Applying to Adopt a Dachshund
from Doxie By Proxy Rescue, Inc.
We are thrilled you have found your way to rescue and to our organization. Obviously adopting a rescue is a very important mission to us and we are glad you have found yourself here. We do recommend that you first read our What to Expect Once You Adopt before proceeding so that you can learn about what it will be like to bring your newly adopted pet home. It takes patience and love — and a determination for it all to work out — for a successful match. But most of all — patience! First and foremost, our foster homes have first right of adoption. After all, fostering is not easy and it is hard to find homes willing to put their heart on the line so we honor their decision if they decide to "foster fail".
Our goal is always to find the perfect adopter match for every foster that comes through our program. Once a Doxie By Proxy Rescue, always a Doxie By Proxy Rescue. We fully commit to each one of our rescues for the remainder of their lives. If the adoption in their adoptive home turns out to not be a match for whatever reason (including medical or aggression issues) we are fully committed to taking them back into foster care in our program. Adopters are required to return the DBPR pet to our organization at any point during their lives when the adopter can no longer keep them in their home.
Below are the steps to the adoption process. It is not difficult and we do not have protocols that broadly apply to every one of our fosters. Please do not be concerned if you do not have a vet reference because you have not owned a pet before; or, if you do not have a fenced yard — not every dog requires a fenced yard. We take each dog and each application as they come to find magical matches as best we can! Things that are not negotiable — we do not ever put our foster dogs on transports to new homes. ALL applicants are required to travel to North Carolina to adopt. There are rare circumstances where we will make exceptions if a foster home or trusted volunteer is traveling to another state and it works out to take the foster dog with them to a new home. If (at any time) the adoption is not a good fit — adopters are required to return the adopted dog to either Greensboro, NC or Raleigh, NC depending upon where foster space is available.
The First Step
You have found that perfect dog on our site or social media site and you have fallen head over heels in love and want to meet them right away! We understand and appreciate your enthusiasm but our organization is 100% volunteer based and we all work full-time jobs during the day that allow us to do rescue in our “spare” time. Please be patient as we work through emails and contacts so that we can attempt to respond to everyone. If you find a pet you want to adopt or you have not but really are ready to take the next step to adopting — the first step is to complete an adoption application. Our application is specifically designed to ask the questions to allow us to see if you would be a good fit for the foster you are interested in adopting. Sometimes we can spot that it would not be a good match — maybe you have cats and our foster really is not cat savvy! The process often involves patience and understanding. We are a team of volunteers with over 50 years of experience between us — and our goal is always to do the right thing for the dogs in our care.
The Second Step
We will review your application and we will do an initial processing to allow you to know if the first screening is approved. This involves calling your references and calling you for an initial interview. We will try as best we can to communicate with you as we go through the process. After the initial screening we will begin to look at our fosters to see if any of our fosters in our system are a good match. If they are not, we will keep your application on file and refer back to it as new fosters enter our program that might work in your home. During this time we highly recommend that you continue to follow our social media and available dogs page to find dogs that you might be interested in being considered to adopt. Our organization is small (roughly 12 foster homes) so at any given time we do not have many dogs in our care. We absolutely support (and encourage) you checking with other rescue organizations and watching their available fosters for a good match for your home as well! As long as a rescue dog is getting an excellent home — we are super happy!
The Third Step
Meet-and-Greet opportunities are an awesome time to do a one-on-one meeting with the foster dog and their foster parent. These are usually conducted either at the time of the home visit or in a local meeting place if distance is a factor once the application has been approved during the initial processing. We encourage you to bring your other dog (or dogs) to meet our foster dog to see if they get along. We try to schedule these at locations where time can be taken to interact for a significant period of time to know if the match is right for everyone involved — but most importantly for the dog. Depending upon each individual situation — this might be the time that you are able to bring the dog home with you or we might have further vetting that needs to be done before the dog can go home. The foster coordinator you are working with will instruct you along the way on what to expect.
The Fourth and Final Step
It’s adoption time — and it is super exciting but can also be very scary. Adoption is a wonderful thing and many of our adoptive parents will tell you that they soon forgot what their lives were like before they brought their Doxie By Proxy rescue home with them. You will be adopted a dog that is current on all vetting (including spay/neuter, vaccinations, heart worm test, microchipping and any other necessary medical work needed prior to adoption). If there are any ongoing medical or behavioral needs, they will be discussed with you and included in the contract at the time of adoption. All medical paperwork will be provided with the contract for supplying to your vet to get your new pet on continued heartworm and flea prevention. You will need to pay the adoption fee at the time you sign the contract for adoption. This can be paid via PayPal, Check or Cash. It is refundable during the adoption trial period but cannot be refunded once the adoption trial has passed.
Once you are a Doxie By Proxy Rescue adopter we will follow up and keep in touch to make sure that everything is going smoothly. We do ask that you contact us if any new behaviors or medical issues arise that are concerning and might require our help. Our goal is always to keep our fosters in their adoptive homes if at all possible! We love updates, pictures and visits from our former fosters as it is what keeps us inspired to continue to save others. And lastly — please return to us and adopt others as you can — if not from us, from other dachshund rescue organizations. If you are one of our adopters, we will gladly act as a reference for you with other organizations if you find another you wish to adopt!