Why is it Getting so Hard to Give a Rescue Dog a Forever Home?

 I fully support Rescue Charities and wrote a post called "Throw Away Dogs in a Throw Away Society" some time ago about the benefits of giving an OAP dog a Forever Home.

I have just read a post that has me exploding with anger and disappointment this morning. Not at the person who wrote it I hasten to add, but at the experiences they have had with doing the right thing and trying to rehome a dog. I have been following this story for some time and was really looking forward to reading all about their new dog this week. Sadly it was not to be...  

Understandably when you approach a charity to rehome a dog, you are expected to jump through several hoops to ensure that you are a suitable candidate, you have adequate facilities for the dog and are fully aware of any problems the dog may have. They want the dogs to go to the right homes as it is very frustrating if it doesn't work out and the dog has to be returned to Rescue, and very confusing and stressful for the dog.

This process can involve several trips to the said Rescue Center at your own time, expense and emotion, which you are happy to do because you want the best for the dog you ultimately take into your home for the rest of its life. 

So why is it that Rehoming Centers are making it harder and harder for good people to rehome dogs? 

I myself was turned down by the RSPCA approximately 12 years ago because I worked part time, even though I had adequate arrangements in place. The dogs stayed at my parents house when I was at work, a bit like Doggy Daycare, plus my parents had been approved as a suitable home by the RSPCA when they were looking to rehome a dog the year before. 

I was angry, I had worked in Rescue myself, and had even been to court as a witness for the RSPCA about a Rottweiler that had been sent to me for rehoming. To be honest I felt very humiliated that I should be turned down by such a huge organisation that I had always supported, but I accepted their decision and walked away.

Over the last couple of years I have been hearing more and more times of people who are wonderful dog owners, being turned down when they try to offer a dog a Forever Home from a variety of rehoming organisations, they then give up, as they are so upset that they are considered not suitable.

I understand the need for caution, especially with certain breeds of dog falling into the wrong hands.

Sometimes people don't always have a high enough fence for that escape artist, or maybe the dog they really want needs a lot more training than they can offer, not all dogs are suitable for all people, but if so many loving dog owners are not deemed suitable, then who is?

Whilst all this indecision is going on dogs are missing out on fantastic Forever Homes and doomed to life in kennels, or worst case scenario being put to sleep.

As Christmas approaches, sadly yet again I see so many puppies are for sale  as Christmas Presents! With a lot of them the novelty will have worn off by January and they will be dumped into an already overflowing Rescue system.

We can't stop these people churning out puppies, but if nobody buys them and rehomes Rescue dogs there will be no market for them.

So why is it getting so hard to give a Rescue dog a Forever Home?

Authors Note:- These are my own views and experiences. Any offence to caused to anyone working in Rescue is unintentional. If it wasn't for the work you do more dogs would be suffering long term in bad situations.

News at Last (sort of)

As many of you know the the last nine months have been pure torture for me, because my employer decided that I wasn't fit enough to do my job anymore. 

Yes I have severe Arthritis and yes it was a struggle to do my job, but I'm still able to do my job as a result of some reasonable adjustments that were put into place approx two years ago.

In those two years I have been happy in my work, and had very few sick days. In fact in nearly 13 years of working there, I have never hit the trigger point for disciplinary with my sick days.

I registered my Disabled status with my employer approx five years ago, as with all things computerised, systems get updated and Disability details needed to be re-entered, which I duly did as it's a legal requirement.

As a result of updating my details, I received a letter saying I needed to attend a medical, I have since attended several, all with the same result. 

I'm not fit to work!

I disagreed with these findings, due to the fact I was still at work and doing my job. So a meeting was called and I was interviewed by several people from various departments.

In June I completed all the paperwork for my Medical Retirement/Dismissal very reluctantly, and started my IT course to help me find another job.

As the months dragged on there was no news on the retirement/dismissal/job front and I'm still attending work full time. I would rather stay at work in a job I love, but I have come to accept it's for my own welfare these decisions have been made.

On the 30th October I received a letter stating I was being Medically Retired not Medically Dismissed, which is a massive relief, as I will be getting a small pension. If the findings had been for Medical Dismissal I would in a world of financial hardship, as you can imagine it was a huge relief!

I don't know when I will be actually retiring, there has been no mention. 

I'm still attending work!

It's got to the point that I've had enough! 

They got what they wanted, so just give me a leaving date and let me go! 

Getting Very Bored Now!

Went to the Doctor to see if I could get signed as "Fit for Work" today. 

No such luck, got to have another week off, as I have to have my medication reduced. I'm so bored now it's starting to really get on my wick! 

Crikey, I even resorted to making a massive dent in the leaning tower of ironing! 

Yep I know, using foul language isn't very nice I apologise.

Not a lot is happening here, tomorrow I get to wait in for the man to come and rewire the shaver light. He wired it all wrong, so it will only charge if you leave the light on, so it means we've had to leave the bathroom light on overnight just to charge the toothbrushes, how annoying is that!

On Friday I'm getting a haircut Whoopy Do!

Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off!

"Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off!"

Have you ever heard those words as a roller-coaster sets off when someone changes their mind? 

That's exactly how my life has been feeling for the past few weeks, the pain in my back is becoming unbearable! I can barely do anything at the moment. I can feel the big black cloud of Depression pushing it's way back into my brain. 

 The house is a mess as I struggle to keep on top of things. We've been eating processed food **muck** as I can't stand long enough to cook, just walking around the in house is absolute agony. How I wish we had a downstairs toilet, I stand at the bottom of the stairs and they look like an impossible challenge, it can take me several minutes to climb them, so I'm now spending a lot of time upstairs to avoid the climb. 

All this extra back pain is on top of the Arthritis pain in my knees, hands and joints. My

Prince Harry and Those Crown Jewels

Photo Credit

I'm sick to death of hearing about naked photo's of Prince Harry!

 Lets face it we are all naked under our clothes, it's not like the poor bloke is abnormal in any way.

Although granted none of us loyal subjects have the Queen as our Granny.

He was doing nothing illegal. He was in a private suite of hotel

I Hate Technology!

Here I am trapped at home bored out of my skull, my back is so painful I can't do anything, especially that huge pile of ironing that just keeps growing in the spare room.

 Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not brilliant on the computer so part of my re-training with this whole Job/Medical Retirement/Dismissal thing was to do an IT course, to enable me to find some sort of admin job.

Photo Credit

The boredom was becoming so overwhelming I decided to be clever and start my IT computer course at home to give me something to do, it had all been set up at the Education Center and I'd made a

start on it there, so I knew how it all worked, so I logs in and reads all the bumph and then click the "continue my learning" button.

Good and Bad all in a Day

Yesterday started off like any other day, with a fistful of pills before I got out of bed, then once they start to kick in it's time to get up and face the day.

Breakfast:- Yummy

Annoyingly my delicious breakfast of pills didn't seem to be casting their magic spell as well as usual. So I decided I had better get up before I fell asleep again. Then pain of my Arthritis started screaming in agony once I started moving. This is not unusual, but yesterday I was in more pain than I usually am when I get up.

Chuffin' Unbelievable!!!

Yesterday I had to go to the Admin Building to sort out some courses for my IT training and would you believe it, out of all the hundreds of courses available to staff, there are no IT ones, plus I had to miss my 30 minute meal break to do it!

Chuffin' unbelievable!!!

Me being me, I then decided to use my initiative (see, I'm not always as daft as people think I am) and phoned the on site education center, where I had done my Maths and English GCSE's  three years ago, and had also started and paid for the  ECDL (please don't ask what it stands for I don't know, but it's an IT course) to see if they still ran it.

As luck would have it I spoke to my old tutor, who spookly remembered me, even though he must have dealt with thousands of people since he last saw me.

A Cunning Plan *but still no answers*

It seems like an absolute age since I last had some news to update on the Job/Medical Retirement/Dismissal interviews.

On Wednesday had another long train Journey this time to Portsmouth. 

HMS Warrior

On the Turn of a Sixpence

You've probably heard the expression "On the Turn of a Sixpence"

Well this week our lives changed overnight! 

I can't go into too much medical detail at present, as Himself is still in hospital and I've not told him I'm writing this, so feel it would be unfair on him, but I really need to write about it.

On Tuesday Himself went into hospital for a routine operation involving an overnight stay, all went well, he was in recovery and I made my way to hospital to meet up with him on the ward. 

When I arrived at approx 1930hrs I was told he was still in recovery and to wait in the day room, so I waited, and I waited, and I waited.

Eventually I was allowed to see him at approx 2330hrs and was warned he was still in a lot of pain. 

A lot of pain, was a complete understatement! 

Who ate all the Pies?

The diet has been pushed aside over the last few months, far too much stress in my life over whether or not I was going to lose my job, than to be worrying about what I've been eating, and then getting a telling off by the nurse at the "Fat Clinic"

Although the job situation still hasn't been resolved, I'm more relaxed about the situation as I'm now being kept in the loop about what is happening.

My joints have been giving me some serious pain of late, so thought I had better check out my weight on the scales. 

Quick update

Morning, just a quick update. Doing it on the iPhone with no WiFi so not sure how successful it will be. Fingers crossed it posts.

 Not sure if I've mentioned my numb tingly hands before, but yesterday I couldn't feel anything and my back was excruciatingly painful. So I had to leave work and went to the Doctors.

 She suspects I may have something called a spur in my neck trapping the nerves, so have now got to have an Xray and see a Specialist to investigate. Sadly I can't have any stronger Morphine, as the last time they upped it I could barely function.

 Wish these problems would come to an end with my health, it's getting harder and harder to stay strong.

 Sorry if this post looks a bit different from normal, but never done it on iPhone before and there are no editing options.

Tardy Blogger

Seems like an age since I last updated my Blog, but in fact it has only been a week, but the longest week of my life!

Finally got the result of those Medicals, a report that doesn't make pleasant reading I can tell you.

Got told by my Boss "If any more reasonable adjustments were required, then I would be getting my P45 so I can sit on the sofa all the time.

Which was well out of order, and resulted in several nasty Panic Attacks this week, due I think, to the fact I've been mega stressed

about this whole process.

I won't bore you to death with the whole story, but as a result I've now received a massive pile of paperwork to wade through, as they

The Bermuda Triangle

Went for my Medical yesterday, and pleased to say the Doctor was really very nice and considerate of my situation, unlike the woman I saw previously!

But Winnersh Triangle is more like the Bermuda Triangle! Himself and I got off the train, to be confronted by loads of steps to get out of the station, luckily we were early, so I was able to take my time hobbling down them.

Checked the map we were given and set off into a huge industrial estate, after about approx 10 minutes we still hadn't found the place we were going too, even though we were standing on the spot indicated on the map (we are both competent map readers by the way). So started to look around for somebody to ask.

Long story short, after taking the scenic route we did get to the Medical Center eventually on

Mad as a Box of Frogs

Last week I went for my medical about my fitness to carry on working, and boy was that a waste of time!

Himself had to come with me as I find it far to stressful to go to new places on my own. 
Had to travel all the way to Portsmouth, and it then took me 25 minutes to hobble to the building where my medical was taking place from the train station.

By the time we got there, I was in serious pain and could barely walk. Thankfully there was a lift, so no stairs because I really don't think I could have walked up them if there were!

As I booked in 15 minutes before my appointment, this woman came out and said "Are you Dawn? I want to get this started as I want to go home"

We followed her in shocked silence, as this is my future we were there to discuss. Not some minor medical matter!

She didn't seem to know exactly why I was there, luckily I had taken my previous medical reports which as she read, spent the whole time singing in a rather flat tone "Dum Dee Dum Dee Dee" and doing it even when typing her report.

The whole time I'm sitting there feeling like I'm facing "The Executioner" 

She was very unsettling and hardly asked me any questions, just looked at my repeat prescription form and said  "I don't understand how you can be here and awake on Morphine and all your other drugs"

I replied "Because I've just got to get on with life, haven't I" in a rather aggressive tone, so Himself informed me when we left. Oops!!!

I'm not going to bore you with the whole interview although it was rather too short I felt for such an important matter!

She couldn't make a decision, so now I've been referred to see a Doctor for yet another medical, I can't believe how much I'm being jerked around. I'm happy to work, I've never complained about not being able to manage my job.

This whole process is so very very stressful!!!

It's making me feel totally unwell, I'm unable to sleep because of the worry of losing my job and how I will support myself!

Hopefully the Doctor I have to see, will be able to finally make a decision so I can get on with the rest of my life!!!

A Change is good, isn't it?

A change is good isn't it? 

I sure hope so, I've been messing around with the settings and lost the layout the I liked for this Blog!

OMG I can tell you that is not good when you suffer from O.C.D. as badly as I do!

I've spent several hours trying to get things back to how they were without success. So in the end I decided to go for something completely different, that way I'm not going to be looking at it all the time and getting worrying thoughts.

It all started when I created a new Blog for Badger Boo, to stop

Doing the Hokey Cokey

Having no control over my own legs drives me bonkers!!!

I can't sleep or get any rest because all they do it twitch!

Sometimes like now all I want to do is sit down and read a book, but because of this constant twitching I can't! Instead I'm hobbling around writing this on the iPhone  hoping my medication kicks in soon so I can just sit down and rest!

The Morphine patches I use for my pain management are the probably the cause of these Hokey Cokey legs, but I can't function without them due to the pain of my Arthritis.


The more I try to ignore the twitching the worse it gets.
It keeps me awake at night, whilst the drugs make me tired!
So I'm in a no win situation, massage of my legs can help, but not always possible as sometimes I'm on my own and massaging my