#but like i think i've covered enough dsklfjadsfdska

[not-poignant]

hiya pia! I just saw your new puppy on Instagram!! congrats, he's so cute! I was just wondering, is he a rescue?

cuddles to him and Maybe 🤗

Hi anon,

He's not a rescue! We've always had rescue cats, which is actually part of the reason we can't get a rescue dog, lol. I'm about to talk a lot about it, so get ready! Lol

So firstly, in Western Australia, poodle x rescue puppies don't really exist at all in rescue organisations , and Glen and I are both allergic to highly shedding dogs as well as dogs with very short hair, and we needed a trainable / biddable puppy because we have a cat with a lot of behavioural issues. We've had to litter test each litter of puppies we've met with to see which ones were suitable / not suitable with our allergy issues.

Unlike other places in the world, poodles are actually very hard to find here, and as someone who's had my eyes on rescue organisations on and off for 10 years I can say with a lot of confidence we were never going to find a non-shedding puppy or dog without significant behavioural issues in a rescue. It was nearly impossible before the pandemic, and it's been impossible since.

Western Australia has a dog breed bottleneck, because before frozen sperm existed, most people had to pay around $10,000 to get a new dog of any kind because of the flight fees. On top of that, we have the strictest quarantine in the world. Any dogs to introduce new genetic lineages into a breed from overseas had to spend three months in a concrete cell, with no comforts and only allowed short visits per day. As a result, many of these dogs developed behavioural issues.

But this has meant that some purebreeds don't exist at all in Western Australia, or are just extremely uncommon. There's no medium poodles in Western Australia. There's only two active miniature poodle breeders. Borzoi aren't here. The list of like... fairly common dogs that don't exist here, or only exist in small numbers, is huge. And this means what filters into the rescues tends to be the most popular breeds - staffies, kelpies, malamutes, huskies, german shepherds, labradors and their mixes - all dogs we can't have as pets :(

So, we looked into purebreeds for a long time, and fell in love with some standard poodle puppies we met several months ago, but they were just too big for our cottage, and for our 12 year old 'I have so many behavioural issues Pia learned clicker training just to manage me' rescue cat.

We actually consulted with a trainer who specialises in PTSD dogs quite a few months ago before making this decision and deciding on Tobermory, and she was the one who suggested we go this path.

Rescues are great, I'm a huge rescue animal proponent, I've worked in both wild animal rehabilitation, animal fostering, and in animal rescue at various times in my life. For most people who aren't dealing with allergies (and keeping in mind that a low-shedding dog isn't hypoallergenic! Glen and I are still having allergic reactions, they're just not hives or asthma attacks, and we can manage congestion/breathing issues etc. with antihistamines + rescue inhalers), or who don't already have problem pets to worry about, it's absolutely one of the first avenues people should try!

But puppies from reputable and trustworthy breeders (whether mixes or purebreed) are often bred for qualities that can be more reliable in people who are trying to meet certain needs. And I advocate people go in that direction too if that's the only way they can have or live with a dog. Especially if they can meet with the breeder, meet the parents, meet the puppies multiple times, see (and check) health testing results, and those dogs are being registered, if not through a Purebreed Register (which honestly guarantees nothing except conformation, and often puts health and sometimes even temperament by the wayside), then through a reputable Register that has a code of ethics where you can report a breeder for poor practices and trust that they will be held accountable.

A small fluffy cutesy dog is actually not my favoured kind of dog in terms of how he looks. If I were picking a dog for cosmetic reasons, it'd be such a different dog!! :D I prefer borzoi, or leonbergers (two dogs that don't exist here), or landseer newfoundlands (doesn't exist here), or large munsterlanders (doesn't exist here) etc.

But in terms of temperament and what we need him for? He's perfect. Plus I can still breathe through my nose today and I'm not covered in hives, which is a win!

Anyway, I realise I could've answered this with a short 'no he's not a rescue' lol, but I feel like a lot of folks don't understand what it's like in Western Australia, one of the most isolated major cities in the whole world geographically, and what that means for genetic bottlenecks, issues with finding certain kinds of dogs in rescue, and how the chances of finding a rescue that works can drastically plummet if you're already dealing with pets that have stress, anxiety, and behavioural issues at home.

Maybe was this kind of rescue. She would have been euthanased before we got her. In fact she was literally 20 minutes away from being put to sleep, before we got her. She went on to develop multiple behavioural issues being a multigen feral with Bengal background, which is a pretty bad combo in Western Australian bushland (multigen feral cats are something else here, and have been mistaken for mountain lines in the bush). She's needed intensive and time-consuming management since we got her, and it means every other animal around her needs to be as easy to manage as humanly possible.

But yeah it's put me in an interesting quandary for about 7 years? Longer? At any rate, TL;DR not a rescue! :D