I work at the Blue Cross in Burford, and we get all sorts of dogs admitted into the Centre.
There are soo many people who come up who are looking for Cockers, or that type of dog. When I see the posts about homes wanted, it makes me think about how you actually go about finding a home for your dogs if you can no longer keep them, for whatever reason....
At the Blue Cross, no-one judges you or tries to tell you you are useless or silly - quite the opposite in fact. We take details from every potential admittance, and always ask what the reason for re-homing is, but that is just another one of the questions we need an answer to in order to get a complete overview of the dog (which is actually all we care about).
If the dog is aggressive towards children or adults or both, it can be difficult to find a home, but not impossible ... We have resident Behaviouralists and many of the Staff are trained to cope with and work through what it is that the dog finds difficult ... None of the Cockers we have had in our Centre have been there for very long - the only exception was Toby, a Cocker cross, who had eye problems, and he was successfully treated at one of our London hospitals, and returned to Burford to go on to his new home!
I hope that many of the people who are looking for homes, even for older Cockers, will not despair, because either the Blue Cross or the Dogs Trust will almost always happily take in Cockers, because there are so many people out there wanting to give a Cocker a home, but not necessarily having the access the the Internet to do their own searching !! These are often retired but active couples who have have Cockers before and just love the breed, but maybe don't want to start with a puppy again ...
