My name is Smokie-Referral!

Adoption application
How Our Adoption Process Works

Our entire adoption process typically takes no more than 2-4 weeks from your submitting the application until you have a dog in your home. We rely solely on volunteers to place our dogs. Our volunteers have busy lives with their own families, jobs, school, pets, etc., so your patience as we work through this process is greatly appreciated. We DO NOT discuss individual dogs with applicants until the adoption process has been completed because there is often more than one applicant interested in a particular dog, and we do not want to promise the same dog to more than one applicant. If you have to have a dog “now”, please consider a dog from a shelter. You can take home a shelter dog the same day.

1. The first step is to submit a completed application. Your application does not obligate you to adopt, nor does accepting an application represent approval of that application. You do not apply to adopt a particular dog. You are applying to adopt “a dog” from us. The more open you are to gender, color and age, the more likely you are to find a dog with us.

2. Next, we call your vet and your references. We are looking for people with a history of good pet care. Ideal applicants have lots of experience working with GSDs or large breed dogs. Even if you haven’t had a large dog before, we are happy to work with you to find a good match, it just may take some time. We want homes that accept that they are rescuing a dog and are willing to work with the dog to make him a good citizen. Yes, you will have to do some work.

3. We will schedule a home visit. We aren’t looking for wonderful housekeeping, or fancy living spaces, we are looking at fence height, stability, places where the dog can get hurt, including anything stacked near the fence the dog could climb on to get out, etc

4. We will put you in contact with the dog’s foster parents. Once you have been approved to adopt from us we will contact you about suitable dogs and put you in contact with the foster parents. Since the foster parents know the dog the best, they are a key part of the process in determining which home and family is best suited for their foster dog.

We get dogs into rescue on a regular basis and they are placed with previously approved adopters who have been waiting for their forever dog. It is best not to focus on any specific dog until you have been approved. We welcome your interest in a dog that may steal your heart but please remember that the dogs posted on our site today will most likely go to homes of applicants that applied weeks ago. This isn’t always the case, but it happens often. We are not “first-come, first-served” but rather we match the needs of the dog with the handling ability and lifestyle of the family. Once dogs are available, we work with our current, approved applications until we find the right family for the dog. Once you are ready to adopt, we will give you all the information we have on the dogs for which you may be a good match.

https://www.frgsr.org/adoption-application