The Boston Terrier Rescue of East Tennessee is an affiliate of the Boston Terrier Rescue Network and a Chartered Rescue in the State of Tennessee. We operate within the full breath and width of the state. We also operate in Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and West Virginia collaboratively with other Boston Terrier Rescues and in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama as backup to those rescues. Most of our energy focused in the areas of greatest need, East Tennessee/Eastern KY/Western North Carolina and the metropolitan area of Atlanta, GA.
We work with all Boston Terrier Rescues recognized by the Boston Terrier Club of America’s Rescue Board and maintain a personal relationship with individuals in these affiliate organizations, generally involving personal communication via telephone and email but also sharing information and needs through several Yahoo groups formed for that purpose. We also operate and share resources through partnership arrangements with many other fine breed and mixed breed rescue organizations, particularly within the Southeast and Midsouth. We are particularly active within the Atlanta Metro/Chattanooga area.
We support and maintain mutually supportive relationships with Best Friends and AnimalWorld and Petfinder as well as other fine organizations dedicated to animal welfare. Our relationship with most of the hundreds of municipal shelters in the southeast is personal, one to one and we know many of these volunteers and shelter operators on a personal basis. We support and help each other and actively courtesy post dogs needing adoption as requested, especially if they are distant from us for these shelters. We have been fortunate enough to aid in successfully place a great number of them and now many local Humane Societies and shelters initiate the contact with us when they are in need with a Boston or Boston mix.
We are a small, focused rescue with regional coordinators, representatives, agents and foster homes in Tennessee, western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia and northern Georgia. We place an average of 120-140 dogs annually as well as operate as a sanctuary for those dogs either too old or too ill to place. At this time, we have approximately a dozen foster homes within our organization and nearly four dozen agents and representatives who are willing to transport, pull or otherwise help a dog in need as well as a sizable “HELP list” of volunteers from all over the eastern 2/3’s of the country who are willing to move to help a dog on a moment’s notice. Many of these kind people are also members of other Boston Terrier rescues where we have formed partnerships.
Our mission and our focus is to rescue Boston Terriers, mixes and any other kind of dog that we can manage from a bad situation and place it into a good, forever home after any needed veterinary care or convalescence. For the old dogs, sick dogs and otherwise unadoptable dogs, we provide a sanctuary.
All those managing this program are already professionals, many retired, with successes in business enterprises. We realize that in order to survive in RESCUE, one must apply the same attention to cost management while still providing superior care to our kids. Therefore, we seek those opportunities to reduce costs whilst maintaining a superior program. Examples of this are some of the routine veterinary processes that we can provide for ourselves, e.g., routine “worming” and certain vaccinations that require only training to properly administer.
Our program seeks to pull Boston Terriers, Boston Terrier mixes and others from kill shelters and other undesirable situations such as abusive environments. Our focus is on Boston Terriers since we know that in being breed specific we can better address specific needs and quirks of Boston Terriers and their mixes. We also seek to work collaboratively with other similar breed rescues, .e.g., bulldog, boxer, French Bulldog, pug, etc. inasmuch as their peculiarities and needs are often similar to Bostons.
As active members of several mixed breed groups and organizations, we further seek to find homes for other breed and mixed breed dogs and spend a good deal of effort matching dogs in need with rescues.
In those unfortunate and all too commonplace situations when a shelter is in trouble, or a rescue needs help, we work together with other like minded rescues to organize funding/transport and support. Recently, our work in Leland, MS resulted in community focus brought together from phone calls and internet postings which helped provide public and private funding to help that poor shelter out of an economic crisis.
We have some dogs that are simply too old, too sick or having behavioral characteristics that make them poor adoption candidates. An example is Rodney Buster, a “bait dog” from Georgia who’s lost most of his ears and an eye. He was used to train fighting dogs and is a very bad risk. He and the old dogs, 11-15 years old don’t stand much of a chance of being adopted. They stay with us and help to make the other dogs comfortable and when we occasionally have puppies, they get to babysit.
If it’s a Boston Terrier or a Boston mix, we take it. We take the sick, the old and the otherwise unadoptable. That’s our commitment to this wonderful breed of very smart little dogs.
A fully completed comprehensive adoption application with references is required and if successful, a home visit. A comprehensive adoption contract is required when sets out specific requirments of the new adoptive parent; if for any reason things don't work out, the dog must be returned.
Adoption fees are dependent on age, special circumstances, etc.
More specifically:
The same requirements are in place for both Adoptions and Fostering.
We begin with a comprehensive application that includes a preface explaining the process, a number of important details and obligations on the part of the applicant. Embedded in the application are questions which help to tell us if the applicant is a good potential adopter or foster. The process is the same. We have also recently included a $20 application fee which is in part applicatable to the adoption fee if the application is successful. We, like many rescues, have found it necessary to include an applicant fee to weed out “shoppers” and time wasters.
The foster parents are the first contact that a prospective adopter makes, e.g., to ask specific questions about the dog and to give the foster an opportunity to make an initial evaluation. The dialog between the foster and the potential adopter may go on for some time, at the foster’s discretion. Assuming that the adoption application is approved by the Adoption Coordinator (we have two individuals who handle this exclusively) and all references are positive, it is always the foster parent who makes the final decision.
The application is reviewed by one of two Application Coordinators for completeness, accuracy, and truthfulness. Personal references and veterinary references are contacted directly for their input which is required.
If the application is tentatively approved at this point, a home visit is scheduled by someone qualified to perform a home visit using our Home Visit document for reference. Normally, this will be an individual in another or a Boston rescue, or a local humane society representative.
At this point if there is approval, the application is approved pending final approval by the foster parent. Usually, we will ask the entire family and other pets to be available at the foster’s home for this aspect.
The adoption/foster application is available online at bostonterriertn.org as an online HTML “form” document. The application is designed to provide accurate as well as truthful answers and requires the same detailed information about the applicant’s current and previous pets, veterinary records, adherence to good veterinary practice, required medications (heartworm monthly preventatives) and good references. A call to the vet’s office can quickly support or disqualify an applicant and the Boston Terrier Rescue of East TN has two application coordinators who professionals in their own right, have become very astute application processors. Our foster evaluation process is the same as our adoption screening process with added support later for the foster parent from the rescue
