The German Shepherd is a large, highly intelligent working dog. German Shepherds are very protective, but not hostile; they make great guard dogs and wonderful companions. German Shepherds should be well socialized early in life. German Shepherds that are properly trained and socialized are good with children and other pets. This breed can adapt to apartment life with sufficient exercise.
German Shepherd Rescue Information
This is further compounded by the fact that many people applying to adopt seem to expect the perfect dog rather than accepting a rescue dog will have ‘baggage’ and will need time and support to unpack it. There is only so much we can do in a kennel environment and unfortunately there is also a shortage of foster homes willing to take on ‘difficult’ dogs to assess in a home environment and continue their rehabilitation.
If you looking to rehome your dog, we will endeavor to assess your dog as soon as possible and put on our website, HOWEVER, we cannot take any more dogs into our care at present unless there are exceptional circumstances. Our priority will always be ‘strays’ in council kennels that have nowhere else to go if a kennel space becomes available.
If you are looking to adopt, we will endeavor to carry out your home check as soon as possible, HOWEVER, we are having to be extremely strict on our criteria at present due to the type of dogs currently in our care.
Many of these dogs are not good with other dogs due to lack of socialization and whilst we can work with them with other large dogs, we do not have the facilities to be able to test them with small dogs. The same applies to cats and young children.
Just because your cat or your child is used to large dogs, we will not put any animal or child at risk unnecessarily. We will also not consider any applicant without large dog experience as currently, we need homes with experience in handling a large breed dog who may potentially have some issues to still work out.
German Shepherd Rehoming
We rescue, rehabilitate, and find placement for German Shepherds. Rettungs-Haus Shepherds, Inc. evaluates each dog and places them in qualified homes based upon their temperament, drive, adaptability, and medical needs. Many of these dogs have gone on to serve their community by becoming of the following; Service dogs, Therapy Dog, Search & Rescue K9, Detection K9, School Resource K9.
If you are thinking about surrendering your dog, we urge you to please consider rehabilitation through training and our support network.
Our outreach program, Operation K9 Truth for Youth. This program provides youth with volunteer and leadership opportunities within the community allowing them to accrue community service hours while working alongside our canines and trained volunteers.
This partnership promotes and instills honor, compassion, value, accountability, and self-esteem within our youth.
German Shepherd Rescue Elite (GSRE) has been formed with the aim of rescuing, re-homing German Shepherd Dogs (GSD’s) and educating people on the breed. GSRE is backed up by a team of unpaid volunteers who strive to aid and promote responsible ownership of the breed.
GSRE’s aim is to be the prevention and not always the cure, through offering education on the lovely breed and how to look after these amazingly intelligent and energetic dogs. We not only look to re-home dogs but keep them in their original homes by offering training and behavior advice.
Through our volunteers and website, we want to inform people on all aspects of dog ownership before you decide to take the plunge especially as German Shepherd Dogs are a large working breed and are not suitable for everyone.
More recently GSRE has also been helping the Belgian Shepherd Malinois (Mali’s) and Dutch Shepherds (Herders), who have started finding themselves in rescue, and as the other main working breed used by the police and armed forces, we feel we are better placed than many rescues to understand their needs.
GSRE is a registered charity that works alongside many other reputable rescues which means that through teamwork and pulling together we can help even more dogs in need.
To assist in this we are now a Full Member of the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes (ADCH) which promote best practice in animal welfare, and a member of the EU Dog and Cat Alliance which call for EU action to build a better Europe for dogs and cats.
