When the Animal Care Network gets a request for a doghouse, we ALWAYS have to check the situation out first, no exceptions.

We cannot in good conscience just give someone a doghouse without seeing the situation. That would just be irresponsible of us.

There are a few reasons for this:

We must see the condition of the dog and their living situations. If the existing doghouses are broken, rotting and not providing adequate shelter for the dog we will replace them once the dog is fixed.

We must make sure that the dog is spayed or neutered and if not, provide that option for the owner, provide financial assistance and transportation, which most of the time they are willing.

We cannot and will not enable backyard breeders or “accidental” breeders to continue to do what they do

We must encourage the owner to bring the dog inside especially in extreme weather

We must have a doghouse agreement form signed by the owner

We must put the doghouse on a wooden pallet so that the house is not tipped over and does not fill up with rain, ice and snow, or freeze to the ground

We would like to remind everyone that we do not encourage people to keep their dogs outside, just the opposite. But unfortunately these dogs are already living outside, some more than others and our goal is to make them more comfortable and get them spayed and neutered.

If the dogs are not in good shape and not being cared for, we always try to get them surrendered.

We are very serious about our work and our main concern is always for the animal.

Side note: Debo’s (one of our favorite dogs) wooden house was leaking, since we already had Debo neutered, we set him up a new doghouse on a pallet and by the time we left he was already in it!