The importance of the home check

Home checks are essential in finding a new home for a dog looking for second chance. They are a vital check for the charity to ensure it is giving the dog the best opportunity for a happy ever after life.

To this end the checks can seem to those receiving them to be inquisitive and intense, prying and invasion but no one should feel that these checks are in way unnecessary.

Just today I received word that the RSPCA had seized a dog from a man suspected of being a drug addict and of repeatedly physically abusing his dog. The dog - thankfully not from Happy Staffie Rescue - had been rehomed from another dog rescue charity. A charity that I assume operates home checks in most if not all cases.

It is easy from the outside to decry the failings of a system designed to prevent such circumstances but a proper home check should go a considerable way to avoiding them. That said, the information gained at a home check is based almost entirely on what the potential owner says and does.

I remember a very valid point raised by another dog rescue about homes check. They pointed out that you can check that the fence of a garden is secure for the dog in question, but nothing you do at that point will tell you whether if the following week the fence blew down that the owner would repair it. Trust is essential.

As a responsible charity looking to rehome dogs to a loving home as a companion animal minimum requirements would include regular exercised, suitable bedding indoors and a family unit suitable for the dog, i.e. no children beneath a certain age and all members of the household agreeing with the idea of having a dog.

Potential owners should never fear in asking why questions are asked. They should also never feel that questions are chosen specifically for them. Our home-checkers go prepared with a standard form of questions, though naturally issues within the home could lead to further questions.

The very last thing any dog rescue should want is harm coming to the dog, the dog being returned or members of the household being injured by the dog. The home checks goes a large way to ensuring these things do not happen, though they are never watertight.