Opening
You’ve made a hard decision and you didn’t make it lightly. We’re not going to argue with you about it.
What we can do is help you do it properly, because the gap between a careful rehoming and a rushed one is enormous — and it’s the dog that lives in that gap.
Where did the dog come from?
Before anything else, find your paperwork.
Most reputable breeders and effectively every rescue have a clause requiring the dog to come back to them. People sign it and forget it. If it’s there, they’re the safest option you have — they know the dog, they usually have a waiting list, and it costs you nothing.
Call them first. If they take the dog back, none of the rest of this page applies to you.
Writing a listing that works
This is where you can change what happens next, more than anywhere else.
Be honest about the hard parts. Anything left out gets discovered in week two, and then the dog is back where it started, older and more confused.
But honest isn’t the same as bleak — lead with what makes them worth having.
Instead of “too much energy”: “needs someone who runs or hikes, or has been meaning to start.”
Instead of “doesn’t like other dogs”: “wants to be your only dog and have you to himself.”
Both are true. One of them finds a home.
Then say plainly what they need — a six-foot fence, someone home in the day, no cats. The right person reads that and recognises themselves.
Where to post it
Rehoming sites, AZ Facebook groups, NextDoor — listed here shortly.
Avoid anywhere built around free-to-good-home. It attracts exactly the people you don’t want.
Screening someone
The first person to reply isn’t automatically the right one. You’re not moving a dog out of your house, you’re choosing who it lives with for the next decade — that’s worth being slow about.
Worth asking:
- What would a normal day look like for this dog?
- Have you had a husky before? What happened?
- What’s the plan when they get bored and start digging?
Worth noticing:
- Wanting the dog immediately, or as a surprise for someone else.
- Vagueness about where they live, or reluctance to let you see it.
- Not wanting to give you their vet’s name.
Ask for a vet reference and actually call it. Ask whether they’re a current client and whether their animals are up to date. Five minutes, and it tells you more than an hour of conversation.
Charge a fee
We know this feels wrong when you’re trying to do a kind thing.
Free dogs attract people who want a dog that costs nothing — and a small number of people whose reasons you don’t want to think about. A fee filters both.
$150 is a reasonable floor. It isn’t about the money. It’s about who still turns up.
What to hand over
- Every vet record you have.
- Transfer the microchip into their name. If this gets skipped, you’re the one who gets the call in two years, with no way to help.
- A bag of the food they’re on, so their stomach isn’t coping with a change on top of everything else.
- A note about their routine — when they eat, what frightens them, what settles them.
What we can do
We’ll share your listing with our network. If someone feels off to you and you’d like a second opinion, send them to us. We’ll talk any of it through.
We can’t promise to take the dog. But you don’t have to do this on your own.
Asking us to take the dog
Usually it’s no — and we’d rather say that at the top than three paragraphs down.
We’re small. Our capacity isn’t beds we could buy, it’s rooms real people have offered, and that number is usually zero.
But no isn’t the end of the conversation.
Why
Every foster home we have is a place one dog can be.
Saying yes to one dog means saying no to another. That isn’t a policy we chose, it’s arithmetic we can’t get out of.
So when we say we can’t take your dog, it isn’t that your dog matters less. It’s that the space is already holding one.
We’d rather tell you that straight than give you a vague maybe that costs you a week you haven’t got.
What we’ll do instead
- Talk it through properly, on the phone, for as long as it takes.
- Help you write a listing that finds the right person.
- Share it with our network.
- Point you at every resource we know — vets, food, training, housing.
It isn’t what you wanted. It isn’t nothing.
How to ask
Email us with SURRENDER REQUEST and your dog’s name in the subject.
Tell us your phone number, the dog’s age and health, how they are with people and other animals, and the real reason you’re asking. The honest version helps us more than the tidy one.
We’ll come back to you as quickly as we can.