff know that putting them online right away generates a huge amount of interest, so making sure the home is right for the dog (not just that the dog is right for the home) is the utmost priority. So, what happens to the mother?
Sometimes, she’s fortunate to have a suitable home waiting for her very quickly, but for others like Matilda, the right person takes a lot longer to come along. Of course, in an ideal world, this would be as quickly as possible, but there is a crucial importance in waiting for a person who truly understands the animal and is able to meet their needs: ‘In the nicest way possible, we don’t want to see them come back,’ Robyn says.
An akita cross, Matilda is not a type of dog that’s very common in the UK – a Japanese working breed.
She has very specific breed requirements, a high drive and in need of an outlet for her high levels of intelligence and energy. She’s about to go home with somebody who has driven over 100 miles to meet her for the first time, has a history with the breed and other working dogs, and had the experience to give her the structure and boundaries she needs.
She gave birth to a large litter on arrival at Oak Tree several months ago, but she’s still a young dog that needs a human who can maintain necessary training and boundaries. Training progress made with resident dogs can be so easily undone by new owners not keeping up the required work. At the time of writing, she was the longest-term resident dog, but patience has paid off, as she’s got the match and promise of a home that she absolutely deserves.
Matilda’s story gives other long-term animals at Oak Tree hope, showing how animal charities aren’t being needlessly fussy about the homes their residents go to; it’s a complete necessity that animals go to the best matched homes as possible to ensure they don’t have to return.
Some dogs, such as Pickles, very much look the part on paper: a popular breed with families (sprocker), absolutely adorable and exceptionally playful. However, he’s been at Oak Tree for several months now, through a series of unfortunate events.
An assumption made by potential adopters is that the longer the animal has been at the shelter, the more is ‘wrong’ with them, but the reality is that there is often a lot of interest in these animals. Robyn says it’s wrong to assume that just because there are a lot of applications, one of them must be alright.
‘Just alright isn’t good enough though,’ she tells me. ‘It’s about what the animal needs.’
So, what does a dog like Pickles need?
Consistency and understanding. However, it’s the lack of it that’s making it tougher for him to find his perfect home. He was homed quite quickly at first, but his excitability and overstimulation meant that he couldn’t stay and, within 24 hours, came back to Wetheral.
Situations such as Pickles’ help explain why the screening process for animal homes is so thorough, but it also requires honesty and commitment from potential adopters.
It’s easy to get swept up in the emotion of bringing a new family member home, but Oak Tree emphasises the importance of making sure the home is right for the animal. Numerous phone calls, multiple meetings, and even being asked to take a day or two to really think about the decision may seem excessive to eager adopters, but the charity’s goal is to keep return rates low and to put the wellbeing of the animal first. A short wait doesn’t feel like too much to ask. After all, some of these animals have been waiting far too long already.
In some extreme cases, people can feel unable to call rescues for help, whether out of shame, fear or misunderstanding. Brought in with Edith, having been found in the same area on the same day, Trevor the Patterdale Cross was in bad shape. At around 16 he was too old and too unwell to have ended up in the field where he was found by himself, and with nobody in the local village knowing who he was, it was quite clear he had been abandoned. Nobody knew the circumstances surrounding it, but they must have been very extreme. Trevor’s situation and others like it underline why Oak Tree focuses on care rather than judgement; many people fear shame, criticism or even consequences that simply aren’t part of the process.
Robyn told me that in cases like Trevor’s, where the animal is too unwell to make it, ‘the whole idea was that if we can give him just two weeks of TLC, he would forget about any of the disruption in his life and be able to just go to sleep knowing that he’d been loved.’
Sometimes, that’s all any of us can hope for, just like Edith searching for it the moment she entered the room.
