DOODLE DANDY RESCUE

Dog rescue has been greatly impacted by the Covid shutdown. During the shut down, so many families acquired dogs, and the popularity of Doodles greatly increased because they are perceived to be hypoallergenic and family friendly. These dogs were kept in the home with their family with little to no socialization with the outside world. As the Covid impact began to wane and people went back to work, Doodles were left at home for the first time.

Doodles are uniquely bred to be "people" dogs, and without their people, many became destructive, ill mannered and suffered from separation anxiety. Fast forward to 2022, and many who acquired dogs during the lockdown, were now surrendering them to rescues and shelters. These dogs were no longer being exercised properly or regularly and any efforts to socialize were unsuccessful due to owners lacking the time and skill to educate and retrain their dogs. Our training budget has skyrocketed because of these unprecedented times. Because so many dogs are being rehomed with us, we have changed the focus from rescuing shelter dogs and strays, to including the more complicated job of retraining and rehabilitating owner surrenders.

One goal for this year is to strengthen our foster's understanding of dog behavior by working with several professional trainers in each of the metropolitan areas that we service. We want to create an online video training program for all new fosters to complete. We also want to provide more one-on-one training with the foster and their foster dog.

In addition, we have realized that there is a need to do some initial training with new adopters to prevent dogs from being returned to the rescue. We hope to empower both fosters and adopters with the skills they need to continue training along side the dogs in their care. Obedience training is important, but becoming "dog savvy" is much more important, and that requires a different understanding of dog behavior. By setting the bar a little higher for our fosters and our adopters, we will ensure that the Doodles from Doodle Dandy Rescue will live long, happy lives with their people.

In order to meet our goals of training more of our foster and adopter pool we are implementing several strategies. In collaboration with our professional trainers we will be creating a foster training program that will be available on line. Fosters will be encouraged to complete the training modules prior to fostering a dog for the rescue.

Modules will focus on decompression, how to introduce the foster dog into the home with children and other dogs, crate training, leash walking, potty training and basic obedience. We will further introduce the fosters to dog body language, issues with resource guarding, and canine depression. We will discuss strategies for dealing with unwanted behaviors including medication, muzzle training and exercise and sleep. This video course can be updated and added to as needed.

We want to open this course up to potential adopters as well. Course completion by potential adopters will be noted in their adoption applications and will bear weight in being chosen to adopt.

Doodle Dandy Rescue is blessed with over 1000 people who want to work within the rescue as a foster or volunteer. We have discovered that within the group, there are some amazingly skilled and talented people with professional careers that can support the rescue. Among our group we have business people, tech professionals, teachers, project managers, trainers and so much more.

We have found that their willingness to help the organization and the dogs is great, and when we put out a need, they respond with YES. We know that this project might be more than a volunteer effort can cover, so we are hoping to raise funds to have professional input. The beauty of this effort is that we can add to the content and tailor it to the specific needs of Doodle dogs. We see this content as being a source of community help and knowledge in addition to our helping our fosters and adopters.