love4paws

He made it safe and sound A bit shaken and a little wet and cold but otherwise happy and has settled in very well (1 week at home now). Thanks again everyone for the advice. Arrival :)

Have you considered using a puppy pen (inside)? That way you could restrict her from toileting in those areas until her toileting is more established. Vebo pet supplies sell great ones and they are well priced and they deliver also. Leerburg have lots of free video content on how to use a pen to manage your puppy, if you go to their video section and just search 'pen' they should come up https://www.youtube.com/c/LeerburgDogTraining/videos

Hi everyone, thanks so much for all of your responses, we really appreciate the input and it helped us a lot to make a decision Flights are booked. We went with Dogtainers - they have been great throughout the booking process (they really shone through over all of the companies we contacted). The little lad is due here on the 17th so will update with how he travelled

Thanks everyone, ok it seems like flying might be the better option, which is the way we were leaning (and hoping would be the best choice), we were worried too how exhausted we would be after the two full days driving when we got back home with the puppy. Thanks so much for your replies

Hi, it is a GSD puppy, it won't have been exposed to a crate at that stage unfortunately.

Hi everyone, our puppy will be ready to come home in about 2 weeks, but we are finding ourselves very torn about transport options and would greatly appreciate some advice. Details: - puppy will be 8 weeks at time of travel - puppy is located 1200 kms from us, in NSW, we live in Qld - initially, we planned to drive down, but feeling somewhat anxious about covid cases now re-emerging - also not sure if the 12 + hour drive home (or halve it with an overnight stay midway) would be stressful on the puppy (2 travellers so someone driving and someone attending to puppy) - transport option: puppy collected in the morning, fly to Qld that afternoon (best case scenario but there is a slight risk of flight cancellations due to covid and the flight being delayed until next day) - we did also speak with a road transport company but it would take two days so we have ruled that out Thanks so much for any advice you could share.

Wow, thank you so much to everyone for the fantastic replies. I really appreciate all the great information and ideas so much!! I have just now copied them all and started putting them together to create a checklist that we will use during the adoption process. It will be immensely helpful! There are so many great posts I need to re-read back over them all again, and will reply in more detail soon.

Hi Everyone, I had just joined the forums as I have a burning question/concern I am hoping more experienced dog owners can assist with... (and I think I also just want to share/talk about this experience a little too because I never have with anyone and I still feel very sad about it.) My husband and I are planning to adopt a rescue dog this year, something we have been considering for about a year now, but I am really concerned about being able to ask the right questions to make sure we are choosing a suitable dog and hoping folks here can offer some guidance. My fears lay in my (adult) daughter's rescue / adoption story... she adopted a beautiful GSD girl about 3 years ago. I shared the search process with her over many months until she found the right dog. She was located interstate and in total the costs for her adoption were over $2000 (with flights etc). I paid half of the costs for her at the time because as I felt it was a really special thing for her to be doing (daughter was in the army then and going through a bit of a hard time resettling away from home). My daughter flew interstate to collect her new girl, and arrived home with her a few days later, very much madly in love already! I was on my way driving to stay with them for a few months when my daughter called me sobbing. D has a freestanding house with six foot wooden fencing and the new girl hadn't been out on walks yet. After a few days settling in D decided she felt ready to take her out for her first walk on the leash and as they exited the door the neighbour's young daughter was just walking home with their little Maltese, the new girl ran and hit the end of her lease pulling D over and escaping. She ran straight to the little girl and small dog and killed the little dog. It was just so horrifying and traumatic for everyone. The parents of the little girl/little dog owners called around that night and abused D for killing their dog and traumatizing their little girl. D was absolutely devastated at this point! As mentioned I arrived and stayed with them in the following months and took over care of the new girl as D withdraw and just couldn't emotionally deal with the situation (this was her first dog as an adult). I handled all the council interviews during the investigation. I never imagined being responsible for owning a dog that killed another and traumatized a family. We are just not those people. The GSD girl was just the most beautiful loving dog (inside) the home. In the next month I really fell in love with her too and felt so sad for all she must have been through. She was obviously never socialised and had not had an easy start in life. I lived on cattle stations for decades where I trained working dogs (collies, kelpies) and I took the new girl for a couple of walks (very late in the evening) to try to gauge what was going on with her. She was extremely fearful and display frenzied dog aggression in 100% of cases seeing or hearing another dog. The council ruled she did not have to be PTS as this was a first offence, but my daughter was terrified to walk her outside of the home at all. I offered to stay longer and help her to keep working with her/rehabilitating her. D decided she was just too dangerous and made the difficult choice to PTS. I don't know if I am portraying very well just how devastated our family was through-out this whole experience. Devastated for our neighbours and their little dog, devastated for D and the trauma she experienced (3 years on she is still not comfortable around dogs), devastated for the beautiful GSD girl who didn't get to have a happy life with a loving family. When we spoke to the rescue group when the attacked first happened they denied any knowledge of her aggression issues.. but my daughter explained later that she was being kept in a boarding kennel in a separated far rear kennel when she collected her and she was told she had been there for many months as a foster carer couldn't be found for her. Anything like this would obviously be a great big warning flag for us this time around, but are there any small/easy tests or assessments we should try to carry out when we meet potential dogs that will helps us to see any serious underlying issues...? How do we check out if a rescue group/person is responsible/experienced/reputable? Thanks so much in advance for any advice.