One of Senior girls...

Step one

 Ask yourself few basic questions:

•  Are you sure you want to add a German Shepherd Dog to your family? If you're not sure, please read Is German Shepherd Dog a right dog for you? on our website. It might help.
• Are you willing to open your heart to a German Shepherd Dog no longer wanted by its previous owners, dog with often unknown past, often abused, or neglected, dog that will most likely need time to heal emotionally? Are you a patient person?
  
• Look at your life ahead of you. Is there still going to be room in your heart for a German Shepherd Dog two, five, ten years from now? Please read How could you?  It happens more often than we think...

Step Two

Once you decide to give a second chance to a 'rescue' German Shepherd Dog, please browse through our 'Dogs for Adoption' pages and through various Web Sites on the Internet.

There are more decisions to be made:

• Would boy or a girl, older or a younger dog be a better fit for your family?

• Where are you going to adopt your next German Shepherd from?

Ethan

There are numerous shelters and all breed rescues that often have in their care German Shepherd Dogs that need new homes.

It is important that you are comfortable with the organization that has a dog and comfortable with their policies.

When you're adopting a dog from us, Toronto German Shepherd Dog Rescue, you'll be forming a relationship with our group as well... We want to know as much as possible about you and your family and we would expect you to want to know more about us as well. Before we allow one of our dogs to leave our care we want to develop a certain amount of trust between all parties involved. We will encourage you to join our Discussion Forum and share your thoughts on care, training and your expectations and yes, maybe your dreams as well...

Please provide us as with all relevant details about your family.  We do not require formal adoption application, but we do need to know as much as possible about your family and we do need to visit with you and your family at least once. We are not looking at the size of your house, backyard, not even the size of your bank account.  The most important thing to us is the size of your heart and its ability to connect with a particular dog.

Important Note:  As a rule, we do not adopt out our rescue Shepherds to families with young children under 10.  Even if  the dog's bloodlines are known, his upbringing, early experiences, and socialization are most likely not known and those factors have a tremendous impact on dog's personality and temperament.  We recommend that you contact reputable breeders who know well their bloodlines and raise their pups with love and respect and their dogs have a good record of steady and reliable temperament.  Occasionally we do get a dog that was raised with children, have a perfect record and in our view a family that is giving him up is responsible and raised the dog with love and care.  Only those dogs would be considered for families with young children.

Step Three

Are you ready to meet the dog?

Tito enjoys the visit...

This is the most important part of the adoption process.  Meeting with your family.  We want to meet all members of the family.  We want to meet children, other pets, everyone who will be a part of the dog's new life.  We want to make sure that the dog fits into your family, into your lifestyle.  We want to see that you and every member of your family is comfortable with the dog, the dog is comfortable with you or there is at least a very small sparkle of connection, at least a potential for a future strong bond. We want to make sure that the match is there and once the dog gets adopted this will be without a doubt his forever family.

We are not looking at the size of your house, backyard, not even the size of your bank account.  The most important thing to us is the size of your heart and its ability to connect with a particular dog.

We NEVER adopt the dog on the first visit.  We do not want anybody to feel pressured to make a quick decision.  We don't want you to feel that you should adopt the dog because you, visiting with the dog, took several hours of our time.  We don't want a spur of the moment decisions.  Again, we want to make absolutely sure that this is a good match.  Often the family is a very good one and the dog is great but the chemistry is not there.  Sometimes we all need the second, sometimes the third visit.  Once, when the dog was very timid, we made five visits, before we were all comfortable with making a final decision.  Sometimes we suggest another dog as a better choice, sometimes we feel that another breed altogether might be a better fit for this particular family.