Annie

Annie is a wonderful 5 year old black lab. She has had some bad luck in her life and some trauma, leaving her blind in one eye and is being treated for heartworms. However, this doesn't stop her awesome personality from shining through. She loves other dogs and is house broken and a very good girl. She becomes very stressed if she has to be kenneled but because she is housetrained and does not get into things, there is no need for crating. She is hesitant of going in and out of doors but is becoming more comfortable in her foster home with positive encouragement. She gets a little nervous with doors in new situations and will need continued exposure and positive training to become more comfortable. Annie would do best in a home without cats and with a 6ft fence.

Bessie

Sometimes we just fall in love with the older labs. Bessie is one of those wonderful dogs with so much love left to give to the right family.  She wants to be with people and her tail wags all the time.  Our vet commented that she just oozes personality.

We don’t know how she ended up in the shelter.  It is clear that her previous family loved her with too much food, which we are now working on correcting.  Bessie needs to lose about 20 pounds.  Despite her weight, she loves to go on walks and always resists when it is time to turn back toward home.  She also enjoys nylabones and all kinds of toys, though at this time she doesn’t chase balls.  That might be possible after she is a more normal weight.

Bessie needs a family committed to helping her become a more healthy weight with diet control and exercise.  This should help her with some joint pain that we are controlling with regular pain medication.

If you are a special family with the love to give a special dog, please apply to adopt Bessie.  You will never be lonely with this loving dog as a companion.

 

 

Ever wonder how we pick which needy dogs “make it” to rescue?  A team of volunteers are behind the scenes making this happen. 

LOLIN is Notified of a Dog in Need

The process normally begins when a shelter or shelter volunteer contacts LOLIN about a dog in need.  LOLIN typically receives requests to help between 10-25 dogs per week.  Some of these request are sent directly to LOLIN about a specific Lab in need, some are sent to a list of Lab rescues.   Our intake committee consists of an in-state coordinator to handle all the dogs we bring in from Indiana shelters, and an out of state coordinator for the dogs who come from surrounding states.  The first step in the intake process is for the appropriate coordinator to respond back to the shelter and ask for some basic information.

Is the dog still in need of rescue? 

The dog may have been adopted, or if multiple rescues were contacted the dog may have found rescue elsewhere. 
How much time does the dog have left? 
Some dogs are down to their last hours or days and some dogs are safe for a certain number of days or weeks if the shelter knows a rescue is working on finding a foster.  Unfortunately, most of the dogs we work with are very short on time.

What veterinary care (if any) has the dog had? 

We never refuse to intake a dog for medical reasons, but it is very important for us to know each dog’s medical needs.  We ask the shelter to let us know if vaccines have been given, if the dog is already altered, and we ask for the results of a heartworm test.  Depending on the shelter’s policy we can reimburse the shelter for some or all of this vet care.  In some cases the dog has immediate medical needs, requires medications or surgery, or has other special needs that need to be addressed.  The medical history gives us a place to start when looking for a foster home.

What is the dog’s general temperament and reaction to handling? 

We require a very basic temperament test for every dog we consider for intake at Love of Labs.  The most important elements of this test are the dog/dog interaction and the food and resource guarding portion.  Some dogs are dominant with other dogs in their temperament test and require a foster home with submissive, easy going dogs.  Other dogs get along with every dog and are suitable for just about any foster home.  LOLIN does not accept dogs are dog aggressive or extremely dominant with other dogs, as all our foster homes have other dogs in the home so it is very important that our dogs get along with other dogs.  The more additional information a shelter gives us about a dog’s personality the easier we can find a foster.

Approval by Committee

Once all of this information has been gathered by one of the intake coordinators it is presented to the intake committee for approval.  The intake committee consists of the intake coordinators and foster coordinators. There are many factors that determine which dogs we approve for intake. The most important element is the temperament test. A dog with the typical lab characteristics, who has a loving personality, and gets along well with other dogs is more likely to be approved than a very dominant dog who is stand-offish with human handlers.  Color and gender do not impact the committee’s decision to approve a dog.  Sometimes we have lots of black dogs, sometimes lots of females, etc.  We do attempt to balance the number of senior dogs, dogs with long-term medical needs, and very mixed dogs (we don’t really consider a dog mixed if it is 75% lab or more!) with more highly adoptable dogs.
Obviously since many of the dogs we are working to help are running out of time, it is essential to gather this information in a matter of hours or days and  make quick decisions.  Intake and foster coordinators for LOLIN do their jobs every single day and fill in for one another when one person is unable to keep up so that a dog in need does not miss a chance for rescue. 

In Search of Foster

Approved dogs are now in search of an appropriate foster home!  The foster coordinators will use all the information we have gathered to match with an open foster.  If a foster is not open the intake coordinators work with the shelters to hold the dog for as long as possible.  Once a foster is found transport is arranged and the dog is on its way to a new life!