01/10/2026
BRAINSTORMING SESSION NEEDED!
As mentioned before, our next goal is to give the JDC K9 team, Jasper, Mike, Ruby and Blue well needed enrichment apart from their daily work, reduce human level of exhaustion, which is unsustainable at the moment, while still offering rescues a great gate to a new happy life, and maintaining our rehoming rates.
1 - One idea is to use kennels only as short-term transitional spaces while prioritizing placing dogs into foster homes. Operating under a kennel license, this foster system could help us reach more dogs than we can house, expand our service area, and create more accessible rehoming locations. Every new resident will spend a few days with us to settle in, get to know them, and have photography sessions. Fostering however has its own challenges—lack of control being one of them. We’ve heard too many horror accounts of foster dogs going "missing" or ending up in gang pads and unsafe situations, only to be picked up again by the pound who trusted that rescue with their dog in the first place. We understand every rescue is overwhelmed at the point of desperation, but all our dogs have been let down by people before - we won’t let that happen again. Confusing the dog - which often comes from a week in the pound - with multiple changes is also another challenge.
2 - Cutting back significantly on the number of dogs we rescue is another option, though it’s far from ideal given how many are in need and our desire to help as many as possible (we know we can’t help them all, but we wish we could!). That would leave a lot of great dogs facing imminent death, without a single chance.
3 - We could also streamline our setup to allow for parallel one-on-one work with rescues, but we currently lack the funds, trained staff, and suitable space. Being on a lease limits what structures we can build. Our volunteers are incredible, but they’re not dog trainers, and safety is a top priority.
Being in the middle of the bush, the number of available volunteers is also naturally limited. Relocating in a city would pose additional challenges for obtaining a kennel license for pound dogs (in many areas the kennel license is depending on dogs not being previously impounded - which defies the purpose, doesn't it?)
Neonatal litters and dogs in treatment or recovery will stay on-site for monitoring regardless the path we choose.
While behavioral rehabilitation is something we’d love to do, and we have staff trained to do, our current setup makes it too time-consuming alongside daily care.
In the coming days, we’ll take suggestions and focus on deciding the next steps and promoting our current residents: https://jdcrescue.com/category/rescue-dogs-for-adoption/
If anyone has any idea or opinion, please shout :-) We are happy to consider everything that would define the future of so many pups!! We know our wonderful followers and people out there have lots of experience and brilliant brains! fans
