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Blue Cross Assessment Rebuttal
Our rebuttal in response to the ridiculous claims in the Blue Cross Behavioral report.
You can read more here.
Blue Cross Assessment
We have been down to Bromsgrove so that we could see Tinker and be assessed for our suitability. Their answer was NO because Tinker has developed so many problems since they tore her away from a loving home and into a charity. You can read more here.
The Questions We Want Answered
These questions have been sent to the Blue Cross. You can see the responses here. You can also ask the Blue Cross these questions along with your own here.
- Why have we been pushed into making a rash decision at every stage?
- How is it in the best interests of the dog to have her taken out of a loving home when all we needed was an extra day to make our decision?
- Why was the decision made (after we begged) to give us overnight to think about adopting Nala (Tinker) when it is not Blue Cross policy and goes against the advice of the behaviourist?
- Why, when we tried to adopt her hours after she had been picked up, were we refused when we could offer her everything she needed?
We feel that these questions need to be answered. We are not trying to condemn the whole Blue Cross but the four questions above are a huge indicator that the fostering scheme is in need of work. A foster scheme is excellent but it can only be successful if its run and managed effectively. This may also be a one off, but that does not mean that it is any less important to fix the problems that this incident highlights.
You can help us by asking the press office these questions as so far we have not had answers for them.
The Story in short
We became dog fosterers to stop dogs from spending time in kennels. Our first dog was Nala who was a puppy. We were told we could rename her, so we decided to call her “Tinker”. As she grew we kept asking for the dog training and lessons we had been told the blue cross would provide. But no matter how much we asked, none were ever booked. The local behavioralist was no use and would not provide over the phone advise, although the blue cross said that she should.
In the end, the project development officer decided enough was enough and she tried to transfer the dog to a kennel behind our backs.
Tinker did not have any serious problems. The problems she had were minor problems such as not knowing when playtime was over and refusing to give socks back. Pretty normal problems for any dog, but everything we tried didn’t work. We joined forums and asked for advice, but again nothing worked. We knew these were minor problems and we had expected lessons and classes to cope with these minor problems.
Finally, we contacted Steve Goody at the Blue Cross who arranged for us to talk with a bahavioralist over the phone. We did and she advised that we meet up so she could see the problems and offer advice. We were told we would have to travel to Thirsk, a 3 hour round trip. We jumped at the chance and dropped our plans for the weekend.
As I said, Tinker did not have any serious problems. Our job as fosterers was to prepare the dog for a new home, training her to the highest possible standard, reducing the possibility of her being returned to the Blue Cross due to any minor problems developing into a big enough problem for her new family to cope with. We were excited at the prospect of her first lesson.
Little did we know, this was not as straight forward as we had thought.
Steeve Goody had met with Denise (the project development officer) and she had then arranged to be at the lesson. As soon as we heard this we found it very odd as it was miles out of her way and there was no real reason for her to be there as far as we could see.
We turned up for the training class. After just 30 minutes in the paddock, we were taken into the office and were told that because Tinker had received no previous training she was behind the level she should be at at this age and point in time. Great, so we will finally be getting some lessons arranged to fix her minor problems and then we could get her re-homed quicker. But no, instead they told us that they would take Tinker from us and place her in a kennel. We were shocked. We became fosterers to stop dogs from going into kennels, but the fostering service doesn’t seem to have any structure to support the fosterers.
Tinker had been quickly house trained and now that would all go to pot. There would be no one for her to tell that she needed the toilet. Tinker also suffered from seperation anxiety and we had been trying to train it out, but she had outgrown her bed and Denise had been promissing to send a new one for over a month.
We had been asked to take Tinker to Thirst not for training, but because they had already booked her transfer out of Thirsk 3 before the training class and a transfer from our house “would be a logistical nightmare” - Denise Young (Fostering Project Development Officer)
Not only have we been tricked, but we have been lied to and lied about as well as being dealt with in a very underhand manner throughout the entire process.
Still at Thirsk, we were told that the only other option to a kennel would be to adopt her. We asked if we could think about adopting her and they said that we could “Talk about it in the carpark”!!! Only after I argued that making a commitment to take care of an animal for 10-16 years is not something that we could “Talk about in the carpark”. We were given until tomorrow morning. Not as much time as we would have liked or even needed, but it was better than nothing.
By the time we arrived back at home we immediately started investigating adopting Tinker. It was not only commitment that we needed, we also needed to cost everything up. Vets, monthly food bill, treats, training lessons and initial outlay for beds etc. Everywhere had already closed, so we gathered all the data we could online.
The following day was Sunday and again everywhere was closed. We did not think that we were being given enough time. We had tried to contact Steve Goody on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but he was obviously not in the office. We refused to transfer Tinker until we had talked to Steve Goody. Steve called us on Monday and explained that the setup at Thirsk was his doing. We were shocked that he had knowingly let this happen, let alone ordered it. We explained that we wanted to make sure we could offer everytihng that Tinker would need, most of the places we needed to contact were closed over the weekend. We begged for more time and we were again denied any extra time at all. This was the second time that the Blue Cross had tried to push us into a rash decission to adopt tinker, knowing fullwell that we were seriously looking into it and needed more time to get all the answers, stats and costs we needed. Again we were met with a point blank denial.
Tinker was picked up the following morning and we continued investigating the possibility of adopting Tinker. By 7pm that night we had everything we needed to make our decission. We were 100% sure that not only could we get everything we needed for her, but that there were training lessons and behavioral classes available immediately. We e-mailed Steve Goody all of the information and our decission.
The next morning Steve Goody had replied with a short explination that they would be assesing Tinker and we could no longer adopt her. Again we were shocked, although not too supprised. We simply couldn’t believe that less than 12 hours after the option of adoption was open to us, the door had suddenly slammed shut. We had been pushed into making a rash decission before we had all the information we needed 3 times. We felt that because we had taken the time to ensure we could offer her everthing she needed and had gave it a lot of thought before deciding to adopt her, we were being penalised.
Read full story here and post a comment to show your support
What we want
We do not think that transferring Tinker to a kennel is the right decision as she always suffered separation anxiety and a home is always a better option than a kennel.
We want to adopt Tinker. We do not want to be penalized because we took time to be sure about our decision to adopt. We need your help. Please read the full story above, leave a comment with your views and then look at the section below to see how else you could help. We really do appreciate the help everyone is giving and we will keep this page up to date with the latest news.
Why is the Blue Cross doing this? Should I keep Donating?
We can only assume that this is not the way that the Blue Cross would operate, however it is getting harder to believe as we continue to hear the same story from people as high as the CEO.
The Blue Cross does a lot of work with animals all over the UK and need your money. If you have never donated to the Blue Cross, our story should make you aware that the Blue Cross is only trying to make a better place for animals. After all we are all only human, mistakes are made and communication can break down. The Blue Cross need your donations more now than ever to keep their invaluable service running.
This is not just about us and Tinker, we want to raise awareness of this problem so that the Blue cross can fix it.
How can I help? What can I do?
- You can post a comment at the bottom of the full story showing your support and voicing your opinion. Click here to view the full story.
- You can contact local papers, radio shows and other media about this story as we have already done.
- You can contact the blue cross press office and ask them for their side of the story. Click here to visit the Blue Cross Press Office Page.
- You can call Laura from the Blue Cross Press office on 0300 790 9903
- You can join our Facebook Group
Contact us
If you would like to contact us for any reason, please click here.
