Support our Rescue

Volunteering

Many of our volunteers came to us to help a dog and witnessed the plight of dogs in our society and just couldn’t walk away. As dog lovers we cared too much. We all had different talents to offer. The flavour of our Rescue work: We focus purely on our dogs. We are experts on ‘working type’ terriers and bull breeds as reflected in our websites. We are busy meeting the needs of our incumbent dogs, supporting our rehomers, while linking with the many rescues and rescue minded people such as Dog Wardens, Vet Practices or Council pound helpers who alert us to dogs losing their lives.

Although we welcome the new ideas new volunteers bring, most of all we need boots that walk; twitters to tweet; fosterers to foster, drivers to transport our dogs, vets to neuter and fundraisers to shake tins or cook liver cake or human cake for sale. As with any voluntary organisation people flutter in and fade away, but the hard core support workers find their niche and commit. They translate needs into achievement and know they are really making a difference. So take the time to read through the Forum and try and pitch in with one inspiration where you feel comfortable.

Volunteering for our Cats

                          

Cat Cuddling 

Do you love spending time with cats? We require volunteers to play with and socialise the cats in our care whilst they are waiting for their forever homes. It’s an extremely rewarding experience for both cat cuddlers and cats, giving these lovely animals a break from the boredom of their pens. They’ve all got their own individual personalities and they’d love to meet you and make friends. 

If you would like to try out cat cuddling with us, we do induction sessions lasting approximately 1-2 hours, during which you will join one of our volunteers to get a feel for what volunteering with us entails, including an opportunity to sit in with the cats. If you would like to give it a try, please complete and submit our on-line Cat Cuddling Form by clicking the following link. 

Minimum Age is 16 (14 if accompanied) 

Cat cuddlers at our kennels application form

Cat foster questionnaire form

Cat adoption form

Fundraising

The importance of fundraising to our rescue.
As a rescue we rely almost totally upon donations we receive from the general public and our members. Our members have become adept at coming up with new initiatives to raise extra vital funds and these include arranging events such as family fun days, taking part in and/or sponsoring initiatives such as bike rides, saving your loose change, on-line auctions and donations from pet shops to name but a few. We are always looking for new ways to raise funds and welcome suggestions and new members who want to help fund raise. We also have stands at local events and shows which need volunteers to help set up and run.
Fund raising is an excellent way for members to become involved with the rescue and get to know other members and have fun while doing vital work for our lovely dogs.

Want to help fund raise or have ideas for fund raising?

Current Appeals

We typically have a number of appeals running at any one time and you can view these in detail by visiting our Donation Page.

Current appeals are:

Jam Jar Appeal
This is about getting people to save their loose change and donating it to our rescue.
4 Ever Homes Appeal
Support
Events

Transport

The vital role of transport for our rescue

So much of our week involves transporting dogs into foster; to and from the vets; collecting returned dogs where people can’t organise support to return them or are only willing to come so far and delivering dogs to their new home where the new owner doesn’t have the means to do so.
If you wish to volunteer to transport dogs and have access to a vehicle please complete our online transport form by clicking on the following link. The form will help you to assess the suitability of your vehicle

Our Online Transport Form

Dog Walking

Have you always wanted a dog but worry about it not fitting into your lifestyle? Do you like the idea of being able to spend as many hours as you like playing with as many dogs as you like, but being able to give them back afterwards? We urgently require volunteers to walk our dogs in the Gatwick area, while they await rehoming. Don’t worry if you’ve never done it before, we’ll help you out at every stage and will only pair you with dogs that suit your experience. It’s an extremely rewarding experience for both walkers and dogs, giving these lovely animals a break from the boredom of kennel life. They’ve all got their own individual personalities and they’d love to meet you and make friends.

If you would like to try out walking with us we do taster sessions and if you would like to give it a try please complete and submit our on-line Volunteer Walking Form by clicking the following link.

Please note walkers need to be 18+

Online Volunteer Walking Form

Foster a Dog

The Invaluable Role of the Fosterer

Providing a home environment where one of our dogs is getting individual love and attention is far more preferable than the alternative kennel environment. A domestic situation where they can stay, ideally until their forever home is found, is so important to them.

Fosterers provide invaluable information about our dogs and we encourage them to keep our on-line forum up to date with the dog’s progress. This helps us to ensure we match our dog to the right home. We can review or confirm knowledge held about our dogs, such as housetraining, acceptance of visitors, car travel, adaptability, behaviour on being left, to mention but a few key points. Fosterers also provide vital care. Some dogs come to us in a very poor condition e.g. under or grossly overweight, infected ears etc, these conditions are better managed in a home environment.

Some dogs come directly from their homes so we can match them into a suitable foster home straight away and avoid them going into kennels. This helps to retain and, often improve, their skills further. Foster homes also allow us to optimise our available kennels so we can help more dogs. Many of the dogs we help would have been put to sleep if a rescue like Rescue Remedies could not take them in. Fosterers save lives by allowing many others to be helped and generally fostered dogs move faster through to their permanent homes.

Our Fostering Process

General Requirements of Fostering
1. Complete our online Fostering Questionnaire. This information will allow us to match up a dog to your lifestyle and experience. We will place a dog that is already known to us, or has a full history, with a first time fosterer.

2. Now have a look at the Rescue Remedies fostering agreement   It will help to ensure you understand our policies. The crucial elements are do not shorten or change the foster dog’s name; refer all enquirers to complete a homing questionnaire and if you decide you are serious in wanting to adopt our dog, let us know at the earliest opportunity.

3. If you haven’t heard from us in the next few days please drop us an e-mail at lynne@rescueremedies.co.uk

4. A home check will be arranged by one of our volunteers to confirm your home environment is suitable.

5. When your first dog arrives, you and a representative from Rescue Remedies will sign the fostering agreement, if this hasn’t already been done. This agreement relates to your first dog and will also cover you for future dogs.

When we won't take up a fostering place

On rare occasions we are unable to accept a foster place.  There are a few reasons why we might be unable to:

  1. If you live too far away and aren’t ready and able to travel to where the dog is.
  2. If you have un-neutered pets including puppies.
  3. If you have resident dogs fostered from another rescue
  4. If you have other animals and /or small children we may not immediately have a dog whom we feel could cope in that sort of environment and in this case we will keep you in mind for the future.

 

 

First Time Fostering

We try to place dogs we know and are ‘easy’ to first time fosterers. We aim not to stress you, we need it to feel a pleasurable experience for you all and our dog. We need all members of your family on board and to stick to house rules like not leaving the front door open, leaving food lying around or supervision around visitors and children. We still need all homing enquiries to come via our homing questionnaire so we do ask our fosterers to direct any interested parties to our websites.  We will support you via our on-line forum where you will have access to our wonderful community of volunteers who have a wealth of experience to draw from.

 

General Requirements of Fostering

Rescue Remedies fosterer’s agreement covers everything you need to know about the responsibilities of caring for one of our dogs and how we will support you. We will offer a set-up package and try to help towards on-going costs if required. Most fosterers offer their foster dogs the full provision of needs during their stay, funding basics such as food, bedding, toys and other equipment.

Provisions for veterinary care, illness and emergencies are also covered in the agreement. You will be made aware of the person you will liaise with and you will be given an enquiries line and emergency number which will be available to you to cover all but the very late and early hours. We have a list of Rescue Remedies approved vets which we trust. In the case of an emergency we would expect you to contact us or, should this not be possible, one of our approved vets, immediately. Either way, every possible effort must be made to contact Rescue Remedies at the earliest possible point. We are not responsible for vet bills without such involvement.

We are looking for foster homes to provide a minimum of two week’s care, but ideally until a forever home is found. Some of our dogs have been waiting a long time in kennels or are just not coping. We may suggest such a needy dog if your circumstances suit and once you have become more experienced.

We accept applications from foster homes that are only available for short periods like weekends or a spell of three weeks, e.g. prior to going on holiday. We need to have foster homes within easy travelling distance of Surrey, but if you are mobile and willing to travel, we may be able to place our dogs further afield. We often need a place for our dogs so they can receive post-operative care or cover for other fosterers in the event of illness or a weekend away. Over public holidays we have to severely restrict the number of dogs in kennels as kennel owners need boarders to come in therefore a holiday or long weekend would take pressure off us and offer a break to a dog that we judge would not be too upset by the return to kennels.

Each dog will have different requirements and abilities in areas such as being left or exercise. We consider this when placing a dog with you. The maximum time we will allow them to be left alone is four hours on a regular basis. Lunchtime company and exercise for our dog or a reliable dog walker maybe acceptable for full time workers. Organising daycare arrangements with a neighbour or relative might be acceptable but we would need to discuss our dog with these supportive individuals.

Selecting a Foster Dog and if things go wrong

We will work with you to ensure the dog selected for you to foster is the most suitable for your circumstances. Occasionally some fosterers may agree to take a dog in as an emergency which may not entirely match their circumstances e.g. you don’t have a fully secure garden, but are prepared to manage them on an extender lead for a short spell to save a pup going into kennels. This will always be discussed with you. We will not always have a suitable dog available. You may need breaks between foster dogs, that is fine too. We will need to know of any periods when you can’t keep our dog e.g. a planned holiday, so we can organise cover.

From time to time we have instances where a dog taken on, does not work out. This may be as a result of inaccurate information given by the previous owner, the dog displaying new behaviours in the home environment that we had not experienced in kennels, or the fosterer realising that they cannot cope with a particular type of situation. On these occasions we will always endeavour to take the dog back as soon as we can arrange an alternative foster place or kennel. You may be asked to hold on for several days. If the foster place doesn’t work out or the dog needs to go into kennels as planned, we expect our fosterers to arrange transport back into kennels. In such circumstances the more notice we can have the better.

If you find you want to offer your foster dog its forever home, it is important you discuss this as soon as possible with Rescue Remedies as per the agreement. Without this discussion and where a good family is already in the motions of applying, we will continue to pursue the family who have emotionally committed.

Fostering through to homing

Hospitality offered to our dogs also extends to ‘would be adoptees’ coming to meet their potential dog. You will need to be comfortable with them visiting your home to meet our dog. You may have already spoken with them. You play a vital role while trying not to be too judgmental or prescriptive. We take great care in selecting our adoptees, but you may see aspects that haven’t been appreciated before e.g. mention of a change of job or problems with a neighbouring dog. If at any point, you feel uneasy about the adoption, it is important you raise your concerns with your Rescue Remedies contact before letting the dog go.

All being well, the adoption process will be completed there and then, or a mutually convenient time will be arranged for the new family to collect. The joy of seeing a dog that arrived on your doorstep with nowhere to go but a kennel, then going on to light up the lives of their new found family, is one of the most rewarding experiences you.

SHADOW