What is it like to adopt a dog from abroad – especially from Greece?? Recently we got offspring. About the placement and pickup of our Greek bitch.
Our preliminary considerations – really a second dog?
Muffin has been with us for over two years now. For a long time we were sure: second dog? Never! Muffin was too exhausting for us as a first dog and his talent to avoid conflicts was sometimes quite limited. He is a master at crossing boundaries because he does first and thinks later. While others are only concerned about whether they would be doing their dog a favor by having a second dog move in, we have a second: Are you doing that second dog a favor by having to live with Muffin?
In short: the danger that it would not harmonize was too great. Nevertheless, we have met dogs in the three years, where the chemistry was so right. One of them was a mongrel bitch from Hungary, which we looked after from time to time. Between her and Muffin an intimate friendship developed, from which both profited. Due to moving she has not been coming for quite a while, but instead the thought crept in that such a type of dog girl would be more than welcome with Muffin.
A bitch it should be, young, max. one year old. Bigger and, above all, robust – both physically and mentally. A good foundation should be laid for social behavior. And we had a calm type of dog in mind, which would not start up so quickly. But we did not actively search for a second dog.
Adopting a dog from Greece – this is how it went with us
Since the 17. February Muffin is no longer a single dog, but has got female reinforcement. Zora comes from Greece.
Zora lived, until she was 2.5 months old, with her mother and her siblings near a busy road. It was a big litter with seven males and two females. But the mom (German Shepherd mix) was a good one and got all the puppies through.
Then was captured by animal rights activists. Since the dog family was very shy, it took time until they could be cared for veterinarily. That’s why they were introduced on the Facebook page of a small German animal welfare organization when they were only half a year old.
There I discovered her, by chance. We were not actively looking for a second dog, but had talked about it occasionally. After I asked the association only times completely noncommittally, how a switching would proceed, everything took its course.
First we had to fill out an advance information, in which the living conditions were queried. They wanted to know how many people belonged to the family, if there were already animals, if they were tenants or owners, if there was a garden and fencing, how long the dog would have to stay alone every day and how they would arrange the vacation. All things you would also like to know yourself if you would give a dog away.
After that a preliminary check was made. We received a very nice visit from a young woman from our area who also already has a dog from this organization. We showed her our home and talked a bit. At that time I was already in the club’s own Facebook group, where there is a very familiar atmosphere and where you can get rid of all your questions.
Shortly after that we got the confirmation from the association that Zora could move in with us. We were sent a contract to sign and send back. At the same time we had to pay half of the fee (350,- in total).
On a Sunday we drove by car to the Hamburg airport and met the other adopters at the terminal. In total, three large dogs and one cat traveled u.a. Zora and one of her brothers. They all came rolled out on luggage carts and we retreated to a quiet corner for the time being. There we exchanged a little bit more, we were told how everything went and the pet passports were handed over to us.
Afterwards we rolled with the animals into the parking garages to our cars. The dogs only had collars on, but the organization had safety harnesses with them. Nevertheless, I was already slightly panicking at the thought of putting a harness on this big, strange and still very fearful dog in the middle of the airport without him escaping.
Fortunately, the large transport box fit into our car, so that we could load Zora together with the box. The box we will simply bring back at the next summer party of the association. The crate was already full of eggs and urine, but safety first. And so we drove home with Zora.
Arrived at home not everything went as expected. Zora behaved completely different than we expected and Muffin surpassed himself – he can actually "sovereign first dog". Yesterday we celebrated our 1-month anniversary and after this time we can say that it was the right decision. More about the acclimatization and Zora’s development can be found in one of the next posts.
To read more:
You surely know Katharina von der Leyen from her blog lumpi4.en. She has several dogs from the animal welfare and is also happy to be a foster home. Inga Bohm-Reithmeier is a longtime and Germany-wide known dog trainer. Together they wrote this book, which is a great preparation for adopting a foreign dog.