Tuesday 22 March 2016

BEAGLE OF THE MONTH

BEAGLE OF THE MONTH

It all started with a beagle named Jack and a sad plea on the rehoming list...
On April 14th 2013 Jack’s write up had changed from the usual standard to a more personal one that stated ‘I’ve been waiting two years... watching my friends come and go...’.  Jack needed to be an only beagle with no children and proved to be very hard to rehome. His details were plastered all over Facebook, we wanted every beagle owner on Facebook to know his name and it seemed to work. A week later a small team of Facebook friends started emailing a poster of Jack to every vet in the country asking for help. A day or so later a lovely lady saw Jacks poster in her vets and called the rehoming centre. 13 days after his campaign started, Jack went home. 

After the success of Jacks campaign, we decided to try a Beagle of the Month campaign, an initiative for the harder to re-home beagles and the ones overlooked for a long time. Each campaign starts on the Beagle Welfare Facebook page and then is shared across timelines, beagle pages and rehoming pages.

Daisy was not happy at the rehoming centre so in July 2013 she became our first ever BOTM. Daisy was re-homed within her month and now lives with two other BW hounds and competes in cani-cross races.

More success followed in the subsequent months with Monty, Chester1, Alfie1, Chester2, Willow, Buddy and Charlie, with Clare Clark saying farewell to some big characters whom she had known for some time. The most notable of these were Alfie and Cooper who had been at the rehoming centre for 18 months waiting for the right people to call their own.


                                                                      ALFIE 

COOPER

Coopers story


In October of last year, Cooper had been waiting almost a year for his forever home so, as an ‘overlooked hound’, he became Beagle of the Month. He had a couple of small issues but we felt that these could be vastly improved in a caring and loving home. Sadly, he did not find a family during his campaign so was featured in the last edition of In Full Cry, again with no success.
            He was moved from the kennels into Clare Clark’s house to be rehabilitated into a home environment and then in May of this year a huge Facebook campaign ensued for Cooper; he had now been waiting 18 months and we wondered if he would ever be rehomed. Then came along Ann and Louie. . .



Ann says
‘The Beagle of the Month posts show on my Facebook newsfeed and I often share them with my friends and family. We spend many weekends away in our caravan and my husband would often comment that I hogged Louie when he was on his lead, and how nice it would be if we had one each. Well, talk about great timing, who should appear on my newsfeed as an update? The one and only Super Cooper! He had spent the past three months in Clare's home with her dogs and seemed to be more settled, and was minus his food issues and only dog status. There was a huge emphasis on being ball crazy, which would make a nice change because Louie's not interested in playing ball at all.
            We had a family chat about how we felt about welcoming another dog into our home and there was a big thumbs up with no hesitation. Obviously our main concern was whether Louie would be happy with this, so I rang Clare at Beagle Welfare in Burton-Upon-Trent and arranged to meet Cooper. We took him home the same day.

It's hard to put into words how amazingly Cooper has settled into our family and impossible to believe that he was overlooked for 18 months. He is so loving and cuddly, he just plonked himself in our laps and instantly won our hearts. He is such a wonderful character and brings us so much happiness, it's like he's always been here. ‘

Our Beagles of the Month for March are Barney and Hollie, they both have sad histories and are looking for permanent, loving homes. You can see more information about both these wonderful hounds on our rehoming list http://www.beaglewelfare.org.uk/rehoming_list.php.




April 1st 2016 will bring us a very special Beagle of the Month, Daisy Doo, an 11-month old pup looking for a person with a very big heart and a home to call her own. Please see our Facebook page on April 1st for more information. https://www.facebook.com/beaglewelfare/
                  


Adopting a Beagle – The Process
1. Download, complete and submit the APPLICATION TO ADOPT A BEAGLE
2. A Beagle Welfare Rep. will contact you to arrange a Home Visit.
3. When your application is approved, start looking for the Beagle for you!

Also take a look at this video about taking a rescue Beagle home....
Taking your Beagle Home
Do you remember when you got your first beagle? You thought you’d done your homework? Knew what you were letting yourself in for? And then you got home. And THAT is when reality kicked in, when you were on your own with this adorable new member of the family that escaped, stole food, howled, chewed, rolled in and ate poo (not only his own) and resolutely refused to hear a word you said to him.
How much of a shock was all that? How much would you have liked to have seen all this in action before you took your beagle home? No, you wouldn’t have changed your mind. But you might have been better prepared!
But now, this is exactly what is in store for new adopting owners of Welfare beagles. Thanks to Cooper Beagle, Clare Clark, Emily Turnbull, Suzanne Carr and her wonderful production team, Beagle Welfare now has its own DVD, Taking Your Beagle Home, to be shown to every new owner as part of the adoption process. Not only does it show exactly what life is like with a beagle, it is also full of helpful tips and practical advice. But be prepared to be amused as well as educated: the scenes where Cooper steals a ham sandwich from the worktop and Harvey climbs over the gate are laugh-out-loud moments that all beagle owners will recognise!
Education is an important part of Welfare’s work – the more we can inform people about what it means to own and understand a beagle, the fewer beagles will be given up for adoption in the future.
• To view Taking Your Beagle Home click on the link below. And please do let us know what you think of it!
PASSWORD IS............beaglewelfare