Complaint Review: Rising Phoenix Mastiff Rescue - Yakima Washington

Rising Phoenix Mastiff Rescue would like to take a moment to reply to any allegations about our rescue. We strive to uphold a high standard of rescue. But as with any time that you deal with animals and people who are passionate about them there will be difference of opinions. We prefer to spend our time saving animals, and not playing in the politics of rescue. We feel that we are all in this for the same reason, its wasted energy to spend precious time making up lies and allegations about other rescues. So we do not participate in mud slinging. We are happy to address any questions that are asked of us.

RPMR is a Washington state non profit rescue and has been for a number of years. We are in the process of getting our 501C3 filed. But as anyone in rescue knows it costs a considerable amount of money. This means that we would take funds away from dogs who have medical needs. We, as all rescues, are spread thin. But we will always do what we can and invest countless hours, our own funds, and items to save these animals. That is why our adoption fees range from 150-450 depending on the dog. This is not unreasonable or high. We know of many other large breed rescues who fees run from 500-1000 per dog. When you look into the actual cost of rescue many of these dogs will be more then 3 times this. Considering we take in dogs with medical issues, transport dogs, keep everyone in foster homes, work with trainers, and vet everyone this takes a huge amount of money and funds. Remember that we work with volunteers, no one is getting paid to spend time away from their families, meet with you all days of the week, travel 2-3 days away from their homes to save dogs. They donate their time to go get dogs from shelters, rescues, ect. And donate their time to deliver dogs to their forever homes weather it be a few hours or even days away. This is a labor of love, everyone here does the best they can with the time they have.

RPMR strives for the underdog. That means that we take in a lot of dogs that other rescues would pass by. We do not just take in dogs who are quick adopters, we take the big black dogs that are least likely to be adopted. Or the dog who has mange, cherry eye, bottle babies, ect. For medical or training issues we deal with a lot of dogs that just need help. We have seen rescues who will only take pure bred dogs, or require the owners to alter, vaccinate, and donate hundreds of dollars for them to help. We only ask for a bag or two of dog food. Is that really that unreasonable?

We have seen rescues and are contacted daily about dogs who need medical help and they have been turned down by other rescues because the dogs are injured. We do not turn these dogs down. We either help them ourselves or find a vet to work with the families. We do not require dogs to be pure bred, we take in mixes of almost any large breed. Many dogs find their way into rescue because they didn’t have a great start. They need training, love and help to shine. When adopting a dog from us we inform you that these dogs come from shelters, or bad pasts. Do not expect to get a dog who doesn’t have some baggage. We do our best to work with them and rehab them, but some dogs will carry things with them for life. Every dog is different depending on the home it goes to. Your home may not be like their foster home. We always suggest that the dog start training classes, and most dogs are required to do so, to help bond with the owner. These are mostly dogs who need a strong leader. Be honest with your self. Do not lie to us about who lives in your home, how many pets, ect because you think we are being over particular and then get mad when the dog doesn’t get along with the other pets or people. There is a reason why we say no to certain homes. If it says no kids under 10 years old do not assume that the 5 year old kid next door is any different then saying no kids under 10 in your house. Our goal is to make sure our dogs are put in the right situations, the adopters need to be honest for us to be able to give you all the info you may need. We are here to help, but there is a reason why we make the suggestions we do.

This is a rescue, not a breeder. These dogs may not physically be pristine, we get dogs in with horrible injuries, scars, need tender care, love and understanding. Since many dogs we see come in starved we do have dogs that go home who are still gaining weight. This is explained in their bios, and we offer support through any issue the dogs are dealing with. It is much faster for a dog to recover in a home and lets the family be a part of the recovery of the dog. This also allows us to save more dogs as there are always more in urgent need.

We deal with power breeds such as filas, presas, corsos, ect. Do not expect to get a fila who doesn’t act like a fila! That is why we spend time discussing the breeds with you. You need to make sure to do your research on the breeds as well. Do not just lie and say you understand, ask questions. That’s the only way to learn. There is a reason why every dog has a 4-5 paragraph of information on them. Any dog with a behavior issue is sent home with an adoption release. Which explains the dogs issues in black and white and how we suggest to handle it. Those who say that they were not informed did not read the paper work we had them sign. We go over it with each adopter. Make sure they have time for questions. We can only do so much, its up to the adopter to be proactive.

Remember each dog is different. We can not assure you that the dog may not have a health issue. These dogs come from shelters, Police Raids, seizures, and surrendering homes. The number of happy well rounded dogs are small. Most dogs have an unknown past. We do not know the parents, we do not know the breeders, we do not know if the dog was hit, kicked, has fallen out of a truck, been injured, ect. We do not know how pure bred the dogs are. We only know what we can assume by looking at the dog, and having experience with the breed or what the owners tell us. Some breeds are easy to define, some are not. We can only use our best guess. Many times when young dogs come in we simply go off the info that we are given. Not all dogs come in with pedigrees and paper work, most dogs are word of mouth. We see hundreds a month, we work with breed experts and do our best to guess and give you the info we have found out. We know nothing until the time we get the dog. We can not tell you if a dog has a history beyond what we have seen. This means that we do our best to learn what we can. But we can only tell you what we observe. Even surrendered dogs, many families do not tell you all the info, as they have been turned down by other rescues and are afraid that you will do the same. So they only give partial information, or false info all together. This is all we have to go off of. That is why we hold dogs for at least a few weeks to get to know them. In that time we will not know everything about them, we can only tell you what we know. With any new dogs it is best to start slow as if they know nothing!

At RPMR we have NEVER been convicted of any animal related charge. Every allegation has proven false. Our local animal control does not value animals lives like we do. They do not even pick up stray or dogs running at large, they instead shoot and kill them. They do not take them to a local shelter for people to find their pets. They even advise people who have stray dogs that come onto their property to kill them so they do not have to come out! This is not something that we feel is justified! Because of this we do not see eye to eye with our local animal control. We understand they have a huge job to do, a lot of area to cover and limited man power and we respect them for that, but feel that killing innocent dogs and not giving their grieving owners a chance to recover their pets is the way.