What Is a Rescue Group?
A rescue group or rescue organization takes unwanted or abused pets and attempts to find new, caring homes for them. Most rescue groups are created by and run by volunteers, who take the animals into their homes and care for them—including training, loving, playing, handling medical issues, and solving behavior problems—until a suitable permanent home can be found. Rescue groups exist for most types of pet—for example, rabbit rescue. For animals with many breed types, many rescue groups specialize in specific breeds or groups of breeds. For instance, for dogs, there might be local Golden Retriever rescue groups, hunting dog rescue groups, large-dog rescue groups, as well as all-breed dog rescue groups.
Animal shelters often work closely with rescue groups, because shelters who have difficulty placing otherwise healthy and pet-worth animals would usually rather have the animal placed in a home than euthanized; while the shelters might run out of room, rescue groups can often find more volunteers with space in their homes for temporary placement. In the UK, for instance, both shelter and rescue organisations are described using the blanket term 'rescue', whether they have their own premises, buy in accommodation from commercial kennels, or operate a network of foster homes, where volunteers keep the animals in their homes until adoption.
In the USA, there are three classifications for pet rescue: A municipal shelter is a facility that houses stray and abandoned animals, as well as animals that people can no longer care for, on behalf of local governments; a no-kill shelter is usually a privately-operated organization with a physical location, such as a storefront or free-standing building, their policies are that no healthy, pet-worthy animal be euthanized; and not-for-profit rescue organizations that typically operate through a network of volunteer foster homes, rescue organizations are also committed to no-kill (no healthy, pet-worthy animal be euthanized). For dogs in the US, there are breed-specific rescue organizations for most dog breeds, as well as all-breed organizations.
Why Rescue?
Pet Rescue groups were born out of a need to save feral dogs and cats and find them homes. Years ago, shelters were the place most strays and unwanted dogs and cats ended up. When the shelters got full and a pet was there too long, it was put to sleep to make room for other more adoptable feral animals coming in. It was, and still is, a very sad situation when a healthy pet is put to sleep as a direct result of humans. The staff working in shelters are still forced to make incredibly gut wrenching decisions everyday. Mostly caused by pet over population and the failure of too many to recognize that pets should be spayed or neutered. Bob Barker, the host of The Price is Right ended every broadcast of the show with a plea to spay or neuter your pets, starting in the 1970's. But even today, there are those that just don't bother.
Rescue Groups began to form and one of the first was Pets Alive in New York State that was started in 1965. Today, there are many "No Kill" shelters where pets are not put to sleep, but the problem of over crowding persists.
There are two major difference between shelters and rescues. Shelters are usually run and funded by the city where they are located. Rescue groups are funded only by donations and all the people are volunteers. While some shelters do put animals into foster homes, many are housed onsite in kennels. Rescue Groups place all their rescues into foster homes as they do not have shelter facilities. Animals in foster care do fare better as they are in a real home, just like the home that is out there for them somewhere.