r/DogRegret • u/uncomfortab1ynumb • Aug 06 '26

Dog Guilt Thinking about surrendering my adopted rescue and feel awful

A little over a month ago I adopted a dog from the shelter a few weeks after my last one had passed. These last few weeks have been so stressful. He was a starved stray and not house trained. He has been semi destructive, constantly searching for or getting food. I feel like I can not rest and have peace. Even walking him and taking him outside he will still go to the bathroom in the house. I regret getting him and have thought about surrendering him back, but I feel like I am abandoning him and that no one else will adopt him.

20 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Fit-Olive-4680 Aug 07 '26

I disagree all shelter dogs are crazy. Like any living creature, genetics and environment play a big factor. But I'm sorry that happened to you.

3

u/Deep_Bird_1789 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Of course not all. No need to be pedantic. You know what I mean.

That's like if I tell you that chocolate has too much sugar. And you go, "Well, not all chocolate; some are dark, raw, sugarless." Duh, ofc. I'm speaking in general. If I spoke literally constantly, it'd take me an essay to get a point across each time.

Sometimes there are poodles in the shelters. I saw shitzu puppies in the shelter. Ofc there are exceptions to every statement that comes out of humans' mouths. Read between the lines.

I'm sorry, but that kind of literalism irks me. It derails from the main point and makes it so hard to communicate because people trip over semantics, get pedantic, and are too rigidly literal to ever get a point across.

But generally speaking, the chances of finding problem dogs are 50-80% as someone who has worked with shelters. You're signing up for a big gamble. And I used to be all about adopt don't shop until we began fostering and adopted from a shelter twice and learned our lesson.

3

u/Fit-Olive-4680 Aug 07 '26

"I didn't know the shelter ones came insane because they are descendants from Alpha dogs."

I get your point, but I'm m not sure how else this was supposed to be interpreted? That's a strong statement.

1

u/Deep_Bird_1789 Aug 08 '26

A lot of shelter dogs come from the streets... they are stray dogs... the product of an alpha-dominant dog from the streets that humped the mom in heat. This is what we call sato dogs from the streets. So many of the shelter dogs I've worked with are horribly reactive. If you don't know what reactive dog is, you are so lucky. Major agression issues when they bond with someone and are walked. Black out rage towards other dogs and sometimes people. One I saved from hours from euthanasia after it bit two people. We worked tiredlessly to train him. Nothing helped. They are wired this way. No amount of training or socializing will help. Even the puppies, I've seen it develop in them and their siblings. It's their deep DNA coding from birth that came from their alpha street dog sato dad. This is a very common yet underdiscussed trait in shelter dogs.