What is your definition of a "rescue" animal?

I don’t really tend to use that label myself.

I agree with you though, that I tend to think people saying “a rescue animal” tend to mean the animal was in a worse situation than just being a stray at the pound, such as having been rescued from an awfully neglectful or abusive home that was worse than being stray.

Many pounds do regularly kill animals, though, and generally aren’t fun to be with, and I do hear the similar expression “to rescue an animal from the pound” and find it appropriate, but to mean something different from “a rescue animal”.

For me, it’s any pet that did not come from a breeder or “bred” from two pets someone owns.

To me a rescue animal is any that comes from any sort of animal rescue shelter and that includes a pound. That cat or dog could have been put to death at many pounds if they had not been rescued and then adopted by a loving family. Full disclosure, I volunteer at my local humane society/county “pound”.

I don’t use the term, but to me it means a dog any age from the pound. I just say a dog from the pound.

A puppy from a farm where the dog is cared for by the owner is just a puppy from a farm to me. Same as a puppy from anyone.

A dog owned by no one is what I call a stray.

I once responded to an ad in the paper for free puppies. There were about 8 puppies. It was on a farm. We named our choice “Dutchess.” Would you call her a rescue @lastexit?

@Dutchess_III I agree with @JLeslie. I would just call that a free puppy from a farm assuming that the dogs were born on that farm. A puppy mill where dogs are raised solely for breeding and kept in cages constantly is abusive to animals and one should never buy from them. A rescue would be any dog that is gotten from a pound or a rescue organization, in my opinion. Even puppies, if they were brought to a pound, were obviously not wanted and need to be homed.

The pound was probably the fate of Dutchess’ unclaimed farm brothers and sisters.

@Dutchess_III No I wouldn’t call that a rescue. I do wish people wouldn’t give animals away for free. In some cases they don’t go to a good home. In any case, your “Dutchess” got lucky.

If the farm is some sort of puppy mill or breeder that’s a whole different story. Then I call that a dog from a breeder. If it’s a puppy mill with bad conditions I hope they are reported to the authorities and pray there are good laws in the state. Farm dog I don’t necessarily think of as a breeder situation, it would depend on whether the dog is purposely being bred.

If you get a dog from a puppy mill, that’s a rescue, right? I’d call it a rescue to the nth degree. You rescue them out of an abuse situation.

Dutchess and her brothers and sisters were just random farm dogs. No idea who the father was. The thing is, if we hadn’t claimed her she, and any other unclaimed puppies, would have been taken to the pound.

A rescue is an animal that is placed in a new home after a neglectful or abusive situation. Rescue dogs usually come from more difficult backgrounds. This is why there is a lengthy process to adopt a rescue.

^^^ That’s my definition of a rescue. I’d be scared to adopt a dog that had been abused.

Here’s one online definition of a rescue dog:

“a dog that has been placed in a new home after being abused, neglected, or abandoned by its previous owner”

By that definition, wouldn’t any dog that came from a shelter, pound or rescue organization be a rescue dog?

Well apparently Cato and her siblings were found in a card board box on the side of the highway.

We had a Siberian Husky who was abused. We rescued her from that.

Abandoned on the highway… The cats were rescued.

Taking a pet out of a bad environment and putting it into a good one is rescued, in my opinion.

I agre with @SergeantQueen in that if you are removing a per from a bad or potentially bad situation and taking them in, it’s a rescue.

That said, I personally don’t use the term because if they’re a “rescue” then what? I’m a “hero”?! I just don’t dig the terminology and what it implies.

Either way, I’ve had two dogs from that kind of situation. One was abandoned — found literally on a dark and stormy night. The other was neglected by their owner who was at her wit’s end with too many kids and pets and a husband who was never home.

I always thought the term rescue said more about the dogs past than the owner. I personally have never associated it with the owner being a hero but I get where you are coming from

I think of a “rescue” animal as one being from a pound, but I understand that logically, the term should and does encompass more than that.

I have two cats that were kittens born to a mother who was living at a muffler place in The Bronx. The mother kept having kittens and I went with a friend and the owner let us take two. They were dirty and one had ringworm but after lots of money on vet bills, they were fine and healthy. I don’t consider those “rescue” animals but they were rescued.

My third cat was a stray on school property – a big wooded area where I saw a coyote once and there are bears, too, so he’s a tough cat who lived there at least five years that I know of. He was neutered previously so he was owned by someone, possibly someone who dumped him in the woods, or he ran away. I don’t consider him a “rescue” but I rescued him.

I personally don’t use the term “rescue” animal. I describe where I got my cats or I will say a friend’s dog was from the shelter. People can infer what they want. I’m not opposed to the term, I just don’t use it.

@janbb “By that definition, wouldn’t any dog that came from a shelter, pound or rescue organization be a rescue dog?” My question too. In fact, it seems to me that any dog or cat could be considered a rescue, no matter where it comes from. As I mentioned, if we hadn’t adopted Dutchess, she would have gone to the pound. Yet, because we took her directly from the farm she wasn’t a rescue.

We found our Vanta cat on our back deck where her feral mom had dropped her. She was about 5 weeks old. We kept her. Was she a rescue?

https://www.homeoanimal.com/blogs/blog-pet-health/81114180-animal-rescue-and-animal-shelter-what-is-the-difference

@misfit That just defines the different facilities; not what the animal is. They’re still both dealing with unwanted and/or mistreated animals.

@Dutchess_III I would say that an animal bought from a reputable breeder or pet store is not a rescue dog. I wouldn’t consider free farm pups really a rescue either.

But I literally have no dog in this fight. Call them what you want.

Googling it, there are many different variations on what’s considered a “rescue” animal. I guess it really goes by what definition one chooses to use.

I call my cats “the beasts.” I rescued them from different situations but I don’t use the term “rescue animal.” I find celebrities seem to like to use it to show they’re compassionate, plus it’s trendy.

I don’t think it matters to most people. One could argue all day about the nitty gritty details. The important thing is that unwanted animals who are abused or neglected find better homes with people that love them.

I have only had one dog that I’d call a rescue and that was our beautiful white German Sepherd, Dakota. The guy who gave her to us was just disgusted with her. He bought her to train her to be a guard / attack dog. She just wasn’t mean enough, in his opinion, and he couldn’t seem to train the mean into her. Rick said the guy was just going to take her out and shoot her.

My two dogs (brother and sister) were found by a farmer behind his tobacco barn. They were eating earthworms and beetles. It took the humane society almost two weeks to catch them using crate traps. They finally caught them, they were estimated to be eight weeks old and no sign of their mother.

Think that makes them rescue dogs.

That’s a really difficult question. In general, I only think of strays or shelter dogs as rescues. Then again, not all shelter dogs are true rescues: there’s a whole business of breeding dogs in Southern Europe, then sticking them into shelters to be “rescued” by Northern Europeans. Are those dogs in trouble? Certainly. But if rescuing dogs weren’t so appealing, those puppies wouldn’t have been born and their mothers wouldn’t be exploited.

@janbb The location the pet came from is used to describe the animal.

I once became the pet parent of a farm puppy. He was free. I told an acquaintance of mine I adopted a puppy. She quickly corrected me when she found out how I got the dog. There’s a process when adopting dogs and I didn’t go through that. I just brought home a free farm puppy.

If someone says they have a rescue that means they went through the process of helping and/or eventually adopting that pet. It’s a very lengthy process, sometimes taking months.

Adopting, buying, getting for free or rescuing are the words we used to describe where we got a pet. One is not better than the other. They are all wonderful ways to give a pet a home.

@misfit I agree.

I agree too.
Cato is such a part of our lives now. I can’t even imagine life without him.