Fenced in Yard Necessary to Adopt?

I do think that a blanket statement about having a fenced yard for any dog scares away a lot of potential adopters. I know that some rescues don't bend the rules on this at all. ARPO has a flexible policy, If the dog or breed are known runners they insist, but otherwise they work with whatever situation the person is in, and they always do a home visit to make sure everything is good for the dog. I would never have been able to foster, rescue, or adopt until a couple of months ago because I didn't have a fence. Abby, it sounds like your family has been giving you lots of good exercise even before you had the fence.

My mom has done rescue work for many years, in fact me and my brother Noah were both originally her foster dogs that she adopted herself (she always jokes that 2 out of 40 and counting isn't too bad a record...?)

Anyway, the group I came from doesn't absolutely require a fenced in yard to be approved to adopt in general, but they usually do require it for young active dogs like me.

You see, Abby, you are very small, and you can probably get plenty of exercise just running around the house. Big dogs like me and Noah, though, need a bigger area to run around and burn off all of our energy... especially when we are younger.

Walks are great, but unless your human is a daily sprinter who can go the distance of a marathon, then there's no way a human could give young dogs like us enough exercise just on walks on a leash. My mom's rescue group will not usually require a fenced in yard for older dogs, because they CAN usually get enough exercise on long walks every day.

Unfortunately, most humans aren't as careful as they should be, so if they want to let their dog run around and play, they often think they can let their dog off the leash, even when there's no fence. That is VERY dangerous - especially when the dog is a rescue who may have already gotten a taste of freedom (which is often how he wound up in rescue to begin with!).

Remember, there aren't really any dogs who were ever born "wild" around here...so all those "strays" we see in shelters and rescues had to originally come from some irresponsible human's home!

Most rescue groups and shelters only want to do what is best for the dogs. Sometimes that makes people angry, but they have to realize that the people who do the rescue work usually have more experience than them, so often they're more aware of potential consequences than an average dog owner. Also, rescues and shelters can sometimes be overly cautious, but that's only because they want to make sure the new home will be a forever home, because the poor rescue dogs have already been bounced around so much....

I hope that helps you understand why so many rescue groups require fenced in yards?

My mom said she'd be happy to discuss it more, but that right now she has to go start getting ready for Yappy Hour tonight at Club Canine... maybe I'll see you there!?

Sometimes I think the rules are too strict and it does scare away potential adopters. Before we got Jasmine, I did look around on petfinder and such, but they just about all say fenced in yard (don't have that), no kids under whatever age (I'm young and do plan to have some in the next few years, so does that count me out?) or you must live within so many miles of a certain place for a home visit. I even I found one that said you had to live within 20 miles so they could do a home visit, which seemed like a really small radius to me! What if there is a perfect family that only lives an hour away but it is 40 miles? So, even if they do make exceptions (which they probably wouldn't say on their website if they did), I don't think most people would take the time to call every one and see if they would make an exception- too much trouble. With that being said, I do think home visits are a wonderful idea, but there should not be strict requirements about fences and children- it should depend on the personality of the dog, maturity of the children, how active the family is, etc. Jasmine is an apartment dog and does just fine with regular walks and trips to the dog park :) Although, I do realize that she is small and we don't have to walk very far for her to get enough exercise.

My Mom found Mojo on petfinder.com for my Grandma after Grandma had been turned down several times because of her age. She wanted a dog really bad after Grandpa passed away. Mom finally found a rescue organization out of Paris, IL. Mojo's first Mommy had to go into a nursing home and give him up. When Mojo and Grandma met it was love at first sight. She doesn't have a fence but they go walking everyday and ALL the neighbors love Mojo also. I'll put a picture up of Mojo. He's hard to get a picture of. He's FAST.